Magnificent Mock-Ups

Whether you’re pitching a layout concept or selling your services as a résumé designer, mocking up your work benefits both you and your client by simulating what a digital design would look like in the real world. With a wide range of uses, mastering some basic mock-up production skills is essential for many creatives. Most mock-ups come in one of two flavors: flat JPGs where you paste in your artwork (with varying degrees of additional work required for best results), and layered PSDs featuring Smart Objects and/or a range of such additional features as editable props, backgrounds, shadows, and more. In this article, we’ll explore how to work with both a JPG and a PSD mock-up, but first—we’ll build an entire mock-up from scratch. Yes, from scratch! Who says you have to have source files to start with? You’ll be surprised by what you can create from nothing with just some basic Photoshop know-how.

Before You Start

Before diving in, there are a few things you should consider. What kind of mock-up do you need? Are you mocking up a book cover or a multi-page PDF? How many pages of your multi-page PDF do you need to showcase—the entire document or just enough to communicate an idea? What size is your design or creation? If you’re trying to mock up an A4 document, don’t expect it to work with a template intended for square documents. You’ll also want to consider the format of the mock-up scene itself (not the document depicted within, but the containing PSD or JPG). Is the file square? Vertical? Can it be easily adapted if needed? Once you know what you’re looking for, where do you find it? A quick Google search will turn up plenty of sites offering free mock-ups. As you might expect, the

quality and ease of use will vary wildly. Some files may be surprisingly good, but most will likely require some finesse before they’re actually usable. If you have an Adobe ID, you can find a spattering of simple JPG mock-ups included among the free asset collection at Adobe Stock. We’ll take a look at these in more detail in the second practice project so you can see how they work. To give you an idea of what to look for in a PSD mock-up, our third practice project showcases a paid example from Creative Market, where there’s no shortage of eye-catching options to be found by searching with keywords like mock-up and scene. Just make sure to read the product descriptions carefully so you know how much editability and customization a particular product offers to avoid being disappointed. Some may look fantastic, but aside from simplifying the overall process, they may be more limiting than you expect. Paying money for a mock-up file doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a well-crafted, ready-to-go PSD. (You could just as easily be paying for a flat JPG or a poorly built PSD.) Save yourself the frustration by carefully reading the descriptions and reviews before checkout. No matter which type of mock-up you end up working with, before you can start building it, you’ll need to export your design into a Photoshop-friendly format like JPG or PNG. In the examples included here, we’ll be mocking up two PDFs created in InDesign. To get them out of InDesign and into Photoshop, after opening the files in InDesign, choose File > Export. Create a new folder for the soon-to-be-exported files, choose JPEG for Format, then click Save (Figure 1).

Of the options that follow, decide whether you need to export spreads or individual pages, and if you want to export the entire document or just a few pages. Finally, input your desired value for Resolution. Ultimately, this will depend on your document and the mock-up you plan to make for it, but 300 ppi is a good starting point as most professional mock-up files are high resolution. Finally, choose Export (Figure 2). Now you’re ready to start building!

Three Ways to Mock It Up

To help you make sense of what mock-ups are all about, we’ll take a look at three ways to create them. First, we’ll create an entire mock-up from scratch. Then we’ll explore how to use Smart Objects to turn a flat JPG into a reusable mock-up template. And finally, we’ll dig into a paid template to see what all the bells and whistles are about.

Create a mock-up from scratch

Having previously exported all three pages of the sample document, we’ll jump right into Photoshop and create a new document by choosing File > New. Because we’re mocking up a printable PDF for an Etsy product (and Etsy requires images at least 2000 px wide), enter a width of 2000 pixels and a height of 1333 pixels, then click Create (Figure 3).

Our first order of business is to create a simple background using a subtle gradient to simulate light falling across the scene. To make this into a reusable template that’s easy to edit, we’ll use an adjustment layer. And, to make it as easy as possible to create our gradient, we’ll start by choosing two color values. Click the foreground swatch in the Toolbar to bring up the Color Picker and enter a HEX value of c3e0dc (Figure 4), then click OK. To choose the second color, click the background swatch from the bottom of the Toolbar, enter a HEX value of b3ccc8 in the Color Picker (Figure 5), and click OK. The idea here is to choose two shades of the same color, one light and one slightly darker. Now that we’ve chosen our colors, click the Add Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Gradient to create a gradient adjustment layer (Figure 6). From the Gradient menu, open the Basics folder and choose the first option to create a gradient using the current foreground and background colors (Figure 7). Select Linear for Style and set Angle to –49. Make sure Reverse is not enabled, then click OK (Figure 8). Boom! Instant background. Pretty sweet, right? Just like that, we’re ready to add the three PDF pages. Beginning with the first exported page, choose Select > All then copy (Command/Ctrl+C) and paste it (Command/Ctrl+V) into the mock-up document. Next, before doing anything else, choose Layer > Objects > Convert to Smart Object. This step is crucial as it not only allows us to work nondestructively by preserving our pixel data, but it also makes it faster and easier to use this file as a template in the future. See Steve Caplin’s article in Issue #3 for a deep dive into everything you need to know about working with Smart Objects. With the pixel data protected within the Smart Object, we can now scale down the page. With the page layer active, press Command/Ctrl+T to enable Free Transform. In the Options bar, click the link between Width and Height to maintain proportion, then change the value of either one to 30% (Figure 9). Position the page in the center of the document, and press Return/Enter to apply the transformation. Repeat this process with the other two exported pages, making sure to convert them to Smart Objects before transforming them to 30% of their original size. Adjust the stacking order in the Layers panel to position the second and third pages behind the first. In the example, I chose to slightly rotate the second and third pages to offset them from the first page (Figure 10). To finish up, we’ll add a simple drop shadow to match the lighting in the scene and apply it to each of the three pages. With Layer 3 still active, click the fx icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Drop Shadow. Because we created the gradient with an angle of –49 degrees, the brighter background color appears in the top left and the darker color in the bottom right. For the drop shadow to follow the same lighting direction, enter an Angle value of 131 degrees so the shadow falls to the bottom right (Figure 11). After tweaking the other settings to your liking, click OK. (Wondering where those numbers came from? The initial value of –49 degrees was an arbitrary choice. The value that’s 180 degrees opposite our original value of –49 degrees is 131 degrees. You definitely don’t have to be this precise and could just as easily eyeball it. This was essentially just a bone for the detail/math hawks in the audience. You know who you are.) To copy the newly created drop shadow settings to the other remaining pages, hold the Option/Alt key and in the Layers panel, drag the words Drop Shadow from just below Layer 3 to Layer 1, then repeat to copy the drop shadow to Layer 2 (Figure 12). You could stop here and have a perfectly usable mock-up sure to garner plenty of interest among the other marketing images that would accompany this product listing on Etsy. If you wanted to add even more realism and detail to this scene, experiment with the following bonus techniques:

• Add a subtle texture to the background using a Pattern Overlay style. I like the Stone_Sandstone texture from Photoshop’s 2019 default collection. (You will have to load this included pattern collection into the Patterns panel before it’s accessible as an option in the Layer Style dialog box. To do so, choose Window > Patterns, then from the panel menu, choose Legacy Patterns & More.)
• Further develop and reinforce the lighting in the scene by adding one or two additional gradient adjustment layers, this time using the Black to Transparent default with an angle of 131 degrees.
• Reduce the pure white of the pages that screams “I’m digital!” by grouping them into a folder and using a clipped adjustment layer (thereby affecting only the page layers and nothing else), reducing the levels output of the highlights from 255 to something closer to 250.

Check out Figure 13 to see what this scene looks like with these additional details. It’s pretty remarkable what you can pull off in a hurry, entirely from scratch. In the next example we’ll explore how to use Smart Objects with an existing JPG image and how they can save you a ton of time in the future.

Insert your design into an existing JPG using Smart Objects

Building a mock-up from an existing photo featuring a “blank” means not having to guess at the perspective or behavior of real-world objects in a given environment. And—depending on how the image was created—you can often make use of the existing highlights and shadows on the object. (Or at the very least, take your lighting cues from them.) In this example, we’ll start with a JPG from Adobe Stock’s free collection that anyone with an Adobe ID can license at no cost. (Would you believe their free collection includes more than 70,000 assets? It’s a great resource!) Once you license and download the file, open it in Photoshop and you’ll see the image shows a blank tri-fold document with each panel formatted for US Letter (Figure 14). If you look over in the Layers panel, you can confirm that as a JPG, it offers are no existing layers to work with, meaning we’ll have to create our own.

Having already exported three JPGs from the pages of a second InDesign file, we’re ready to start inserting them into this scene. As before, copy and paste the first page into the working document before immediately converting the layer to a Smart Object. Next, because we’re trying to match an existing document within the scene, it can be helpful to temporarily lower the layer’s opacity. In the Layers panel, drop the Opacity setting to about 50%. As before, use Free Transform (Command/Ctrl+T) to scale and rotate the layer to the approximate size and orientation, focusing your attention on aligning the top-left and bottom-left corners first, without worrying much about the other two corners for now—but don’t commit the changes just yet (Figure 15). To match the perspective of the middle panel in the scene, right-click within the transform box and choose Distort (Figure 16). Grab the other two corners and position them to match the existing image—but still don’t commit yet! Close inspection will reveal that even with all four corner points perfectly aligned, there’s an ever-so-slight bow to the existing panel. To match our page to it, right-click again and this time, choose Warp. In the Control panel, confirm that the Grid is set to Default, then manipulate the points, handles, and/or the grid mesh itself to reflect this small bow (Figure 17), taking care to follow the contours of the existing panel without introducing any wayward or conflicting adjustments. When you’re happy with your edits, press Return/Enter and restore the layer’s opacity to 100%. Finally, because the existing Tri-fold in this image is blank (and white), you can change the layer’s blend mode to Multiply to inherit the existing lighting conditions within the image, creating a much more realistic effect without any additional work. (A definite win in my book!) Repeat this entire process with the other two panels, making sure to convert each to a Smart Object immediately after pasting into the document and before doing anything else. When transforming, focus on lining up one side of the page first (left or right) before switching to the Distort option to adjust the remaining two corners. Only then should you use Warp to match any curves or bowing in the existing object. Finally, restore the opacity to 100% and change the blend mode to Multiply. When finished, your document should resemble Figure 18. Thanks to our carefully manipulated Smart Objects, swapping out the current design for an entirely different one is super simple. To see for yourself, choose any of the three pages we’ve inserted into this scene and double-click the corresponding thumbnail in the Layers panel. This opens the original Smart Object in a new document (note the PSB file extension). With the Smart Object opened as a separate file, simply paste the new design directly over the previous one, press Command/Ctrl+S to save the change, and Command/Ctrl+W to close the (Smart Object) file. Then sit back in awe as your newly pasted design instantly replaces the previous one—scaling, distortion, warping, and all! Working with Smart Objects this way turns any completed mock-up into a reusable template that can edited quickly and easily. In the next example we’ll dig into a professionally created mock-up template to explore additional options for customizing the image and discover what might make a template worth investing in.

Using a professionally generated mock-up template

This magazine mock-up available from Creative Market has a lot going for it. A quick peek at the product description reveals that the 11 included photo-realistic files measure 3000 × 2400 pixels, feature organized sets of layers complete with Smart Objects (including a changeable background with applied perspective). The files also include the option of showing or hiding the built-in shadows and reflections (in case you want to change them and add your own), and as we’ll soon see, one of the renderings includes a custom-built action to create a shallow depth-of-field effect. Cool! There’s also a PDF help file included. The only thing that’s glaringly missing from the description is what size of layout the mock-up is intended to showcase. (I can tell you from personal experience with this collection that though it’s not quite US Letter size, it is acceptably close, at least for my purposes.) Some creators are better at including these details than others, but for the price (currently $15), it’s still a bargain. (For comparison, here’s another collection that includes stylish touches like ambient shadow overlays and textures, and features two sizes: A4 and US Letter. It currently sells for $30.) Opening scene six from the $15 collection, we can see that the situation in the Layers panel is indeed nice and tidy (Figure 19). The orange, color-coded layers indicate the Smart Objects for editing. They’re conveniently labeled Left Page and Right Page, so you won’t confuse which is which.

To drop in your design, open the JPG or PNG file you previously exported from InDesign (or wherever it was originally created), press Command/Ctrl+A to select all followed by Command/Ctrl+C to copy. Then double-click the thumbnail of the corresponding Smart Object in the Layers panel. In the document that opens, paste your design (Command/Ctrl+V), scale as needed, then press Command/Ctrl+S to save it and Command/Ctrl+W to close it. Like magic, your design will instantly appear in the scene, already scaled, warped, and otherwise manipulated to perfectly suit the blank model. Repeat that process for any remaining pages. Digging deeper into the Layers panel reveals additional options for showing/hiding reflections, inserting a photographic background, and changing the background color (Figure 20). For a finishing touch, after changing the background color, I ran the included blur action to create a shallow depth-of-field (Figure 21). Quick and painless, the result looks great. Considering that there are 10 additional scenes included, it’s not a bad investment for $15.

Take Your Mock-ups Even Further

If mock-ups turn out to be your jam, there are several ways to keep the party going and expand your options even more.

Shoot your own mock-up images

You don’t have to be a professional photographer to capture a great mock-up image. Figure 22 is a greeting card mock-up I photographed with my phone, using a blank card and envelope overlaid atop a piece of 12 × 12 inch scrapbook paper, with a pencil and some mini clothespins as props. Captured on the floor using the indirect light from a neighboring window, it required minimal effort to achieve arguably good results using found objects from around the house. (Read: cheap!)

For this example, after creating the initial Smart Object, the only other post-production work required was creating a simple mask around the envelope and pencil. To make your post-­production Photoshop work as painless as possible, keep your images simple and plan ahead for what will make your blanks or backgrounds easy to select, mask, and otherwise manipulate.

Explore mock-up scenes

Some of my favorite and most frequently used mock-up assets are known as scenes. (These are sometimes also referred to as “Scene Creators” or “Scene Generators.”) Unlike a stand-alone mock-up collection, commercially available scenes generally include a vast collection of backgrounds and props (possibly photographed but often photo-realistically rendered in 3D), all intended to work interchangeably with coordinating colors, perspective, and lighting. You literally drag and drop to create whatever you need, whether building a mock-up scene or just creating a stylish image for a marketing message. Either way, they’re undeniably fun to play with and offer seemingly limitless possibilities. (Here’s an example from Design Cuts that features over 275 individual objects, backgrounds, and pre-made scenes.)

Curate a collection of your favorites

Once you get the hang of what works for you and your projects, you can build up a library of virtual props and backgrounds to draw from. These assets may include images you capture (or render) yourself, collections you’ve purchased, and/or freebies you’ve scored along the way. Over time, you can curate collections for different themes you might use frequently, like kid-friendly toy props, or super-niche categories, like winter drinks and related accouterments. The more experience you gain, the faster you’ll be able to showcase your work with increasing variety. Indeed, the hardest part may be deciding which is your favorite. A camera-slinging design nerd, author, and serial crafter, Khara Plicanic makes learning fun for everything from Photoshop and type design to sewing and crochet. Find her classes and download her free, goodie-filled Creative Toolkit at KharaPlicanic.com. How do you showcase digital products like ebooks, PDFs, and other creations that don’t actually exist in the physical world—and thus, can’t be photographed? There’s a mock-up for that. (And if not, it’s easier than you might think to create one.)