How to Use the New Snapchat Creative Tools

By Isabel Thottam  |  May 16, 2017 | 12:00pm
Photo by ThomasDeco / Shutterstock
Tech Features Snapchat
How to Use the New Snapchat Creative Tools

Snapchat recently made a few new additions to step up its game against Instagram and Facebook. Earlier this month, the app added a new set of creative tools that includes a “magic eraser,” the ability to change brush size, the ability to “draw” with emojis, and limitless snaps.

If you recently logged in to your Snapchat account and feel a little bit confused about what’s going on, here’s a breakdown of what’s changed and how to best use these new creative tools.

First, take a photo.

In order to access the new set of creative tools, you have to make a snap. Got it? Good. Now you should see five icons on the right hand side of your screen—these are the new creative tools set, which now appear vertically on the right-hand side of the preview screen.

You can hit the ‘text’ icon to add ‘sticker’ tool lets you use stickers and emojis; the ‘scissor’ icon leads you to the ‘magic eraser’ tool that lets you remove objects from your snaps; and the ‘timer’ icon is where you can change the length of time a snap lasts—with the new option to make it limitless, or a looping video.

Utilizing the Scissor and magic eraser tool

If you’ve ever used Photoshop, you know how a magic eraser tool works. This Snapchat version is a lot simpler and sillier, but it functions in the same way. In your creative toolbox, once you lick on the ‘scissor’ icon, you’ll see a ‘star’ icon, which is the magic eraser tool. By using this you can remove objects or elements from your snap by highlighting the area; and once you remove the object, the tool fills that area with their surroundings.

Moreover, when using the scissor tool, you can click the ‘sticker’ icon to cut out stickers. Anything you remove or highlight using this tool gets turned into a sticker! Simply hit the “sticker” icon and you’ll find all your removed items as stickers to play with.

Drawing with stickers

When you click the ‘pencil’ icon, you’ll see an emoji at the bottom of the color selection bar. By clicking on the emoji, you can now choose any emoji to draw with. Have you ever wanted to draw a heart using the bacon emoji? Now you can.

The other cool thing about the doodle tool in this update is that you can change the brush size, which is a feature Instagram first made popular. It’s helpful to change the brush size if you’re trying to fit more text onto the screen, or want your handwriting to magically look better on Snapchat.

Making limitless snaps and looping videos

The most talked about feature accessible in Snapchat’s new creative tools is the ability to make snaps limitless. You can now let your friends enjoy your “snapsterpiece” for as long as they want. When you select the ‘infinity icon’ under the ‘timer’ icon, you snap will last as long as the viewer wants it to when the open it.

But, as soon as they tap to close it, it will delete itself as usual. Additionally, you can now make looping videos! When you tap the ‘looping’ icon after making a video your snap will continue to replay until your friends tap to close it or move onto the next story.

In a subtle way, it’s kind of like having Vine back, right?

 
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