Hey there, Mel here. Today in this video,
I want to show you three FREE ways that you can create your very
own transparent PNG files to upload into StreamYard,
to use as your own custom overlays. Now, what exactly is an overlay?
An overlay is essentially a graphic file that you display
over the video feed that you are streaming to your social media platform.
Now StreamYard makes this extremely easy.
All you have to do is create your graphic file.
Simply upload it to the overlay section in StreamYard,
click on the file to display it and then click again to turn it off. Now,
the only caveat to this is of course,
to upload your own custom overlays inside of StreamYard,
it does require one of the paid plans,
but it's absolutely a feature worth looking at. Now,
you can use full screen images maybe for like a "be right back" screen or
"starting soon screen" if you want to.
But the type of overlays I want to talk to you about today are the transparent
overlays that can act as frames like this, right?
So these are super fun.
They add a branded experience that can actually increase engagement and they can
help what we call "stop the scroll",
because they're adding a level of interest to your stream. Now,
I want to show you three ways that you can create these graphics with the
transparent background,
which is absolutely the key so that you still show up on screen with the
overlay. Now,
there is another kind of overlay that's extra fancy and extra
fun, and that's the animated Gif overlay.
Now we have a whole different video on that, but it looks like these.
So make sure you check out that video,
how to create your own custom Gif of yourself. Now, before we dive in,
it's very important to note that there are a lot of apps out there that you can
create graphics with.
There are a lot of free apps and there are a lot of paid apps. Now,
today I'm going to teach you three ways to do this for free,
but it is worth noting that if you already have a design application that will
allow you to export a transparent PNG file,
that's probably the app that you want to stick with. Now, first up,
let's talk about Canva.
Canva is an absolutely incredible tool for creating graphics and videos for your
social media, as well as your live streams.
But if you're just limited on the free plan,
you're not able to download a transparent PNG file.
You can download a PNG file, but not a transparent PNG file.
So I'm going to show you how to create an overlay design,
but then how to use another app to actually remove that background.
So you have that transparent PNG file. Now,
what I absolutely love about Canva is that it does come with a ton of
templates, which helps you get started. Personally.
I do not like starting anything from scratch, which is why I love Canva.
Now to get started, we are actually going to select the video template.
You don't have to select this particular one,
but this is actually sized at the exact size we want to design our overlay,
which is a 16:9 ratio. And as you can see,
there are a lot of little templates that you could potentially select to get
started. However,
I'm just going to create a pretty simple overlay to get us going on this
tutorial. So we're going to go to Elements.
I'm actually going to go down here to gradients, and
I'm just going to grab this super fun gradient that we have here.
I'm actually going to drag it all the way across to full-size and
then I'm going to drag it up. So it's only going to be a header.
Cause we are designing a header template for this particular, uh, design.
So I'm actually going to change the colors as well.
To a little bright purple over there,
and then let's go with pink on the other side. All right,
now I'm going to add some text to this.
So we're going to just say live with Mel,
actually live Q&A with Mel.
I'm going to drag it up into the header section.
I'm going to shrink it so it's the right size, and we're going to center it.
Let me get it snapped into the middle there. Let's go ahead and make this white.
So it pops really well.
And so that is essentially what I'm going to put at the top.
Now I want all of this to be transparent so that you see me through it.
And as you'll notice,
when you go up to download your images,
you are going to see here that transparent background is a paid feature.
However, let's check this out. Let's download this as is,
and I'll show you another way to get that background removed. Okay,
the application of choice today is PhotoPea.
So this is actually a free open source app that you do not have to pay for,
or even create an account to use.
Now Dee Nimmin did an awesome tutorial on creating your own custom overlays
using PhotoPea, so also be sure to check out that video that we've got as well.
All right, so we have our image in here.
We just want to remove this white background here.
So we're going to go over here.
You may notice if you've ever used Photoshop before PhotoPea is essentially
designed and modeled after Photoshop. So all of the tools work very similarly,
except again, it's free. So we're going to select magic wand.
And then in here in this white section, we're going to just click it.
And as you can see, it's highlighted,
we see that it is picking just that white section there.
When you're designing your overlays,
you want to pick something that's going to have high contrast so that you can
delete that part. So we're just simply going to delete that area.
And now we have our beautiful, transparent pattern.
We know that this is ready to go.
All we have to do now is simply export it as a PNG file.
And we are going to be good to go. Nothing like duct taping,
a couple of apps together to get the solution that you need, right? Like I say,
we can be scrappy, but it doesn't always have to be crappy. All right,
option Number Two. Let's talk about an up-and-coming application called Kapwing.
Now this application also will allow you to create graphics,
but on the free plan,
you can export a transparent Gif file,
which will work for your overlay in StreamYard,
as long as it's not more than three megabytes. Okay. Now, as I mentioned,
Kapwing is an up and coming application.
I'm very excited about this application.
It's essentially built for designing memes and other things,
but you can absolutely create transparent graphics.
So we're going to start with new content.
We're going to start with a blank canvas.
And we're going to go over here and we're going to change our canvas to 16:9
because again, that's the size,
the ratio that we want when we're uploading to our StreamYard overlay section.
So we're going to select background color and we're going to pick transparent.
So no color as you can see, there's that beautiful pattern.
Now let's start by adding an element. We're going to just simply add a shape.
Again we're going to go with this simple design that we've been creating.
You can create all kinds of different designs. Of course,
here you can actually add your own custom color.
Just pick the bright purple once again.
Now it is going to add a border to your element.
So if you don't want that border,
then you're going to want either pick the same color or simply select
transparent.
Now let's add some text and we're going to drag that up into
our section here. We're going to highlight the text.
I'm going to make that text white, so it pops. And again,
you can change your font as well, which is fantastic.
Now we essentially have our graphic that's ready. Now,
we're going to go up here to settings and we're going to actually select Gif.
You will notice that there is not a PNG as an option at the time of this
recording, but a Gif file,
as long as it's not three megabytes will work in the overlay section as well.
So the Gif is going to be a file format that will support this transparent
background.
So simply go up to export image and you are going to actually be able to
download that image right from the Kapwing studio. Okay,
now the Third option I want to make sure you're aware of today is for
the Keynote, PowerPoint and Google Slide users out there. Now,
if you are a Wiz and you like creating slides and custom graphics using these
applications, which many people do,
you can also export a transparent PNG file from these applications.
As long as you simply change the background color to transparent.
So I'll show you very briefly how to do this in Google Slides,
which is free of course. Okay.
Now the disadvantage to using Google Slides or PowerPoint or Keynote is that you
are going to be limited on all the different graphic elements
that you can create and what you can do.
But it does work if this is your app of choice. Google Slides is free,
but if you already have Keynote or PowerPoint, you can of course use those.
So let's just create a similar header to what we just designed over in Canva.
Again,
it's going to be a little more basic because we aren't going to have those
gradient tools and those other options. So I'm going to insert some text here.
Make it white so it pops. Change our text color.
Go ahead and we're going to change the font.
Now you're going to be limited on your fonts as well of course.
And then I'm going to grab it and I'm going to center this text inside of the
text box. There we go. And there is our header. Now we need to get rid of this.
All we have to do here is go to background and we're going to simply make it
transparent. Now it's not going to give us that pattern look,
but it is transparent at this point.
And so then the next thing all you have to do is go download your PNG file and
you'll have your custom overlay. Well, there, you have it!
Three free ways for you to create transparent files,
to upload as an overlay in StreamYard.
So you can create some great custom streams.
I certainly hope that you found this tutorial helpful.
Make sure that you don't miss any of the other upcoming tutorials
that StreamYard will be providing to you as well as their amazing live shows.
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