Frequently Asked Questions about Microsoft Designer

Designer makes it easy, fast, and fun to design—no design experience required. From helping you get started with your ideas or content like generating custom layouts or even new images from your ideas (with DALL.E 3 and GPT 3.5 integrated into the design experience from the start), Designer makes it easier than ever to simply type what you want to create and get customized designs with compelling messages included that you can further personalize and refine. 

When it comes to refining your design, you can even get suggestions and design ideas to add motion effects to your design, like turning a static post into a compelling short video reel or story with a variety of eye-catching treatments. 

We’ve also integrated generative AI to help edit and add further polish, like the improvements to our product features available today with generative erase, which uses the SAM (Segment Anything Model) and helps you more easily select areas you want to remove in an image. 

Designer generates text from your ideas that enhance your design, or even creates clever caption and hashtag options (powered by a variety of models from Microsoft and OpenAI) that you can choose from, giving you that added confidence in your message when you're ready to share with the world.

Collage Creator

Use this feature to create collages of multiple images surrounded by personalized AI-generated frames.

This feature takes up to 10 uploaded images, a description of objects or themes to customize the collage, and the optional selection of a style to generate a custom collage complete with a frame. People can select a tile in Explore ideas to preload elements and a style and apply those to an uploaded image.

• Explore ideas has a variety of examples to help you get started. Select an idea to use the same elements and style with your image.

• Select Images to upload up to 10 photos or images.

• Use Elements to describe additional objects or themes you want to apply to your collage.

• Under Style, select from a variety of styles to use for your collage.

• Select Generate and AI takes the information you’ve entered to create your collage.

• Download your results as is or continue to edit with Designer.

• Find your collages in My collages.

Frame Image

The feature adds personalized AI-generated frames to images, taking a single uploaded image, a description of objects or themes (called elements), and the optional selection of a style to generate a custom frame around the original image. People can select a tile in Explore ideas to preload elements and a style and apply those to an uploaded image.

• Explore ideas has a variety of examples to help you get started. Select an idea to use the same elements and style for your frame.

• Select Images to upload your photo or image.

• Use Elements to describe additional objects or themes you want to add to your frame.

• Under Style, select a style to apply to your frame.

• Select Generate and AI takes the information you’ve entered to create a custom frame around your image.

• Download your results as is or continue to edit with Designer.

• Find your frame in My frames.

Generative Erase

This feature helps people remove unwanted objects or areas from their photos or other images, by taking a person's original image as well as a selected area to be erased as input and provides as output a modified version of the image, with the selected area erased.

• Quick select is for auto-selecting the erase area by clicking on any object in the photo or image.

• Brush select is for manually selecting the area to erase by drawing a mask on the photo or image.

• Start over is for re-doing the mask that indicates what parts of the image or photo should be erased.

• Erase object uses Designer’s model to erase specified areas within the photo or image.

• The X control exits out of experience.

• Report is used to report any issues.

• Looks good accepts the result of erase and updates the photo or image accordingly.

Greeting Cards

This feature helps people transform their images into something new. Describe the card you want, and AI will create it for you.

This feature takes a written description of a card as the input and provides an animated digital greeting card with an AI-generated image and a written message. 

• Use Explore ideas to find examples to help you get started. Select an example tile to preload the card prompt template which can be edited to fit your recipient and the occasion or write your own text description of the card you want to create.

• Select Generate and AI takes the information you’ve entered to create your cards. Note that the generated card image may contain text in English due to current limitations to the underlying technology for image creation.

• Download your results as is or select Edit text to make changes.

• Find your cards in My greeting cards.

Invitations

Use this feature to create invitations quickly from a prompt and use AI to add personalized details. Invitations takes a description of an occasion— along with other related invitation details including date, time, location, RSVP, style and theme—to generate 1-5 invitation options. These generated invitations are vertical designs so they’re easy to use and share with mobile devices.

 People can select a tile in Explore ideas to preload invitation details and a style. 

• Explore ideas has a variety of examples to help you get started. Select an idea to use the same invitation details and style with your design as a starting point.

• Add or update invitation parameters if interested or use the example as is.

• Select Generate and AI takes the information you’ve entered to create your invite.

• Download your results as is or continue to edit with Designer.

• Find your invitations in My invitations.

Replace Background

This feature helps people transform their still life photos by replacing the background with a new AI-generated scene. Upload a still life photo, remove the background, and describe your vision for the new background to create a new scene.

Please note this feature is intended for use on objects; images containing people are not currently supported.

This feature takes a person’s original, uploaded image as well as a text prompt as inputs and provides a version of the image with the background replaced as the output. 

• Use Explore ideas to find examples to help you get started. Select an example tile to preload the scene description from that example to use with your own image.

• Select Images to upload your photo.

• Enter a description under Scene to customize your background—describe the subject of your new image, the surface to place the object on, surrounding elements, and the background setting to create the best results.

• Select Generate and AI takes the information you’ve entered to create your new image.

• Download your results as is or continue to edit with Designer.

• Find your restyled images in My replaced backgrounds.

Restyle Image

This feature helps people transform their images into something new. Upload an image, select from a collection of style options, and enter an optional text description to create a new, restyled image.

Please note this feature is intended for and recommended for individual use; restyled image results may not be as accurate if an image contains multiple individuals. By using the Restyle Image feature, you confirm that you have the permission of the people in all images that you provide.

This feature takes a person’s original, uploaded image as well as preset style and an optional text prompt as input and provides a restyled version of the image as the output. 

• Use Explore ideas to find examples to help you get started. Select an example tile to preload the elements and style from that example to use with your own image.

• Select Images to upload your photo.

• Enter a description under Elements to customize your image—describe objects, themes, and colors to use in your restyled image.

• Under Style, select a style to apply to your image.

• Select Generate and AI takes the information you’ve entered to create your new image.

• Download your results as is or continue to edit with Designer.

• Find your restyled images in My restyled images.

Designer was created with everyone in mind—you don't need to be a skilled designer to create compelling designs. From stunning social media posts, invitations, digital postcards, and more, Designer is there for you, whenever you need to design. 

While creating and sharing your designs, please be sure to follow the content policies as defined here: Code of Conduct for the Azure OpenAI Service | Microsoft Learn.

Please keep in mind that Designer is still in preview and the team is continuously learning and improving the product accordingly. We encourage all users to submit feedback by using the feedback icon on the top right corner within the Designer experience. You can also submit feedback by messaging us on Instagram or X (formerly Twitter). 

The Designer experience is continuously evaluated through a combination of user engagement methods, including a preview phase, one-on-one user interviews, and integrated product feedback mechanisms. This user-centric approach allows for both qualitative insights and objective measurements. Several key metrics are used to measure performance including user engagement rates, feedback volume, and usability metrics. 

Designer first launched as a web app, but we are actively working on expanding to other surfaces where users can access Designer—including a Windows app, integrations like Designer in Microsoft Edge (now in select markets), a mobile app for Android devices, and a mobile app for iPhones. The web-based Designer app has the ability to share designs using QR codes with a mobile phone, helping minimize the impact of Designer's limitations. 

Designer is available in English only, and we are actively working on expanding to other languages. 

Please keep in mind that Designer is still in preview and the team is continuously learning and improving the product accordingly. We encourage all users to submit feedback by using the feedback icon on the top right corner within the Designer experience. You can also submit feedback by messaging us on Instagram or X (formerly Twitter). 

The preview Microsoft Designer app is available for free. Microsoft will collect user feedback and make improvements during this period. A paid Microsoft 365 subscription will be required to continue using some of these features at a later date. 

We are committed to creating responsible AI by design. Our work is guided by a core set of principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. We are putting those principles into practice across the company to develop and deploy AI that will have a positive impact on society. We take a cross-company approach through cutting-edge research, best-of-breed engineering systems, and excellence in policy and governance. 

While creating and sharing your designs, please be sure to follow the content policies as defined here: Code of Conduct for the Azure OpenAI Service | Microsoft Learn.

We also recommend referring to Designer’s Terms of Use for information on approved terms of use for Designer: https://designer.microsoft.com/termsOfUse.pdf. 

When you interact with Designer, Microsoft collects your prompt (what you request to Designer) and how Designer responded. We use this data to provide, to support, and to improve Designer, consistent with the Microsoft Privacy Statement. For example, this information helps us understand which design recommendations are helpful and relevant to you. 

For all images created with Designer's editing features, we have implemented content credentials, provenance based on the C2PA standard, to help users identify that images are edited or AI generated. 

Provenance metadata can be viewed on the Content Credentials site.  

All images generated using Designer's Erase feature will carry Provenance metadata to identify the source via signing the image appropriately.  

We have put controls in place to prevent the upload or generation of harmful images.  

You can find your files in your OneDrive.

• Go to onedrive.com >  My files >  Apps >  Designer.

• In your computer's OneDrive folder under  Apps >  Designer.

Open your Designer projects and hover your mouse over an image to display  then click to show Delete.

To delete multiple files, hover your mouse over an image to display the checkbox selection circle. Select all the images you want to delete, then press Delete at the top of the page.