Making Your Own Mockup Photo That Uses Zazzle's Shadow

[KeegansCreation]

Zazzle has introduced the ability to download one of their mockup photos. Their mockup photo has their background which must be removed. This means cutting away all of their background, including the shadow they put in.( I have not found a way to delete the background behind the shadow in a way that looks convincing when a new background is put in. If anybody has, I hope they explain how in a reply. ) But if the Zazzle background is white, you can disappear it using blend modes in your graphics program and keep their shadow.

1. Download their mockup photo that has a white background.
2. Open it in your graphics program.
3. Duplicate the layer it is on.
4. In this new duplicated top layer, completely isolate the Zazzle product. Cut away all of the background including the shadow.
5. Plunk in a new background and move it to the bottom of the layer stack. Now you have a 3 layer sandwich with the new background on the bottom, the original Zazzle mockup in the middle and the completely isolated object on the top.
6. Set the middle layer- the original Zazzle mockup- to a layer blend mode of Multiply.
7. Doing that disappears the white background of the middle. Now the shadow shows on the new background.

[Cat]

Hmmm... well I guess that could work, but only if the shadow in the Zazzle mockup is the going same direction/angle as the other shadows in your new background image. I use GIMP instead of PhotoShop, so there may be different vocabulary used to describe all this, but I think the process should be similar.

I just cut out the image of the product itself (no shadow), then put my new background in a layer behind it.  Then I create a new layer between the product and the background for the new shadow. To create the shadow, I select the area of the product, grow it a little bit, fill it with black, remove the selection outline, apply a gaussian blur, then reduce the opacity to an appropriate level. Then you can grab and move the shadow appropriately and/or apply some sort of perspective transform to make it look like it's going the same direction/angle as the other shadows in the background image.

Not sure if I explained that very well, but that's my process.

[Cat]

Here are some images to illustrate what I mean. I hope this is helpful and not obnoxious or anything. I'm sure my shadows could be more convincing if I worked at it harder, but this system generally only takes me a minute or two and I figure it's good enough!

p.s. In this image I have the shadow layer set at about 25% opacity, but you can vary that depending on how dark you want it to be, 

[plumb4me]

This is similar to what is mentioned above. This is a simple way for me to do it.

My designs are simple, so I just use the download artwork feature and I get a nice big clear image of the design, with no shadows.

1. On the image, I select the background, remove it and make it transparent.
2. Then I cut and paste the image and put it on the product mockup.
3. Sometimes, I just paste it on the product mockup, so I can select the image background and change the color to white or any color, if I don't want it to be the same background color as the mockup.
4. Sometimes, I add a new layer and paste it on the product mockup and merge it, but I can't change the image background color, it will stay the same color as the mockup.
5. Then I change the size of the mockup and it's finished.
6. The download artwork image is the same resolution as the download product mockup image, but I don't get the background of the product, just the design.

[plumb4me]

I know this not exactly what you where talking about, when you were talking about using the shadows. 

[EsseEffe]

Hi everyone!

I'm new here and trying to understand how Zazzle works. I am creating my first products, but I am having a hard time downloading my design images to create custom mock-ups. Plumb4me was talking about download artwork but I can't find this option anywhere. Can someone give me a hand? 
Thank you all and sorry for my bad english!

Stefania

[Barbara]

To download your product image, go to the product page and enlarge the image (double arrow) if it's too small. You have to take a screenshot of the image and save it to your computer. I use specific software for doing this, but it can be done with your operating system too. For that, someone else will have to explain it to you because I never use it.

Colorwash's Home

[Marcia]

At the top of your product page, on the top right of the bar, you will see "more options". Click on that & its pulldown will give you the option of download artwork or download product mockup. Whatever product view you've clicked on will be the product mockup downloaded. if you want more than 1 view downloaded, click on an additional view & repeat.

[Barbara]

@Marcia  I had no idea! I never seem to click on anything that says "more options." Good thing other people do. LOL

Colorwash's Home

[virginia_zazzle]

Wow, downloaded image is so much better quality than a screenshot, thanks Marcia!

[EsseEffe]

I’m back! Thank you Marcia and Barbara for your answers! Really appreciate that!

[persicaria]

Hi!

I'm interested in good mock-ups too! Have things changed on Zazzle? I go to my product page and only get option to Transfer design, Hide listing or Delete listing. (Tried to do screen shot but wouldn't let me...) I also tried to download photo of product but the image size is only 500pix by 500pix so the Zazzle mockup is too small to be usable anyway. All very sad!

[Frances-Creates]

Hi persicaria,

I was looking for this too. 

It looks like it is now under the "Downloads" link (3 links down from the "More Options..." link.  Here, the mockup image size will be 2048x2048.

[persicaria]

Frances-Creates, 

You are a genius! I am so thrilled to read your answer...and it works! 2048 x 2048 is not too bad! Thank you thank you thank you!

[LauraLee]

Just wanted to add that someone mentioned Clipping Magic's site on here...idk where or who did, but I fell in love with this app.  *Thanks to who mentioned it. -game changer for me.*  It's the fastest, non headachey way to clip your products.  Then, go to Canva, and go to elements and look for mockups for specific things.  From there, you can add your product over a mockup image, and also add (if you need to) some shadows, which you can also edit how much and which direction. 

[Barbara]

Because, as I understand it, Gimp has a large amount in it that's similar to Photoshop, I ran a search on "Gimp drop shadow" and found that it has two separate filters to automatically create a drop shadow, the one relying on adding an alpha layer the closest match to what Photoshop does. I suspect you might be able to do things such as what Photoshop did for me with this mockup where I stretched and warped the shadow behind the poster. I was also able to add a drop shadow within the poster's frame. For good explanations of how to do it in Gimp, just run the same search that I used. (Gimp drop shadow)

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by colorwash