Promote your work with Photoshop mockup files

What is Mockup files

It's a minor but essential thing to online picture marketing. Most painters take pictures of their paintings and sell them online. In my case, I am currently posting and selling works in Artflakes, Fine Art America, and Etsy, etc. Except for Etsy, most of the sites below allow customers to estimate what product they will receive after purchasing. 

However, recently, when you upload your logo, font, design, etc., the site has developed as POD(Print-On-Demand), in which the company prints it and sells it to customers. For this type of sale, it is necessary first to show the results of the product to customers and promote it. This task is called Mockups. It's a term that anyone who works in the design world knows well.

Mockups examples

A full-sized structural model built to scale chiefly for study, testing, or display. 2: a working sample (as of a magazine) for reviewing format, layout, or content. The dictionary meaning of the mockup is as follows.
(Merriam Webster dictionary)

Artists often use Mockups that simulate your work before turning it into a product to create portfolios.
There are many mockup sites on the Internet that anyone can use conveniently. But, of course, if you use a paid site, the visual effect will be more excellent. Also, instead of making a mockup using an editing frame such as Photoshop, you can easily make it by simply pressing a button with a simple app or program installation. However, here I show you how to create a mockup using a free mockup file by Photoshop. So, first of all, I'll show you one of my works in a frame.

Below is one mockup site I use.

https://www.ls.graphics/free-mockups

 In addition to frames, there are many types of mockups such as tapes, beverage bottles, bags, iPhone cases, etc.

I chose a free mockup that I like. (Click the blow screen, if you want to get the same)

Artists need a lot of frame mockups like this.

If you download the zip file and run it, you can check the PSD file as follows. I am a very grateful site designer. When I use a site like this, I should do free sharing, so I work hard.

After running the zip.file

When you open the Photoshop file, you can see the following screen.

The screen we will change is the stay home area inside the frame.  Kindly, there is a layer that says "Change this" in the menu bar on the right, layer panel, and you can change this layer.

Clicking the Change this layer brings up the screen we need to change. For detailed explanation, I clicked the eye-shaped icon  for a while and set it to see only that layer. 

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Take out the square frame from the left menu and draw a square to fit the stay home screen.

I selected black color for easy identification.

After then, you go to right side, layer panel, and click the right on the layer .
You click "the Convert to Smart Object". 

The reason for doing this is that if you convert it to a high-quality object, you can change the size without damaging the original.

Double-click the Smart Object icon in the Rectangle Layers panel in the Layers panel. This will open a new file with the square original.  Carefully press the red square part like the below. 

This will open a new file with the square original. (I named it, New Square screen)

New square screen

It’s almost over now. Cheer up !!!
Now load the picture to be framed. ( Ctrl + O, Cmd + O) 

 ​The imported picture is marked with the current background field in the layer panel.  Double-click to copy to change to a layer file. After confirming that it has been changed to a layer file, press the control key  Ctrl + C or Cmd + C  to copy it. Then go to the new square screen and paste it like the above. ( Ctrl + V or Cmd + V ). 

If you have followed well, you will see a screen like the one below.

Press the Ctrl +  T or  Cmd + T key to resize. 
​I will only stretch the right part, so hold down the shift key and pull it out

After then , you saved it with Ctrl + S or Cmd + S, and return to the first step like the below. ​

Now, check the result by turning on the eye-shaped icon

You can change the background color, shadow, frame color and more as you like.
Also, if you go to the site below for your reference, you can download many different types of free frame mock-ups that artists need. (https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/frames-mockup)

The final screen

Frame mockup sample, picture by Myungja Anna Koh

If you click the above screen, if you want to get the same image.

Make a lot of pretty mockups and hope you will succeed in your business.