How to Create Packaging Design Custom Mock-Ups in Photoshop

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Have you ever wondered how you can make all of your packaging projects instantly look realistic and professional? In this class, you'll learn exactly how to do that and create your own custom mock-ups. Hi, my name is Beatrice Menis. I'm one of the two co-founders of Studio Kibi. A small but mighty branding and packaging design studio helping small businesses and startups. At Studio Kibi, we love working with clients from all over the world. Our goal is to help them translate their brand vision into tangible products. We've worked with a big variety of projects. Some of our favorites have been a popsicle brand based in Dubai called House of Pops, a natural contact lenses brand based in Berlin called Popple. A healthy juicery brand based in Nigeria called Kasa Greens and many others. In this class, you'll learn how many of these projects came to life. Spoiler alert, the majority of what you've just seen were all mock-ups. Custom mock-ups allow you to quickly communicate the concept behind your design to your client and, ultimately, to the target audience. At what stage of the project should we look into mock-ups? I used to think they were reserved for the end of the process when your design was finalized and it was time to make them look real for a project presentation or for a client. After losing many hours trying to find the perfect mock-up that would magically match the measurements or dimensions of my finalized design, I realized I was doing it all wrong. Incorporating my mock-ups at the beginning of the project not only helped me save time, but also helped me envision my designs and contexts and ask questions like, who will buy this product? What's their lifestyle like? Where would this product live in-store, and next to which other brands? For example, if you're working on a tea brand, you'll be looking at natural and sustainable material solutions, which cater to a much different demographic, the one that buys into bright colors and plastics. For your class project, you will create four different mock-ups using four different techniques. To give an insight into different packaging possibilities, each technique will cover a different type of packaging. We will kick off the class by identifying the key principles of what makes a good mock-up. Elements such as lighting, composition, balance, and so on. For the first technique, we'll create a very basic mock-up from scratch. A box. We'll use Adobe Photoshop and also experiment with Adobe Dimension. Our next technique will teach us how to navigate a downloaded mock-up, either free or paid. Its layers and what to expect. For this one, we'll create a mock-up for a juice bottle. Then we'll place our product in a real life scenario with our third technique by using stock imagery to create a beauty brand theorem. Finally, we're looking to photographing our own blank mock-ups. This is the most time-consuming, yet rewarding and versatile technique. You'll not only be able to create unique competitions, but you also start building your own mock-up library. This class is perfect for designers at any level. Whether you've just started your design journey and you want to learn more about mock-ups, why they're so important, and how to create them, or if you're a more experienced designer, I want to level up your mock-up game for your next project and your next client presentation. By the end of it, you'll know what a compelling and realistic mock-up should look like. You'll be able to create a mock-up no matter how much time or resources you have in your hands, whether you're creating a packaging for a beer can or for a chocolate bar. Are you ready to dive into the magical world of mock-ups? Go ahead and click onto the next lesson. See you there. 2. Class Projects: In this class we'll not be creating one but four different products. I'll be teaching you four techniques so by the end of it you should have four different mock-ups. For the first technique we'll be creating a popsicle box from scratch in Adobe Photoshop and in Adobe Dimension. Here we'll be experimenting with two different softwares. For the second one we'll be creating a juice bottle using an online mock-up. This exercise will teach you how to spot good mock-ups from less realistic ones and how they should be layered. For the third technique we'll place our mock-up in a real life scenario. Using stock imagery we'll create a beauty brand serum packaging. Finally, we're looking to photographing around blank mock-ups. You'll not only be able to create unique compositions but you'll also start building your own mock-up library. We'll use a tub and create an ice cream mock-up and a body lotion mock-up. Let's get started. 3. Why are Mock-Ups Important?: In this lesson, we'll be looking at what are mock-ups and why they're so important. Whether you're fresh into the design industry or you have many years of experience, I'm sure you've heard the term mock-up before. But what actually is a mock-up? A mock-up is a full rendering of your design on one or more of the client's products. It's a realistic representation of the final product. Mock-ups are first look of how the design you've created will work for your customers and your clients. Ultimately is a realization of the brand vision. Why are mock-ups important? Mock-ups are super important as they help you show the client what they can expect from the final product. Here is a very quick demonstration of the impact of a good mock-up. Here we can see a flat artwork for a nail polish. As you can see here, it's really hard to picture how the product is going to look like, and here is how it looks when applying a mock-up. As you can see, the product really comes to life. In this case, I've added podium for the nail polish to stand on and a couple of clouds, just delaying to Cinderella story. As mentioned earlier, we can really use elements of a mock-up to communicate the story, as in this case. Another example we have here and you can see the flat artwork and all the design elements, but you can't really picture how you're going to be once finalized. Here it is the mock-up. Again, this is super simple, lastly complicated than the first one, but you really get the idea of how it is going to look like also helps to understand the proportions of the dropper in the tube and so on. The last example, so these are business cards for our house of pops client and you can really see the impact of these business cards. Here is a mock-up. For example, in this case, you can cheat a little bit to selling the idea a bit more. I'm only using elements from the brand, but let's imagine that these business cards are sitting on a table, the house of pop pattern on it, and really makes the whole product shine and just really stand out. When should we start thinking about mock-ups? Many designers start thinking about mock-ups at the end of the project, once the design has been finalized and signed to present it to a client or create one for a case study. After losing many hours trying to find the perfect mock-up that would magically fit the dimensions or measurements of my finalized design, I always realized I was doing it all wrong. Incorporating mock-ups at the beginning of my workflow not only helped me save time, but also helped me envision my designs in contexts from the very beginning. Ultimately, it's a very quick and easy way to communicate your design concepts to your target audience and your clients. How can you distinguish a good mock-up from a less realistic one? How do you know if a mock-up is a good mock-up? When is it worth buying one and what are some of the things you need to look out for when looking for one? We're going to look at three main components you'll need to be aware of when searching for a mock-up. If it's a photoshop mock-up versus the vector one, how are the highlights and shadows used? Lastly, the composition. Let's get started with differentiating a photoshop mock-up versus a vector one. You always want to choose a photoshop mock-up as you will have smart objects. What is this smart object? A smart object is a layer that contains data from raster or vector images, such as photoshop or illustrator files. Smart objects preserve an image source content with all of its original characteristics. For example, if you worked a label and you'd like to change your word or a color within that label, you can simply double-click on the smart layer and make any changes, save it, and close it, and it will automatically update your changes. When searching for a mock-up, always make sure it stays that it contains smart objects or that it's a photoshop file. On the other hand, if you're using a vector or illustrator mock-up, you won't be able to have smart objects. It will be much harder to make any quick realistic changes to your design. Another factor to look out for is lighting. When choosing a mock-up, whether it's free or a paid one make sure to focus on its highlights and shadows. Especially when it comes to free mock-ups. Before you start to use them, always make sure to check their highlights and shadows. As you can see in these examples, having good highlights and shadows is crucial to make the product look realistic. Always keep an eye out. Last but not least, is composition. This is where incorporating mock-up thinking at the beginning of the process will come in handy. For example, if you're creating a product that only has one flavor, you could choose something similar to this one, where one bottle is the hero. But if you already know that you will have multiple flavors, you can search for a mock-up with multiple bottles. Or maybe you want to include a hand to better represent the proportions of what you're designing, so you can think about that when you are researching. You might be working on a product where you'll have some hidden information on the bottom. You can look for a composition like this one. Last but not least, if you want to show a top view shot of your mock-ups, you want to keep that in mind on researching for them as you will need to make sure that your shadows match your composition and your vision. In this lesson, we've gone through what's a mock-up, when to incorporate them in your workflow, and how to spot a good one. It's time to get into details and dissect lighting and composition in the next lesson. Let's get started with lighting. 4. Mock-Ups & Lighting: [MUSIC] We've just gone through some of the key elements to look out for in a good mock-up. Let's break them down and get started with lighting. Lighting is a key factor in creating a successful image. Lighting determines not only brightness and darkness, but also tone, mood, and atmosphere, which will be crucial in creating a successful mock-up. It's very important to control and manipulate your light correctly in order to get the best texture, vibrancy of color on your objects. How is lighting important when it comes to mock-ups? Distributing shadows and highlights accurately is a crucial factor in giving objects dimension and creating a realistic looking mock-up. What type of lighting should we keep in mind when looking for a mock-up? Let's look at three types of lighting. The first one is direct light. You'd have this type of light if you were shooting your products outside on a sunny day. You'll have direct light onto your mock-up, which usually means sharp shadows without blur and clear edges. The second one and the most common one for mock-ups is indirect light. You'd have this type of light if you were shooting outside on a cloudy day or inside with a lamp and a softbox. You'll have softer and bad shadows as something is blocking the light to directly hit your product. The third one, which is used to mainly add effects to your mock-ups, is casted light. As you can see in the examples, there is a planned casting a shadow or a window, adding more texture and personality to your mock-up. To understand how highlights and shadows work, I'd invite you to experiment photographic couple of objects in different scenarios and different lightings and try to recreate them in photoshop. The more detailed your highlights and shadows will be, the more realistic your mock-ups will be. At this point, you should be able to distinguish realistic mock-up from a less realistic one. But what if you just bought one or downloaded one, and once you open it in photoshop, you realize the highlights and shadows layers are not that good. What if it's just one flat layer? No worries. We've all been there. I'm going to help you with a quick fixes to level up your mock-up. Let's just say we've just downloaded this mock-up. As you can see, there's nothing, there's no highlights, there's no shadows. We have the smart object but if we apply it, it looks super flat. This is what we can do, which is a really quick fix, and it helps elevate your mock-ups if you're in a situation like this. The first thing that we want to do is we want to duplicate the layer of the candy bar twice. We're just going to go ahead and copy it twice. Then we're going to hide the main one. We're going to name one Highlights and shadows. Let's start with our highlights. We want to go to image, adjustment, brightness and contrast. Here we want to have a lot of contrast. We want to go as dark as possible. It will look something like this. Then we're going to go again into Image, adjustments and click on "curves". We just want to make that contrast even higher. I'm just going to go ahead and work on a contrast that it's higher and then press ''Okay''. Next is we want to go onto the blending modes and select screen. You can see these already look like good highlights. Now I'm going to go ahead and hide this layer and we're going to take the shadows one. I'm going to go ahead Image, Adjustment, Brightness and Contrast. We want to just emphasize a little bit over the brightness and a little bit of the contrast. Then we're going to go into blending modes and click on "Linear Burn". What we want to do now is we want to take our smart object and place it underneath the two highlights and shadows. We can also click back the candy bar. Now we can take it on. As you can see, just like that, it looks really realistic. It was a really quick fix, if we ever download a mock-up that doesn't have any highlights and shadows. Now that we've seen how crucial lighting can be, let's have a look at composition. See you in the next lesson. [MUSIC]. 5. Mock-Ups & Composition: In this lesson, we'll be looking at composition and how we can help you identify or create realistic mockup scenes. We'll be looking at composition in relation to photography rather than design. As our end goal is to place an object, our mockup, into a realistic scene. Familiarizing yourself with the basics of photography composition will help you distinguish a good mockup from a less realistic one. What is composition? Composition in photography refers to the position of elements inside the frame and how they interact with each other. Composition is how everything comes together in an image. How the elements interact with each other to tell a story to the viewer. The viewer should easily understand the story behind the design and the story that the image is trying to convey. Let's go through some of the key principles of composition in relation to mockups. Let's get started with number 1, which is balance. Balance is another very important principle of composition. If you have an object on one side of the image, you won't have something similar on the other side. You never want something to dominant in your image to throw the viewer's eye off. For example, as we can see in these beer can mock-up, the balance is set diagonally with the countertop holding the cam and the orange background balancing it out. Or for this one, we have three equally spaced elements, which creates a lovely balance. They're also in descending order, which guides the viewer's eye. Here we have another example with three elements. In my opinion, the three elements don't feel supernaturally placed. My eye doesn't really know where to look first. But if we look at these other shots, they feel much more balanced and our eyes goes first into the middle object, then onto the right, and lastly onto the whisk. Let's move on to symmetry. Our eye is naturally attracted by order and repetition. If you're trying to use symmetry into your compositions, makes sure that they're perfectly symmetrical. On the other hand, if you're trying to go against symmetry, make sure to go over the top so it's really clear that you're trying to do that on purpose. This is an example of a mockup using symmetry with repetition of the product and bright colors to attract the viewer's eye. These other example, it's also using symmetry when it comes to the packaging pouches, but has additional elements that are not symmetric and help outpaced to the composition. In this case, all the bottles are not placed entirely symmetrically as some are upside down. But the lines created by the bottle caps give the sense of purpose symmetry, adding an interesting element for the viewer. The third principle is harmony. Harmony uses color and texture to point out similarities of subjects within an image. This is a perfect example of using textures and materials, in this case, to harmoniously showcase the product and its benefits. These example is using color as an extension of the design on the packaging. That's power to the overall image and it really helps it stand out. Here's another very similar example, but in this case, the combination of the two primary colors on the packaging really elevates the look of this mockup. We can achieve the same, but using softer tones. In this case, there's a combination of color and pattern which is present in the design and extensive background adding harmony to our mockup. Let's have a look at number 4, which is rhythm. Rhythm creates movement by the repetition of objects and shapes throughout an image. This example is great for rhythm. It's using all elements from the can in a playful way and in pace to the image through the vibrant colors of the branding. In this example, the different placement of the can and the bottles, helps the rhythm and overall pace of the image. In this one, the rhythm is given by the placement of the three bottles in ascending order. Five is variety. When it comes to creating an interesting composition, we can use juxtaposition by using different objects together, their differences, brings out part of the story that we're trying to convey to the viewer. In this example illustration elements from the branding have been used to extend the scenery beyond the top back into the background. In this case, photographic elements, such as ingredients, have been used to reinforce the product's benefits and help it stand out. Here we can see a paper composition in the background that recreate some of the illustrations from the packaging. Using different type of objects or mediums, such as illustration, photography, or topography will help generate pace and add interests for the viewer. The sixth principle is proportion. Proportions refer to the size of the objects and how they relate to each other. For example, you can exaggerate one of the objects in order to create a successful composition and help tell your story. In these Frooti examples, the packaging and the mangoes were kept in real life scale, creating a big contrast with the toy people. By doing this, the viewer perceives the packaging and the Mangoes as the heroes. It also communicates the quantity and quality of the product through a humorous lens. This one is super simple. One of the crackers as simply been replaced by graphical element, keeping the same proportions of the crackers. Last but not least, and number 7, we have contrast. Contrast can be used for your elements to really send out. It can also be used to highlight what's different about the product you're designing for. For example, in this collaboration with fashion, I can simply rolling the pink bottle clutch, which was part of the collaboration, is covering one of the bottles, which helps the other two standout. In this corona mock-up, the contrast is highlighted by these elements which are inspired by technical drawings to communicate the features of the bottle and its attention to details. In this last example, the bowl background pattern is extended to the background of the mockup, almost getting rid of the contrast between the two, helping the overall image stand out. Let's have a look on how we can use storytelling in our mockups. All of these key principles we've just gone through should help you create a unique image and unique costume mockup composition to help you communicate the brands and products story. If you're tasked to design a cream which is very light and soft, you might want to use composition to further communicate the brands benefits. In this case, the product is sitting on a cloud, which I think it's super effective. Or if you're designing a line of premium neon dyes, you do want to use your knowledge on highlights and shadows to make your product stand out. In this case, I've picked a very dark mockup with minimal lighting to let the neon labels shine and communicate what the product is all about. These are all the key principles we've just gone through in one simple slide. We've started with balance, we then moved on to symmetry, harmony, rhythm, we've looked at variety, proportion and last but not least, we looked at contrast as well. Now that we've recapped all the key principles, you'd be great if you could find an example for each one of them. You can find inspirations on websites such as the dye-line or packaging of the world, or even better, you can go back in your folders and find products that you've already created and create mockups under one of each categories. By doing this, you'll get familiar with all of the principles and next time you're starting a new project and you're starting to think about mockups, they'll all be in the back of your mind. Feel free to download the digital worksheet in the resources section and place your mockups under each category. Make sure to share them in the comments so we can all learn from each other. We're now ready to move on to the next lesson and learn all about the four techniques I'll be teaching you in this class. 6. The Four Mock-Up Techniques: Now that we've gone through the key principles of what makes it good mock-up, let's go through the four techniques we'll be learning today and when you're supposed to use them. The first technique is creating your own mock-up from scratch in Adobe Photoshop and in Adobe Dimension. The second technique is using online mock-ups, free or paid. The third technique is using a stock imagery. And the fourth and last technique is using photography. For the first technique, which is the most basic one, we'll be creating a mock-up in Adobe Photoshop. We'll then create the same mock-up in Adobe Dimension, just for you to experiment with 3D. This technique might not be the most realistic one, but it's very quick and easy and it will help you visualize designs you're currently working on. For this technique we'll be creating a popsicle box in a 3/4 view, showing the front and the side panel. I would recommend using this technique if you're creating something very basic, which doesn't necessarily need to be super realistic. You might be testing different designs or it might just be short on time. And last but not least, if you don't have access to Wi-Fi. The second technique is using free or paid mock-ups. We will be using a bottle and we'll be going through its layers, so you know what to expect. For this technique we'll be using a front view of a PET juice bottle mock-up. I recommend using this technique if you're looking for a quick win. I would also recommend it, if you're creating a more complex product, such as the juice bottle with transparencies or a snack rapper, as creating realistic highlights and shadows might require some professional skills and definitely more time. I'll share a document with a list of websites where you'll be able to download free or paid mock-ups from. The third technique is a stock imagery. This is great if you want to start placing your mock-up in a real life scenario. Bear in mind that this technique might be a bit more time-consuming as you will have to spend some time trying to find images that match the aesthetic of the project you're working on. [MUSIC] For this technique we'll be using stock imagery from Pexels, a stock imagery freak website, creating a serum for a beauty brand. I always recommend choosing an image which is part of a set. By doing that, you'll be able to use different images and place your mock-up in them. Actually, you might fool the audience and think that you've actually had a photoshoot. I would recommend using this technique if you're looking for a more realistic mock-up, as this will be placed in a real life scenario. I always recommend choosing an image which is part of a set. By doing so you'll be able to show more than one angle or image for your mock-up in the same photoshoot setting. By doing that, your mock-ups will look like they were part of an actual photo shoot. I'm also going to share a list of websites where you'll be able to find paid and free stock imagery. The fourth and last technique is the most time consuming yet rewarding. For this exercise, we'll be using blank products. In this case, it will be an ice cream tub with a lid. You then set the scene and you'll be able to create as many compositions as you like. Once you've shot all the photos, you can go into Photoshop and apply any of the techniques we've just learned and reuse the image over and over again. For this technique will be using an ice cream tub and create a mock-up for an ice cream and for our body souffle, to show you how versatile this technique can be. I would recommend using this technique when you have time in your hands. It's great for the end of the project and/or for a case study. It's also great if you're looking to create your own mock-up library and future proof your mock-ups. I'll share all the equipment and tools that I've used in this exercise. Don't worry, they're all quite cheap, as the whole point is to show you that you don't need to spend a lot of money or you don't need to be a professional photographer in order to create your own custom mock-up scenes. It's now time for some practice. See you in the next lesson and let's get started with the first technique. [MUSIC] 7. First Technique: Adobe Dimension: Let's dive into the first technique, creating a mock-up from scratch. In this technique, we'll be using Adobe Photoshop, and then we will create the same mock-up in Adobe Dimension, which is a 3D software. The purpose of this exercise is for you to get familiar with both programs and decide which one works best for you. First technique, creating a mock-up from scratch in Adobe Dimension. Let's dive into it and get started with our Adobe Dimension mock-up. The first thing that you would want to do is open Illustrator, where you will have your graphics for the packaging. In this case, we know that we will need two sides, the front side and the right-hand side. Make sure to create these sides already in the correct dimensions and have them ready for your mock-up. Once you have them on two different artboards, we can go ahead and press "File", "Export", "Export As" and make sure to save them as PNGs and tick "Use Artboards." We can keep their resolution as 150 or 72, it's up to you, and click "Okay". Now that we've got them saved, we can go ahead and open Adobe Dimension. Let's click on ''Create New'' and name the file. The canvas size will be 1,920 by 1,080, and we can keep the resolution at 72 dpi. Let's not forget that this mock-up is a very rough mock-up, which is mainly going to be used for you to test any designs you might be currently working on. We don't need to save it as a higher resolution. As it will only live on screen, it's always better to work in a lower resolution at this stage, so you can work faster. Once that's all set up, let's hit "Create". This is what you will see once you open Dimension. As you can see here on the left-hand side, you can see a lot of pre-built models. We're going to click on the toolbox as it looks quite similar. Let's just double-click on it and you will see it'll automatically appear in the middle of your canvas. Here is where the dimensions of the flat graphics will come in handy. Make sure to go back to Illustrator and write down those dimensions. We know that the front, it's going to be 15.5, the height is going to be 23.5, and the width is going to be nine. A super simple measurements, we have a packaging that looks pretty much like what we want to create. Now that we have the correct dimensions, let's have a look at the left-hand side tool panel. We can see the orbit tool and the pan tool. These will come in quite handy when you're working in Dimension. The orbit tool allows you to just orbit around your model so you can see it from all different angles. The pan tool, as it says, it will just allow you to pan across the scene. Now that we've got the packaging where we want it to be, let's click on "Box". Let's click on "Select Material". We know our packaging is going to be dark blue. We can select that on the base color. Once again, you can go back into Illustrator and just double-click on the blue. Make sure you're copying, pasting the color. Just click on base color. This might look like this when you first open it. Just make sure to click here and click on "Hex", paste the value that we've just copied from Illustrator. This is quite handy as we already have the base color across the whole model. Now, let's go back onto box. As you will see here, we have placed graphical model. Let's click on that. This is where we'll use VPNG that we have saved. Let's start with the front. We're just going to click on ''Open''. As you will see, it will be placed in a really weird and skewed way, but that's absolutely fine. We can go over here and click on the ''Select Tool'' and we'll be able to move it around. Here you can use the orbit tool to have a better view of how you're going to place your graphic. Again, let's click on ''Select Tool''. Obviously, we know that these are the correct dimensions. We can just play around until they look right. There, we have it. Then we can press again on the orbit tool, move it to the side and do the same thing. Click again on ''Place Graphic On Model'', select the site. We just repeat what we've just done. Once again, click on the ''Select Tool'', place it on the correct side, and use the orbit tool to just have a better overview of it. Place it until it fits our box as it should. Once we're happy with the placement, we're pretty much there. The only other thing that we could do is change the light. As you can see, the light is now hitting the side, which is not ideal as the front is our main hero. We're going to go back into environment lights and just adjust the rotation until we're happy. I know that minus 40 in this case works. I'm just going to have minus 40. Then as you can see, we have the light on the front. Make sure that it's in a position that we're happy with. I think that you can see the front and then you can see a bit of the side. That's pretty much it. Now you can click on ''Render''. You can decide which setting to use. As this is just a quick render to see if we're happy with the design, we can just click on the ''Low'', which is the first one. You can decide to export it in PSD, which will have the layers, and in PNG. Then just select the location, hit "Render". While it's rendering, you can go ahead and make yourself a cup of tea or a cup of coffee as it always takes some time. That's it. As you can see, we've created a packaging. It looks semi-realistic, it's perfect to test different design, and it was done in a really short amount of time. [MUSIC] 8. First Technique: Adobe Photoshop: [MUSIC] It's time to get started creating a mock-up in Adobe Photoshop. The first thing that we will want to do is open our illustrator file where we would have the design that we want to apply onto our mock-up. In this case, I've created two different artboards, one for the front and one for the side. By doing this, it will be quite quick to just copy and paste them onto Photoshop and I will also have a quick way to know the dimensions. If we go ahead and select the front side, we can see dimensions would be 15.5 centimeters width and 23.5 centimeters height. We're going to go ahead and write down the dimensions for the side as well, which are going to be nine centimeters width or depth in this case, because we will be creating a box in 3D and 23.5 centimeters height. Now that we know the dimensions, we can go ahead and open Photoshop. The first thing that we want to do is we want to click on, "Rectangle tool", go ahead and click anywhere in the screen. As you can see, the measurements are in pixels, but it doesn't really matter, we can right-click on where it says "Pixels" and change it to centimeters. Or we can just simply write down our measurements and write centimeters at the end and it will automatically adjust it. Our height is 23.5 centimeters and just press, "Okay". We should have a box looking like this representing the front of our box. We're going to go ahead and do the exact same for the side. Rectangle tool, click anywhere in the screen and we know the width will be nine centimeters in this case, and the height will be the same 23.5 centimeters and hit, "Okay". We should have two rectangles, one representing the front and one representing the side. We can go ahead and double-click on "Rectangle one and just name it front and double-click on "Rectangle two" and name it side. Now that we have these two rectangles, we want to click on "Front" on the first one, right-click and click on, "Convert to smart object". I'm going to go ahead and do the same for the side. We have them as smart objects you'll see in a minute why that's super important. Now we can go ahead and click, "Command T" to transform, right-click and click on "Distort". Here's where we're going to play around and start creating a 3D-looking box shape. We can do something like that for the front and we're going to go ahead and do the exact same thing for the side command T, right-click and distort. As you can see, this is starting to look like a 3D box. This is where you'll see why creating a smart object was super important, as you'll see, this box and these rectangles are now distorted, which means if we wanted to copy and paste any graphics we would have to distort them accordingly to fit the dimensions. When we go ahead and double-click on "Front", we're within the smart object now and this rectangle has remained the same, which makes it super easy for us to paste any type of graphics without having to distort them. We're going to go into illustrator, select the "Front side", copy it, go back into Photoshop and paste it. This box will pop up, make sure you always select smart object. By doing that, you will be able to double-click on the "File" and open it back up in Illustrator, make any changes, just hit, "Save" and this file will automatically update. If you're not picking the smart object, you won't be able to do that because whatever you're pasting here will be flat and you won't be able to modify it. Just make sure you're always clicking "Smart object", go ahead and click, "Okay". Now you can go ahead and delete the layer called "Front" and press "Command S" to save it and just close the file. Automatically that will be updated and adapted to the distorted front side. We're going to go ahead and do the same for the side and press "Command S" to save it and close it. Just like that, we have somehow realistic 3D box with our design. Right now it's looking a little bit flat because there's no highlights or shadows so that will be our next step. Let's go ahead and press "Command" and hover over the front side. As you can see, we'll have a little selection tool coming up so let's just press on "The layer" and the front face will be selected. Now we want to go ahead and press "Gradient" and make sure that we have a gradient that goes color to transparent and you want to be using a dark gray color to a transparent color. Here is where we can adjust where the light is coming from. In this case, the light is coming from the left so we will have our shadows on the right-hand side. We can untick "Align with layer" so it's a bit more blurred and press "Okay". We're going to go ahead and click, "Multiply". Just like that, we have added a layer of dimension by just adding the shadow. As you can see, this is the before everything looks really flat but by adding this super-simple shadow, we can now see both sides of the box. Now we want to add a little shadow to the box so we're going to create a new layer, and just very roughly, with the pen tool design, what would be the base and then click on command, "Enter" to activate that selection. Then we're going on the paint bucket tool again, use a gray as a color, and fill it. This is now looking a bit weird because it's on top of all of our layers we want to do is select it and just place it underneath all of them. Now we'll go ahead right-click and convert it to smart object and we want to click on "Filter", "Blur", "Gaussian blur". We just want to play around here with something that feels right. I'm just going to go ahead and have 10 and then I going to press on "Filter" again, "Blur", and "Motion blur". Which gives motion and a direction to our shadow. Just like that, we've created a super simple mock-up in Photoshop from scratch. As you can see, it might not look super realistic, but it's giving us an idea of how the design will look like. This is perfect if you want to test out different designs or if you are sharing your work with someone else, and you want to share a work in progress that looks a bit more realistic than a flat design. Now that we've created the same mock-up in two different softwares, you'll be able to choose which one works best for you. See you in the next lesson for the second technique. [MUSIC] 9. Second Technique: Online Mock-Ups: [MUSIC] For this technique, we'll be using an online mock-up. Either a free or a paid one and apply our designs onto it. Second technique, working with free or paid online mock-ups. Here is where you use some of the knowledge that we've covered in the previous lessons about lighting and composition as you'll be able to tell and spot a good mock-up from a less realistic one. You'll also know when it's worth buying one. When is it worth paying for a mock-up? I'll suggest using a paid mock-up if you're working on a more complex type of packaging. For example, if you're working on a bottle design and you need transparencies and show the glass and deduce through, you might be better off buying one. Or if you're creating a wrapper and a packet of crisps where you need a lot of highlights and shadows, that could also be a good option. Last but not least, if you don't have a lot of time in your hands, might be faster to just buy a mock-up rather than spending a lot of time trying to find the perfect one. I'll share a document with a list of websites where you'll be able to download free or paid mock-ups from. In this lesson, we'll be creating a mock-up for a kale juice using a round PET bottle. With this mock-up, we'll be using a design proposal we created [inaudible] for one of our clients, KASA greens, a healthy Nigerian juicery. For this specific mock-up, I'm going to use a paid mock-up just because it's a bit of a complex product as we're having a bottle with transparencies. I'm going to be using one of my favorite websites, yellow images. Most of the times, if I'm not finding what I'm looking for as free resource or if I don't have a lot of time on my hands, I always use yellow images as they have really high-quality mock-ups and they're usually always layered the same, which is very handy. We're going to go over at yellowimages.com and we're going to write clear PET juice bottle. As you can see, we have a lot of different options. In this case, I know that I'm looking for a shape like this one. We're going to go ahead and click on it. As mentioned, this is not a free website, so you'll have to pay for the mock-ups. In this case, this is $15. What does guarantee most of the time is that the mock-up will be clear set of layers, will have highlights and shadows, and will be very easy to use. I'm just going to go ahead, add it to cart, and download it. If you'd like to use the same mock-up, I've added the link below and you can go ahead and feel free to buy it. But if you would like to use a free option, that's absolutely fine. I've also added a couple of links of mock-ups you can download. Let's get started with Photoshop. Now that we have downloaded our mock-up from yellow images, this is how it should look like in our downloads. Most of the time is a tiff file, as it's lighter than a Photoshop file. We can go ahead and right-click and open our file in Photoshop. Once we have our file open in Photoshop, this is how it should look like. As you can see on the right-hand side, we have a bunch of groups and layers and everything is labeled and it's very organized. As you can see, the mock-up is giving us two different options of finish. If I untick glossy, you can see that matte finish is much more softer and less shiny. But if, on the other hand we wanted to use a more shiny finish, then we can go on and tick glossy. I know in this case we'll be using a matte finish since this packaging is for health juice re-brand. I'm going to go ahead and delete the two groups that say glossy. Then let's just untick these layers. As you can see, we have a bottle layer which contains the juice. In this case, this mock-up doesn't have a quick slider to change the color, which is absolutely fine. We can go on and use adjustment layers to change the color to the desired juice that we'll be working with. Then we've got a drop shadow and we have a blank image. This is just the flat image of everything you've just seen. Last but not least, we have a background color so that we can change it to better suit our mock-ups. Let's go ahead and open the group. As you can see, we have a gold texture layer, so in case we wanted to have a gold label, then we have label highlights and label shadows. Last but not least, we've got label color in case we just wanted to apply a logo to it, let's say. Then the background color of the label can be changed here. We've got label design, which is our smart object. We're going to go ahead and double-click into the smart object. As you will see, another file will open up. This is where the label will sit and will adapt to the mock up that you've just seen. We're going to go ahead and press image size. By doing this, we'll know the exact measurements of the canvas. As mentioned earlier in this class, it's always good to think about mock-ups in the beginning of your process. By doing that, you'll have your mock-up and you'll be able to know the dimensions of it and once you have all that information, you can go ahead and start designing. If you don't do that and if you leave the mock-up at the very end, you'll most likely have to adopt whatever design you've just finalized to the dimensions of the mock-up you just found. Now we're going to go ahead and open Illustrator and click on new. Here we will input the measurements we've just seen in Photoshop. We know a will be RGB because this will live on screen and we can have 72 DPI. As again, it won't be printed. You can go ahead and click create. As you will see, this is the file that we will have. If we go back into Photoshop, it pretty much looks the same shape and it should match the measurements. Now we can go back to Illustrator and in this case, I've already created the design. But if you were to start the project from here, you will just start designing onto this file and just stick to these measurements. In this case, I've already prepared the file so I'm going to go ahead and paste our design, which as you'll see, I have created to these measurements. Now that we have the design in the correct measurements, we're just going to go ahead select it, press Command C to copy it and go back into Photoshop and press Command V to paste it. When pasting it, always remember to paste it as a smart object, as we covered in the previous lessons. As we want to be able to double-click in it, open it in Illustrator again and change anything if we need to. I'm going to go ahead and press ''Okay''. As you will see, it should adjust correctly to the measurements or you might have to scale it a little bit up or down, but it will be a proportional scale. Now that we have our design here, we're just going to go ahead and delete the app, your design layer. Here we have it. The next step will be to save, so hit Command S and close the file. As you will see, the label automatically transfer onto the mock-up and distort. In this particular case though, we know that we want to show some of the do's on the top of the bottle. We're going to go ahead back into this smart object and we're going to make the label a bit smaller. I'm just going to go ahead and scale it proportionally. Let's say that this space will be the juice. We're going to go ahead and press save again, Command S and close the file. We're going to go ahead and adjust it, so again Command S and close the file. Now that we're happy with how the labels sits, we're going to go ahead and change the cap color. We can close this group and open this one. As you can see, we have the same, gold highlights and shadows. In this case, we don't have a smart object because there's not enough space for it to design on. We can double-click on cap color and we can just eye drop the color from the label. In this case, I know that I would like the cap to be dark green. Once I'm happy with the shade of green, I'm going to hit ''Okay''. The next step that we want to do is obviously change the juice color because this is a kale juice and at the moment we have an orange liquid inside. We're going to go ahead and click on bottle, which is our juice color and we're going to add an adjustment layer and go for hue saturation. As you can see here, we're going to play around until we're happy with a color. I think I'm happy with the shade of green, so I'm just going to go ahead and close it. If we hit option and hover on the layer underneath, we can see this little arrow, which basically means that this color will only [inaudible] to this bottle. That's it. As you can see, it's super, super simple and in just a few minutes we have a mock-up of a design that looks super realistic and it will be quite easy to sell to our clients. Now that we've created the main mock-up, we can go ahead and check the different highlights and shadows and if we're happy with them. I know I want some less highlights, so I'm going to change the value to 50 and I think that looks quite good. That's it. As you can see, applying one of your designs to align mock-up can be super, super easy if the mock-up is created well. If we wanted to, we could just finish our project here and leave the mock-up as it is. But as you can see, we have a white background and we might need to inject more personality into it. If we want to use this mock-up in a presentation or in a case study, we could push the design a little bit further and add some visual cues that will help even further communicate your design to the audience. The first thing that I want to do is I'm going to go back into the smart object, double-click on it. As you can see, we have this flush elements. I'm just going to go ahead and copy that and just paste it in again, as a smart object. We want to make sure it's outside of the group and we're going to go ahead and click Command T and just play with it. I think it'd be quite nice if there was a background. Something along these lines. But instead of pink, I want to change the color and have the same color of the green cap. I'm going to go ahead and open the cap group and double-click on cap color. I'm going to copy the value of the color. I'm going to double-click on this, but not on the actual main image, I'm just going to be on the side and double-click. By doing that, I can modify the layer style. I'm going to go ahead and click on color overlay and here I'm going to input to the green color and hit ''Okay''. This is just a quick way of doing it, otherwise, you can of course, double-click on the smart objects, go back into Illustrator and change the color. But if you're in a rush or if you just want to just try different options, this is a good way of doing it. Last but not least, I'm going to change the background color. In this case, I want the background to be pink. I'm going to go ahead and input the pink value. There we have it. Now we have the same mock-up, but we are using some of the elements of the branding just to show how they can be versatile. We also have a background color, which is the same as the accent on the label and it helps the bottle stand out. We can go ahead and save this file, have it in our presentation and we're ready to show it to the client as a design option. Go ahead and click onto the next lesson. See you there. 10. Third Technique: Stock Imagery: [MUSIC] Let's dive into the third technique, Creating a Mock-up from Stock Imagery. For this technique we'll be using stock photography for our mock-ups. By using that, we'll be able to place our products in a real life scenario. That's going to help us when it comes to communicating the design as they will look real and ready to launch on the market. How do we know if a stock image is good enough for our mock-up? There are a few things to keep in mind when you're looking for your stock photography. For example, is the product fully visible, is the main center of attention and how is it placed? You want to make sure it's placed in a position where it will be quite easy to apply your label. For example, if you want to add people into your stock photography, that's absolutely fine. Just make sure that the people in the pictures are matching the aesthetic of the overall project and they could identify themselves with the target audience. So that looks more believable. For this exercise, we'll be creating a serum bottle for a beauty brand. We'll be using a couple of images from a free stock imagery website called pexels. I'm also going to share a list of websites where you'll be able to find paid and free stock imagery. We can go ahead and look for pexels in our browser. Once we're on the website, we can type bottle serum to try and find the right photography we're looking for. What type of brand are you designing for? Is it a premium brand or is it a playful brand? Always keep in mind these factors as they will influence how you're looking for your images. Always make sure to choose images that ultimately just help you communicate the overall concept of the design and author project. With that in mind, now we have a better idea of what type of image we're looking for. We're going to go ahead and try and see. I think this one works really well because it does communicate the naturalness of the project and what we're trying to communicate. We're going go ahead and press on the right arrow and here you can pick different sizes. In this case, I'm just going to go with the original and download it. Great. Now that you've found an image that matches the vibe of your project, if you click on it, most of the times, the website will show you a wider selection of images. Sometimes those images will belong to the same shoot. If you pick the same images where the product will be at a slight different angles and use it for your mock-ups, you will almost look like you had a photoshoot for your brand, which is great. Now that we have the selected image open in Photoshop, we're going to go ahead and open Illustrator. Here is where I'll have the label of design I want to apply. As you can see, it's already in the external measurements in this case. I'm just going to go ahead select it all. Press Command C to copy it. Go back into Photoshop and press Command V to paste it. When pasting it as always, remember to have small object. By doing that as we've covered in the previous lessons, we will be able to double-click on it, go back into Illustrator, change anything we want to change, if you want to change a word, if we want to change the color, click Save and it will automatically update into the mock-up. Let's go ahead and press Okay. Here's our label. What we want to do now is we want to roughly place it on top of the photography label. We're going to go ahead and move it around, press Command T, and we're going to rotate it. Now that is in the correct orientation, we can go ahead and scale it up trying to match the height of the two labels. Now that we're happy with the size, we're going to untick this layer, zoom in and click on the original photography layer. What we want to do next is we want to use our Pen tool to create a selection over the existing bottle label. Once we've traced the whole label, we're going to press Command Enter to activate that selection. Then we're going to go ahead and take the vector smart object back so it's visible. As you can see, you will see the selection right here. We're going to zoom back out and what we want to do is, with the selection active, we want to click on our Vector Smart Object and press the clipping mask. Our label is matching the label underneath. It doesn't look realistic yet, but it's roughly the same measurements. Now we have our label within a clipping mask. This chain symbol here indicates that they are linked together. If I want to move the label, we would now move the label with this mask. But if I just want to move the label within the clipping mask, I have to untick this chain and then I can go ahead and move my label within the clipping mask. We're going to go ahead and press Command T, right-click and click on Warp. This is what should come up with. This grid will help us slightly distort the label so that it looks more realistic on the actual bottle as some of it will be rounded and a bit warped. We're just going to go ahead and modify it until we're happy with it. Once we're happy, we can go up here and press this tick. Now, I feel we need to make the label a bit bigger. I'm going to press Command T and just make it a little bit bigger. Now that we're happy with the placement, we can go back and click the chain again so that they will move as a whole. Now we're going to go ahead and click on Normal up here and press multiply. Just like that, it's looking pretty realistic. In this case, you can still see a little bit of the back. I'm going to go ahead and take the chain, click Transform and go ahead and modify it until I'm happy with it. Great, so this could be pretty much done. One tip to keep in mind is, I knew that this label was going to have a light background. I pick a photography, that had a bottle with a white label. By doing that, it's super easy and you can just apply Multiply. Then all the highlights and shadows will translate. If for example, you're using a darker label, make sure that you're looking for a dark label in the mock-up, in the photography already. That will save you a lot of time when it comes to applying shadows and highlights. There is instances where of course, you might need to add those highlights and shadows, but most of the time you should be able to use what's within the photography already. Now we want to take it one step further and we want to change dropper and the cap, to different colors. We're going to go ahead and zoom in and pressing the original image. We're going to go ahead and press the pen tool once again and start tracing the cap. Once you've gone over your selection with the pen tool and you see that some of the points are not a 100 percent, you can click A, which is the direct selection tool, and just go over the points. By doing that, two handles will show and you'll be able to modify the points you've already created. Once you're happy with your selection, you're going to go ahead and press Command Enter. By doing that, you will activate the selection again. Now we can go ahead and create a new layer and just select a color. In this case, I'm going to use the purple of the brand. I'm just going to use this value press Okay, and then press on the Paint Bucket tool and just fill the selection. Again, that looks already pretty realistic, but if we wanted to, we can just, by applying, multiply, the shadows and highlights will be applied so it's going to look even more real. Then I'm going to go ahead and do the exact same thing with the dropper. Once we're happy with the selection, we can press Command Enter, and once again, create a new layer. In this case, I want this to be pink. I'm going to use the pink from the label. Use the paint Bucket Tool again and just fill it in. Again here we can go and press multiply. By pressing Command D, we will get rid of the selection and we can zoom out. Just like that, we have created our mock-up. As you can see here, if you un-tick these, this is the before and this is the after. It looks pretty realistic and that's it. Super simple. As you can see, these are some of the other images that I've selected from the same shoots. This is the before and the after. Again another example of a before and after. Here they are altogether, as I said. As you can see, it's super effective and realistic. Just like that, we not only have one but multiple images with our mock-up that could easily be part of our brand photoshoot. It's time for some practice. To help you practice with this technique, I've selected a couple of stock imagery, that you can use to create your own mock-ups. Feel free to go ahead into your project folders and look at projects that you might have just finalized or even old ones that can be applied to these images or to any type of documentary. It will be a great point to get started and to get familiar with this type of technique. Go ahead and click onto the next lesson. See you there. [MUSIC] 11. Fourth Technique: Photographing your own Mock-Ups {Part 1}: This is the most time-consuming, yet rewarding technique. You'll not only be able to create your own unique compositions, but you'll also be able to start building your own custom mock-up library. Fourth technique, creating a mock-up using photography. In this lesson, we'll be using a white top with the lid and a couple of prompts and create a unique composition, then later on can be used for different types of projects. To show you how versatile this technique can be, we're going to create a one composition and create two very different projects from it. The first one will be a playful ice cream brand, and the second one will be a premium body souffle brand. But won't I need expensive gear and skills to shoot my own mock-ups? The short answer is no. The purpose of this exercise is to show you exactly that you won't need any advanced or expensive gear, you only need time and creativity. I'll share all the equipment and tools that I've used in this exercise. Now it's time to build our own studio. [NOISE] Just like that, we have all of the elements will be needing today to create our photoshoots. As you can see here, I have two white tops with lids. You can have just 1, 2, or 3. I have two because I already know that I want to create one of my mock-ups for two ice cream flavors and two-body souffles. It's quite nice to give yourself the option in case you want to have more than one. Then I have a couple of prompts. These are just lids of boxes. I tried to find everything in white because it's going to be easier when we're in Photoshop and we're going to edit all the colors together. But if you find these in craft at a craft store, that's also absolutely fine. Then we have our light with a softbox, which is going to influence all of our highlights and shadows, and the reason why we have a softbox is because we want all of the lights to be softer and not too harsh. Then last but not least, we have our paper roll. It's now holding on a stand but if you don't have a stand, you can simply push your table next to a wall, use some tape and just hold it in place. What you need to have is quite a soft curve as you don't want to create any hard shadows when you're taking pictures. Finally, we have the camera. In this case, I'm using an iPhone 12 pro, but if you have a camera or any type of other phone, anything would do. Cool, let's dive in. Now that we have everything set up, we can take our product and start creating compositions that feel right to the project and that we like. Let's start with the first one, just our top and we can place it somewhere around there. Then we'll take our phone and just go into camera mode. Just by simply placing it in the middle, if you can activate the grid on your phone or your camera, it will be great and always try to position it in the middle of the grid. It will look like something like that, and we can just shoot. If you have an iPhone, you can use the portrait mode, that can be really good. As you can see here I have the product in the middle and I'm going to shoot. What that does is it blurs the background, so that could be something really good and will save you a step in Photoshop. Just one product. It looks a bit boring so this is where we can really have fun and use our props. For example, I'm going to take my two lids and I'm going to use them as planes. I'm going to stuck them up just to give some height to the product and place it on top. Just by doing something like that, the product is a little bit more fun and it's a bit more unique. It doesn't look like just an online mock-up you can download. You will do the same thing, you would just put it in shot and then take a couple of pictures. Make sure that everything looks right. Just take a few different ones from different angles. For example, if you want to get really cool, so you do it from the top. You want to show the lead. That can be quite fun because they're all the same shape. Then you can just keep on experimenting. For example, if you want to add a different flavor or a second one, you could do something like this. Tape could come in handy here. But you just have them together and you can just take a picture again. Or if that's too high and it looks a bit weird, you can always remove one of the pins and have your other product here. Again, soon as you have them, once you look at them through the phone lens, you can see what works and what doesn't. That looks a bit weird to me. Maybe they're one next to each other and they look like that. Maybe that's the key flavor and that's the secondary one. You can just keep on playing and position them in a way that looks good for your project. Cool. I'm pretty happy with that. I think that looks pretty fun. I'm just going to go ahead and take a picture. Now we should have a couple of good shots in different compositions. The next step would be to save all the images, transfer them onto our computer, and go through them. Once we're happy with them, we can just move on to Photoshop and apply all the knowledge we've learned from the previous techniques. It's time to select our images. Now that we have shot all of our images, let's transfer them onto our computer and see which one we like the best. Now that we have the folder with all of our images, we can go through them and see which ones we're happy with. We can just preview them and flicker through to see which ones would work best with a mock-up we have in mind. Once we've done that, let's make sure to mark them green, and let's get started. Go ahead and click on to the next lesson. See you there. 12. Fourth Technique: Photographing your own Mock-Ups {Part 2}: Let's start with our ice cream mock-up. Here's the flat design that we'll be using today. As you can see, this design is very colorful and playful. How can we inject some of that personality in the composition we just shot? Let's take one of our blank images and get started. Let's get started and open our image in Photoshop. Once we have that opening Photoshop, we want to click on the layer and duplicate it. We always want to make sure to have a copy of the original layer underneath, but we don't need to see it. We can untick it and make sure it's not visible. Then we're going to zoom in, and what we want to be doing is we want to create masks for every single element, so we're able to just select them on and off during our mock-up, if you want to change a color, if you want to create a smart object, and it's something that will help you and serve you as a guide throughout the whole process. I'm going to go ahead and click on the Pen tool and I'm just going to select the top. Once I'm happy with the selection of the top, I'm going to click on Command Enter and activate that selection. Once that selection is activated, I'm going to click on New Layer, and I'm going to pick a bright color as it will be the color for our masks. Once we're happy with the color, we're going to go ahead onto the paint bucket tool and just fill the selection. We're also going to name the Layer tab, is super important as we will have different masks. Then we're going to go ahead and do the exact same thing for the small planes, so the first one. We're going to click on the Pen tool, create our selection, and once we're happy with it, click Command Enter. Make sure to create a new layer, and pick another really bright color and just fill the shape. As you can see, the plinth is now selected, but it's hiding some of the tab. In this case, in this mask, we just want the plinth and nothing else. What we're going to do is we're going to go ahead and command-click on the top layer, and as you will see, we will have the top selected and just press Delete onto the small plinth mask, and we will delete that selection. Then we're going to go ahead and name it Small Plinth. Last but not least, we're going to do the same with the big plinth. Remember to use your Pen tool and just create the selection. Once you're happy with the selection, press Command Enter to activate it, and create a new layer. Again, I'm going to pick a bright color here. Once we're happy with the color, we're going to use our Paint Bucket tool to fill it. Exactly as it happened with the small plinth, as you can see here, we have selected the entire plinth, but we don't want any of the small plinth to be part of it. We're going to click on Command and hover onto the small plinth and just click to activate that selection, and we're going to go back to the big plinth layer and just delete that selection. By doing that, we will only have the big plinth as a part of the mask. I'm going to go ahead and name this layer big plinth. We're going to do the same with the lid off the top. As you can see, now we would have four different masks. Let's make sure to select all those layers and press Command G or Control G to group them and name the group of masks. What we want to do now is we want to select the masks and the background copy, and just press Command T and adjust it, make it a bit bigger, and make sure it's centered. As you can see, the background has the white paper, but we can see some of the wall. What we want to do is we want to hide that. We're going to press our Selection tool and just create a rectangle near the end of the paper. Once we have the selection press Command T and just extend it until the end of the canvas. We're going to do that for both sides. As you can see, it will be good to have a bit more brightness and contrast in the overall image. We're going to go ahead and click on Curves. Remember to press Option while hovering onto the layer underneath, and you will have a little arrow showing. Once you click on it, that means that those curves only apply to the layer underneath. Now we're going to go ahead until we're happy with the new adjustments. Then we're going to do the same with channel mixer as the image is a bit blue and just make sure it looks neutral and quite realistic. Once again, press Option, have the little arrow, so both these adjustment layers will only refer to the layer underneath. Now it's time to create our labels. We're going to click on the rectangle tool and just create a rectangle that will be our label. We're going to go ahead and right-click and convert it to a smart object. Here we're going to start distorting it and warping it until we're happy with the result, we're going to go into our masks, and we're going to press Command and hover over the top mask, and just activate that selection. Go back into our smart object and create a mask. Now let's double-click on towards smart object and paste our design. Once we paste it, we can press Command S to save it and close the file, just to see how it initially fits. Obviously, it's not covering the entire top, so we're going to go ahead double-click on it. This is why it's super important to have smart objects. Again, adjust it until it fits the entire label. Once we're done, press Command S and close the file. As you can see now it's fitting the entire label, but it's still not looking super realistic. We're going to go ahead, Right-click, and just work and distort it further until it looks realistic. Now it's time to apply highlights and shadows. There's many ways of doing this. You can multiply the layer to the actual photo, just like we did with the stock images technique. My personal preference, which I feel it's a bit of a cheat, but it saves a lot of time. I would go online and look for a mock-up. That is for an ice cream tub. Obviously, at this point, we know how to identify a good mock-up from a less realistic one. Once I go into that mock-up, I'm going to look for the highlights and shadows. Most of the times, these would be renders, so they will be very realistic. Once we have that, I'm going to copying them onto our photo. This is the highlights layer. I'm going to adjust it, so it fits our tab, and I'm going to mask it by pressing Command, hovering them to the top mask, and then just printing a mask around the highlights. What I want to do next, is I want to go into our blending modes and press Screen. Then these are our shadows, and we're going to do the exact same thing. Good to make a mask, and make sure that the blending mode, in this case, is multiplied. Just like that, it looks super realistic. What we want to do next is we're going to do the exact same process for the lid. We're going to create our rectangle and warp it and distort it until we're happy, and it fits the shape nicely. We're done going to hover over the lid mask and activate that selection and mask the rectangle, which is a smart object. Then we're going to double-click onto the smart object and paste our design and adjust it until we're happy with it. Then as always, press Command S to save it and close the file. As you can see, you will automatically adjust to our smart object. Then we're going to go ahead and untick the chain, so we're able to modify and distort it. Right-click and click on Warp, and just play around with it until we're happy with it. As you can see, we can really see the inner part of the lid, which doesn't make it super realistic. We're going to go ahead and zoom in and just select these two corners of the tub and delete them from the lid selection. Now what we're going to do is we're going to hover over lid with this new selection, press Enter, go on to the previous mask, delete the layer mask and create a new mask. As you can see, it looks much more realistic. Once again, we're going to go ahead, and we can warp it. What we want to do, in this case, we just want to go into the blending mode and change it from normal to multiply. There we have it. If we want to go one step further, we could color those little corners, as they would be dark pink, in this case. We're going to go ahead and just with our pen tool, we're going to select them, and once they're both painted in, we're going to select all of the other masks and make sure that only the part that we want is painted, and having all multiply. What we want to do next is we want to play with our plinth. What we're going to do is, we're going to hover over our small plinth mask and press Enter to activate that selection. We're going to then create a new layer , and in this case, I want this to be dark pink, so I'm just going to use our paint bucket tool to paint it in. Then I'm going to play with blending mode, use multiply, and then again add adjustment layers to saturation until I'm happy with the color here. You can spend as much time as you want until you're happy with the final result. I'm going to group it and make sure to call it small plinth. Then going to do the exact same thing with the big plinth. What we want to do next is we want to change the background color. This is why having mask is super handy. We're going to select all of our elements, so press Command and click on the Masks, and if you want to add the selections, just press Command Shift and click on all the masks until they're all one combined selection. Then you are going to want to press Command Shift I to invert that selection. Once that selection is inverted, you're going to want to create a new layer and pick a bright color and with our paint bucket tool, fill it in. This will be just a selection for us for the background, and make sure it's part of the masks group. Now we can just create a new layer by having the same background selected. In this case, I want a very light pink. Again, I'm going to play around with our blending modes, and I'm going to pick multiply. Last but not least, so we could be pretty much done here. What I want to do next is I want to make sure that everything is really vibrant and really bright and has a lot of contrast. I'm going to go ahead and just create curves and play around with them until I'm happy. I'm going to do this for every group, until I'm happy with the overall result. I'm happy where we are right now, but I actually want to add some personality and add some storytelling to our mock-up. What I'm going to do, I'm going to go back into the label and select one of the icons. In this case, I'm going to pick the coconut milk. I'm just going to copy it, and I'm going to paste it at a smart object in Photoshop. Here I'm going to play around, and I know I want to have it over the top, so I'm just going to make sure to drag that layer underneath the top layer. I'm going to move it around. I'm then going to do the same with the chocolate. In this case, I want to mask it out in this. I'm just going to select the tub and the lids, invert that selection, and just apply it to the icon. I'm going to go ahead until I'm happy, and just like that, we have a mock-up that was created from scratch, and it's a unique composition, and you can go ahead and do this for as many projects as you like and in as many compositions as you like. Now, it's time for our second mock-up for body souffles. This is a design I've used. This design, on the other hand, is premium. How can we inject and communicate this type of quality using the same blank mock-up we've just used for our ice cream brand? These are the results I've achieved using the exact same photos, compositions, and technique we've just gone through for our ice cream mock-up. Just like that, we've gone through all of our four techniques. See you in the last and final lesson. 13. Final thoughts: Congratulations on completing the course. I hope you had fun and enjoyed creating all different mock-ups. We've started from the very beginning and learned about mock-ups, what they are and why they're so important. We've then gone through some of the key principles, such as lighting and composition, and we've learned four different mock-up techniques. The first technique was all about creating a packaging from scratch in Adobe Dimension and in Adobe Photoshop. We then looked at free and paid online mock-ups. For the third technique, we used stock imagery to create super realistic scenes. Last but not least, for our fourth and last technique, we photographed our own unique compositions. Now that you've learned all of these techniques, you can pretty much create a mock-up for any project. I can't wait to see what mock-ups you've created for all of the class projects. Please make sure to post them onto the project gallery and try them with all of the other students. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just want to say hi, feel free to post something in the discussion tab or just send me a message. If you'd like to learn more about packaging design, make sure to check out my other class within the same series of ABC of packaging design. It's all about back of pack and storytelling. Great, this is it, you've reached the end of the class, thanks again so much for watching and see you soon. [MUSIC]