Do you ever get frustrated about mock-ups not doing your work enough justice and just looking, well, boring, like “duh, it is just a design slapped on a [any-object-out-there] on a plain or slightly playful background”? I’ve been creating mock-ups for my design projects and concept for printed products for a very long time, and until recently, to create exciting (I mean proper scenes, not just an object on a surface with some interesting lighting) mock-ups you’d either have to create some pretty complex 3D renders, or spend hours creating intense photo manipulations in Adobe Photoshop, or create an actual physical mock-up and take it for a photoshoot. Sounds like fun, but all of these take either a lot of time, or extra budget, or both. And that’t why there are so many super straightforward mock-ups around—and I’ve been creating those for a while too. But for me it all changed when Adobe Firefly got its Composition Reference feature: now I can easily create mock-ups of specific objects and also generate the scenes around them which help to say a bit more about the product or the target audience, communicate values and generally create relatable and exciting lifestyle settings!

Admittedly I got a bit obsessed with exploring all the possibilities for generating different lifestyle scenes in Adobe Firefly, so in this project I will share just a few of my favourite mock-ups I have created for a fictitious brand of home fragrances, talk about how I approached coming up with each scene and share some technical details, and some extra tips and tricks as well.

It all started with me generating a reed diffuser and its box packaging, and the example you see in the class demo was generated before the Composition Reference feature existed. But I liked the vibe of the image so much, that I decided to use it for demo. But since then, I have generated quite a few new images for the range of products which have a cleaner photographic look, which I intend to build upon as I further develop this project.

 

Reed Diffusers & Boxes

I wanted to generate some more straightforward packaging mock-ups to showcase both the product and the box it is sold in. This sort of mock-ups might not tell much about the product in the emotive sense, but help to build awareness and recognition and showcase the product in its potential “natural habitat”, i.e. a particular style of interior. 

These images were generated using Style Reference images previously generated in Adobe Firefly. So to transfer the style, I had to simplify the prompt and remove the objects’ descriptions from it. Using Style References for these images allowed me to generate some materials which otherwise would be quite difficult to get out of Firefly using prompts—so if you are after something specific, or just want to go wild, throw some style references into the mix and see what happens!

Prompt / Green Bottle (a variation of the prompt from the class demo):

A cylindrical frosted matt green glass diffuser bottle with a tall white box it was packaged in next to it, both are on a modern sleek white console table against a white wall, a Bonsai plant in a minimal clay pot next to them, a stack or designer coffee table books to the other side. Minimalist, airy and cozy Scandinavian interior with natural sort diffused light. Product photography, studio.

Effects: Product Photo, Dramatic Light.

Prompt / Blue Bottle & Creamy Bottle (simplified):

A cylindrical glass diffuser bottle with a tall white box it was packaged in next to it, both are on a modern sleek white console table against a white wall, a plant in a minimal clay pot next to them. Minimalist, airy and cozy Scandinavian interior with natural sort diffused light. Product photography, studio.

Effects / Blue Bottle: Product Photo, Dramatic Light, Cinematic, Surface Detail.

Effects / Creamy Bottle: Product Photo, Studio Light, Cinematic, Surface Detail.

Style Reference Image Prompt / Blue Pot (generated without any effects)

A cylindrical dark blue frosted glass pot with a white label for a night cream on a polished marble countertop in a luxurious bathroom. Brass interior details, fresh white towels neatly stacked, and a vase with lavender stems. Serene and indulgent atmosphere. Soft diffused light. Product photography, lifestyle.

Style Reference Image Prompt / Creamy Bottle (generated without any effects)

A cylindrical frosted glass bottle with a white label, on a wooden shelf next to a towel and an orchid in a pot. Serene spa. Tranquil, luxurious vibe with soft candlelit lighting.

Hack: All of these were generated using the same Composition Reference image with the Maximum Composition Reference Strength, so once one mock-up was created in Photoshop, creating the other ones took pretty much no time, as I only needed to swap designs and set images, slightly edit the masks and make minor adjustments to the lighting and shading—so this is a hack you might want to try as well when creating a series of mock-ups for the same object with different designs or the same design, but in different settings!

To take advantage of the look of generated glass bottles, I have experimented with different blending modes of the design layers (and in the end used Soft Light & Screen for the blue bottle and Hard Light for the creamy and green bottles) and enhanced the look by using a highlights layer based on the set image (the same way as I have demonstrated with the box in the class). I haven’t created any additional shadows or highlights for the bottles, and relied on the blending with the surface and highlights applied on top to create the desired effect.

Boxes were created using exactly the same technique as shown in the class demo, just in these case as they appear slightly out of focus, I have increased the blur amount and also slightly blurred the layer mask.

Tip: If you have any mock-up objects or their parts which are out of focus, you can use Gaussian Blur, or for a more gradual and realistic effect, try Tilt-Shift and/or Field Blur.

I also had to create a reflections of the boxes in the surfaces, but that was fairly easy and after reflecting a copy of the smart object with the box design, took only a minor adjustment to the Perspective Warp, some levels adjustments, some blurring or the Smart Object and the mask and change of the blending mode to Multiply.

 

Pillow Mist, Reed Diffuser & Essential Oil Bottles

With the pillow mist, alternative reed diffuser mock-up and the bottle (let’s assume it is for a essential oil mix for a scented bath), I wanted to create scenes which help to evoke the right feelings and make you feel the smell and the environment, communicating the scent of the products.

 

Pillow Mist Bottle:

Prompt: A small plain cylindrical green glass luxury pillow mist bottle on a fallen tree in a jungle. Plants in the background. Serene, zen-like atmosphere. Soft morning sunlight coming through the canopy of trees. Product photography, lifestyle.

Effects: Product Photo, Cinematic, Studio Light, Surface Detail.

For the pillow mist I explored creating both a translucent and a solid label. And for shading, to avoid spending too much time manually setting up a gradient, I simply copied a part of the bottle, stretched it vertically to cover the shape fully, and then blurred it, applied Levels and Hue/Saturation adjustment to it, and blended it with the label design. Use this hack if you need to transfer some complex shading, and particularly a metallic effect, from one part of the mock-up object to your design.

 

Reed Diffuser Bottle in Savannah:

Prompt: A plain cylindrical glass diffuser bottle with a matte white finish on a sandy ground in savannah, landscape with sparse trees out of focus in the background. Dreamy, hazy sunrise, diffused morning light. Product photography, studio.

Effects: Product Photo, Cinematic, Studio Light, Surface Detail, Misty.

The Savannah Haze bottle was originally generated as a reed diffuser bottle using composition reference which I then developed in Adobe Photoshop into an alternative product. The Forest Walk Pillow Mist was generated using a loose Composition Reference of a cylindrical object with the Minimum Composition Reference Strength.

 

Hand Soap & Candle Contextual Mock-ups

These two mock-ups basically showcase the products in the environment where they can be used and this sort of scene is just a little step up from the first kind of mock-ups which showcase packaging and build awareness: in this case, they create a more relatable context and with the use of other elements in the scene help to create an atmosphere and communicate how the product will make you feel.

 

Hand Soap Bottle:

Prompt: A cylindrical frosted amber glass hand soap bottle standing on a glossy marble countertop in a luxurious bathroom. Brass interior details, neatly stacked two fresh white towels, and a vase with cotton stems. Serene and indulgent atmosphere. Soft diffused light. Product photography, lifestyle.

Effects: Product Photo, Cinematic, Studio Light, Surface Detail.

 

Candle:

Prompt: A matte white glass cylindrical candle pot on a whitewashed wooden coffee table in a coastal style living room next to a decorative bowl. Relaxing scene, light and airy luxurious interior with muted blue accents. Ocean view through large windows with the sheer curtains. Soft natural light. Product photography, lifestyle.

Effects: Product Photo, Cinematic, Studio Light, Surface Detail, Beautiful.

The bottle image was generated in this style almost by chance as the prompt specified amber glass, but at some point Firefly got creative and I guess mixed amber with soap—and to be honest, I love this accidental look much more than the straightforward amber glass! So when generating your images, take advantage of Firefly’s attempts to get creative with interpreting your prompts and generate more than one or two sets of images with the same prompt to get to something exciting or weird. Throwing a style reference into the mix for a couple of generations and then removing it can also trip Firefly up and make it generate something fun and unexpected. This, obviously, works best when there is some room for material variation.

The candle image was generated using a Composition Reference image of a pump bottle (created in Adobe Dimension from a standard object), and the candle was generates using a simply cylinder as a reference (which you'll find in the class resources).

 

Two Stacked Candle Boxes

Prompt: A stack of 2 white boxes against a plain white background on top of white marble table top, relaxing spa vibes, studio photography, product photography.

Effects: Product Photo, Cinematic, Studio Light, Surface Detail, Minimalism.

This is probably the most boring mock-up in the whole set as it just features packaging in a pretty basic setting and I am planning to create some alternatives which have a bit more character to them and also feature the actual product. But I wanted to include this mock-up here as an example of creating multi-object mock-ups which feature the same kind of object more than once: for these you’ll need a pretty specific Composition Reference and use Maximum Composition Reference Strength. I am planning to experiment with this kind of scenes more soon, and I’ll be sure to share my findings.

 

And this is it for now, hope you have picked up a few additional tips and tricks and some ideas for approaching creating your mock-ups! Thanks for reading, stay tuned for updates and ask away if you have any questions!

—Evgeniya