Are you looking for a way to elevate your social media presence and engage your audience with eye-catching visuals? Creating carousels is a great way to do just that! Social media carousels are a great way to showcase multiple images or messages in a single post, but creating them can be time-consuming and challenging. Fortunately, with the help of tools like Canva and a splitter tool, you can easily create stunning and effective carousels for your social media channels. In this post, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of using Canva and a splitter tool to create eye-catching carousels that will help you engage your audience and drive results.

Before you begin

Instagram image sizes are 1080 x 1080 px. You will want to calculate the total image size by multiplying the number of carousel images by the width of the image.

So for example, if your carousel is 7 slides you’ll determine the total width of the image by multiplying 1080 x 7 = 7560 px. 

Image width: 7560 px

Image height: 1080 px

Note: the largest file size you can create in Canva is 8000px – so the max number of slides will be 7 per page.

Instructions

1. Create a custom document size at the dimensions you’ve calculated
2. Go to File > Show Rulers & Guides (or SHIFT+R)
3. Go to the Elements and select a square (or R) to create a rectangle
4. Use the right size extender on the box to drag the size as close to 1080 px as possible. You may not get it exactly to 1080 px, and that’s okay.
5. Next, move the rectangle along the left side of the artboard so the edge of the box is right at the edge of the artboard.

6. Move your cursor to the ruler edge until the arrow changes to a double-ended arrow. Once the icon changes, click and hold down the mouse button until you see a purple guideline appear. Without letting go of the button, drag the guideline to the right edge of the box.
7. Now, move the left edge of the box to the other side of the guideline, and drag another guideline to the right side of the box.

8. Repeat until you reach the end of the artboard.

9. Woohoo! Your artboard has been set up.
10. Now, you’re ready to start designing your carousel. Be careful about lining up any elements or graphics along any of the edges. Whenever possible, place images and graphics over the guidelines but not right up to the edges.
11. Once you finished your design, download the document as a PNG or JPG
12. Go to Pine Tools Split Image tools to split your document into individual images.

13. Upload your file
14. For a carousel, you want to make sure the Horizontally is selected under: Options > How to split the image. In the Horizontally box, select Split by… > Quantity of blocks (equal height)
15. Enter the number of carousel images in the Quantity of blocks, and set the Height of blocks (px) to 1080 px.
16. Click Split Image! You will see something like this, with more or less, depending on the number of slides/images. 
17. Download the entire zip file to check the accuracy of your images. You may need to edit or tweak them to get the images just right.

By default, the tool will name each carousel image based on the order of the design. The file naming convention is based on rows and columns. For carousel images, you will have one row and multiple columns. You can either rename the files first or upload them directly from here.

Pro-Tip: Extract the zip file and immediately rename the files to simplify the process when you upload them to your social media account. 

Downloads

Download a starter carousel to get started. The template includes two (2) artboards setup at 5400 x 1080 px. A rectangle (1080×1080) and empty frame has been for your convenience.

Canva Template link – 5×2

To use Canva templates, be sure you are logged in to your Canva account before you try to use the link. You may experience an error if you are not logged in prior to opening the link.

Example

Full Carousel Image(s) before splitter tool. Click to see how they are technically two unique images. 

After the using the splitter tool

Click to see how there are now seven (7) unique images. 

Now that you know how to create carousels using Canva and Pinetools, it’s time for you to start designing engaging content for your audience. We hope this guide has been helpful in simplifying the process and providing you with the tools and knowledge you need to create social media posts.

If you haven’t already, we encourage you to sign up for a free Canva account to take your designs to the next level. With Canva, you’ll have access to a wide range of templates, graphics, and design tools to help you create professional-looking carousels quickly and easily.