Making a graphic

Graphics designs a picture for whatever your church is doing — a potluck, a baptism, a service time change — with the date and place drawn right into the artwork. You describe it in a sentence; Psalmly draws it. It's part of the Community and Growth plans, and it's admin-only. On the free plan, your church's admins can try it first with 3 free graphics.

Open it from Graphics in the admin sidebar and click Make a graphic. (There's also a Make a graphic button on every announcement and campaign, and on every event that hasn't been cancelled — see Adding a graphic to an event, announcement, or campaign.)

It opens full screen. The questions are on the left, and the right side is where your graphic appears — it stays in view while you work. On a phone the questions come first and the picture is below them.

What's the graphic for?

The first question is What's the graphic for? Write it the way you'd tell a friend:

Our monthly potluck supper, first Sunday after the service

Plain words are fine — you don't need to describe a picture, name a color, or know anything about design. A sentence or two is plenty. Pressing Enter starts a new line; nothing is made until you press the button.

What you write isn't saved until you make the graphic, so if you try to leave before then — with the ✕, your browser's Back button, or by closing the tab — Psalmly asks first.

Fill it in from something you already have

Under the box, Pick an event, Pick an announcement, and Pick a campaign fill the description in for you from something already in Psalmly, and tell Psalmly the exact words to letter, so the date, the time, and the place come out right instead of being retyped.

Each button opens a searchable list of everything — events under Upcoming or Earlier (churches make graphics about things that already happened), announcements you've sent to the whole church, and campaigns that are Running or Finished. Each one you pick shows under the box with its date and place, and a Remove button to take it back off.

Pick a few and they go on one graphic together — the "this week at church" slide, or the next few events for the foyer. Up to four get lettered onto it. That's the thing a blank box can't do for you: you'd have to type all of it, correctly, every week.

You can still change the words after picking. Once you've written your own, picking another item adds it without touching what you wrote.

Where will you use it?

Pick one of three shapes — each card says what it's for:

• Square — Facebook and Instagram posts.
• Portrait — posters, bulletin inserts, and phone screens.
• Landscape — screens at church and on your website.

The outline on the right changes to the shape you pick. Choose before you make it: each shape is designed on its own, so getting the same graphic in a second shape means making a second one, not re-cropping the first.

How should it look?

It starts on We'll choose a look — Psalmly picks one that suits what you wrote, and that's a good choice to leave it on. If you'd like to choose yourself, Pick a look opens forty of them. Let us choose goes back. There's a guide to this: Choosing a look.

More options

Two choices most graphics never need, closed by default:

• Words on the graphic — Drawn in (the name, date, and place are part of the design) or No words (just the picture, with no name, date, or place on it). Both cost the same.
• Mood — optional nudges such as Warm, Traditional, or Classic lettering.

If you change one of these, the closed row says so — "More options · No words" — so nothing is quietly in effect.

Colors and your logo

Want particular colors? Say so in what you write — "navy and gold" — or ask for them as a change afterward, and the graphic is drawn that way. Psalmly doesn't put your church's logo on a graphic, and it doesn't design from your church's color on its own.

Make it — what it costs and how long it takes

The button says it all: Make my graphic · 25 credits. Your church's monthly AI credit allowance covers it; see Your church's AI assistant for how credits work.

It usually takes about twenty seconds, though it can occasionally run to a couple of minutes. The picture area shows it being designed, in the shape you picked. If you leave, it still finishes and lands in your Graphics library.

If a graphic doesn't come back, that happens sometimes and your credits are returned — press Try again. The one exception is when Psalmly says it couldn't design that one: the request was turned down rather than dropped, so pressing again won't help. Change what you wrote instead — real people, brand logos, and anything graphic tend to be refused. Your credits aren't spent either way.

When it's ready

The graphic appears on the right, with:

• Use it on <name> — if you picked a single event, announcement, or campaign, this puts the graphic straight onto it as its picture. If it already has one, Psalmly asks first.
• Download — free, as many times as you like. It saves as a PNG, the format Instagram and a print counter both accept.

It's already saved in your Graphics library — the screen says so under the buttons.

The questions fold away into What you asked for, so you can see what it was made from.

Want a change?

Say what to change in plain words — "warmer colors," "add an open Bible," "make the words bigger" — and press Redraw it. It's drawn again in the same look and shape. Your first five changes are included; the note beside the button counts them down, and after that the button says what each further change costs.

Every version is kept under Your versions, named First version, Change 1, and so on, each with what you asked for. Pick one to look at it again, download it, or use it — "the first one was better" is a real answer.

If Psalmly knows the exact words that should be on the graphic — because you picked an event, announcement, or campaign — it reads the finished lettering back and tells you if something looks misspelled: "Worth a second look." The graphic is still fine to use; ask for a change and it'll be redrawn.

Starting a different one

Change your answers brings the questions back so you can make a new graphic. The one you have stays in your library. Make a new graphic · 25 credits makes it; Keep the one I have puts everything back the way it was.

Using one you already made

When you come in from an event, announcement, or campaign, Already made one for this? shows graphics your church already has, under the picture area. Click one to look at it first; Use it on <name> · free puts it on, and Back returns to making a new one. Using one again costs nothing.

Where it goes afterward

Everything you make lands in your Graphics library, so you can come back for it weeks later — to download again for a bulletin or a noticeboard, or to put it straight onto another event or announcement without paying for it twice. See Your graphics library.

Nothing you make is public. A graphic sits in your library, visible only to your church's admins, until you deliberately download it or use it on something.

Plans and credits

• Graphics is part of the Community and Growth plans. On the free plan, your church's admins can make 3 free graphics to try it — once per church, and once per person, each with its usual five free changes — and the composer shows how many are left. Graphics made this way stay in your library for good, and their five changes keep working after the third is made. Once all three are made, you'll see what Graphics does and an upgrade prompt instead. See Managing your plan and billing.
• It draws on your church's monthly AI credits — the same shared allowance as the assistant, Scribe, and the AI drafting buttons. Downloads and your included changes cost nothing. If you run out, the screen says when they come back and offers Get more credits.
• If your plan lapses, everything you've already made stays yours — still downloadable, and still usable on new events, announcements, and campaigns. Only making new ones stops.