We talked about a PSD coloring file. A PSD file can be a lot of things since it can be edited and re-edited over and over. 

So let's talk about a PSD mockup file.

A mockup allows you to create images that help show off your designs as they would appear on most anything. A T-shirt, a mug, a billboard, CD covers, and of course a book. A mockup lets designers showcase their work.

I'm going to show off a book mockup but there are many different kinds of mockups out there. Some can be used for free and there are others that require you to purchase the fine. Trust me, there are tons of free ones. Many of these templates are created for professional use so the file sizes are quite large. If you want to display them on Wattpad they'll need to be resized and made smaller or they won't upload to Wattpad.

With these mockup files, you can't open it and slap your image directly on it and call it a day. They are made to make things appear as realistic as possible for a digital file. These templates have layers that Photoshop calls a smart object, this allows you to replace their example image with an image of your own. A smart object layer allows you to place an object correctly without having to adjust anything.

This is the mockup we'll be using to show you how they work.

As you can see, it looks like a typical PSD file, but there's a marked difference between the two. Do you see the layer the arrow is pointing to and how it has the little square in the corner? That is called a smart object layer. 

So what is a smart object?

Smart Objects preserve an image's source content with all its original characteristics, enabling you to perform nondestructive editing to the layer.

In other words, you can replace an image without having to adjust anything. It will prevent the destruction of the original look the designer intended for the graphic. If you open a mock-up file and try to put an image over what's there it likely won't lay correctly and it won't be seamless.

You can see if you drag the layer onto the mock-up, the book is at a slight angle and it's impossible to make the cover image fit unless you want to take the time to warp it out of shape and force it to fit the cover and possibly have to erase pieces of it to fit along the edges. It is possible if you have a mock-up that's facing straight on you can drag a layer and just slap it over things. But it always looks better if you use the smart object layer because it is meant to make things appear realistic. The original creator probably made adjustments so the smart layer fit and appears seamless.

Let's place the cover correctly on the mockup -

Double-click on the layer that is designated as the smart object layer and open it. 

Whenever you open a smart object layer, you'll get this dialogue box. It's basically telling you to hit 'save' when you have the layer how you want it. DO NOT use the save as option or you will be creating a new file! Just hit save to save it to the same file so it changes the image on the mock-up. Click 'ok' and it will open the smart object layer.

You can see the smart object layer looks like a book cover. Since these mockups are designed for published works, the cover size differs from the size of a Wattpad book a great deal. You will most likely have to stretch the cover slightly to get it to fit without cutting anything off the edges. 

Once you have your smart object layer open, drag the book's cover onto it. You can see it's quite small in comparison to the mock-up layer. Again, this is because these are made for published books. Cover designs for published books are extremely large files and usually a higher resolution than what is used on Wattpad by most designers.

Resize the cover so it fits the layer. You can see the cover comes up short on one side, so it's going to have to be stretched a bit to make it fit. Once you fit the cover to the layer, hit save and go back and look at the mock-up, your cover should be there.

On some of the mock-ups they allow you to change backgrounds as well if you'd like. 

You can see this mock-up file has two background images. One labeled 'backdrop' and one labeled 'model background'. The backdrop layer is the textured wall and wooden table layer, if you turn that layer off you will see the model background, which is just a plain white background. 

If you turn off the backdrop layer your book is left on a plain white background. It's sort of boring. The other background is nicer, but I don't think it goes with our book cover. It's a little too cheery. The thing with changing the background is you must make certain it's positioned correctly so your book isn't floating awkwardly or sitting oddly on whatever you place there.

You can see this background image was very small and I had to make it huge to fit and cover the entire background. It doesn't sit right and the book looks as if it's going to tip forward and fall, also the background image is slightly fuzzy. 

Rather than attempting to find an entirely new background and force it to fit, sometimes it's easier to simply give the existing background a new look by overlaying layers. That is what I did here. I added layers to darken the wood and the wall. I also gave the wall a different texture. Now the background fits a little better with the cover image. 

Here are the new background layers I added. Two are for the wall and one overlays the wood. Just make certain when you put them into place they cover the entire background and come together at the seam where the wall and floor meet without looking awkward. 

I mentioned there are many different kinds of mockup files. Below are several I've used before to show you some of the different kinds.

Album cover mock-up

Billboard mock-up

Sign mock-up

CD mock-up

I've done many different mockups. Mugs, concert tickets, credit cards, a makeup line, a flag, plus the ones I posted above as examples. They're easy to find all you need to do is Google what you're searching for.