Canva has launched a comprehensive update to Affinity and introduced the ProSuite ecosystem, incorporating new features across design, motion graphics, and AI-assisted creation in a bid to rival Adobe’s dominance in professional creative software.
Canva has moved to tighten its grip on professional creative software with a broad update to Affinity, pairing the free design suite with a new ProSuite ecosystem that also links Cavalry, Flourish and Leonardo. The aim is clear: to offer a single environment for design, motion, data visualisation and AI-assisted creation, while keeping Affinity and Cavalry available without charge. Canva says the package is intended to carry projects from first draft to final delivery, with stronger collaboration and more consistent brand control.
The most substantial changes are in Affinity’s photo tools. According to TechRadar, the update adds batch importing, a revised RAW workflow and preset looks that can be applied across multiple images. There are also new correction tools for uneven lighting and camera shake, while Scene Decomposition uses AI to split flattened images into editable parts, reducing the need to rebuild assets by hand. A dedicated Astrophotography Studio also gives users controls aimed at night-sky work.
Affinity is gaining broader file compatibility as well. Canva says the suite can now open InDesign documents directly, alongside support for major industry formats. The company is also adding deeper links with Canva Brand Kit and Canva Sheets, which should help teams move design work more easily between visual assets, brand rules and structured data. Other additions cover vector editing, typography, brushes, noise reduction, high dynamic range processing and export controls, while Sony ARW6 support, OpenColorIO display emulation and improved output matching are aimed at colour-managed production.
Cavalry is part of the same push. TechRadar reported that the motion graphics application is getting more than 50 changes, including improved shape controls, lighting effects, graph editing and expanded SVG handling. Canva also says selected elements from Cavalry projects can be opened for editing inside Canva without exposing the underlying animation, a workflow that may reduce back-and-forth between motion designers and other team members. ProSuite’s AI Connectors further allow repetitive tasks to be triggered through natural-language prompts.
Duncan Clark, Canva’s chief executive of Pro Design, said the company had built the release around what professionals said they actually needed. In comments carried by TechRadar, he said Canva wanted ProSuite to be a place where professional craft could “live and thrive”, despite the noise around AI replacing human creatives. The broader message from Canva is that the new ecosystem is designed not just to add features, but to present a more credible alternative to Adobe across static design, photography, motion work and collaborative production.
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