Canvas, Backgrounds, Images, and Stickers
The left panel is where you compose the visuals of your card — the canvas environment, the front and back artwork, foreground overlays, brand logos, color tints, and stickers.
The canvas
The canvas is the 3D environment in which your card is rendered. It's also the backdrop you'll see when:
- Taking a photo / screenshot of your design
- Sharing your card online via a share link
The canvas picker in the left panel lets you choose what fills that environment.

| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Color | A solid color with opacity control |
| Gradient | Two-color gradient with angle and opacity |
| HDRI Preset | A 360° environment image — see below |
| HDRI Custom | Drag in your own .hdr or .exr environment file |
| Image | Use any image as a flat backdrop |
| Transparent | No background (useful for clean cutouts and exports) |
HDRI environments — real-world lighting
HDRIs are 360° images that wrap around the entire scene. They serve two purposes:
- As a backdrop — Just like a regular image, they fill the canvas behind the card
- As a light source — They simulate real-world lighting, so your card reflects and is lit by the environment exactly the way it would be if you held it inside that scene
This is why a Holographic or Glossy card looks dramatically different under each HDRI — the surface is genuinely picking up the colors and angles of the environment around it.
The Card Designer ships with several presets (for example, Sunset and Forest). Some presets are intentionally low-res when used purely for lighting reference, but the lighting they cast is still accurate.

When you choose an HDRI background, a Rotation slider appears below it. Rotating the HDRI spins the entire environment around the card, which moves where the bright spots and reflections fall on your card's surface — perfect for fine-tuning a hero shot.

Custom HDRI
If you have your own .hdr or .exr file (sourced from any HDRI library online), drag and drop it into the HDRI Custom drop zone. The same rotation slider applies.

Background size
Below the canvas controls is a Background Size slider. This zooms the canvas backdrop in or out so you can frame your card nicely for screenshots and shares — for example, pulling an image background back so the card sits cleanly inside the frame, or pushing in to fill the photo with a single hero color.
The background size has no effect on the card itself; it only affects how the canvas is composed.
