How to Make Product Mockups in Pixelmator Pro on iPad

When you’re doing graphic design work or DT with students, they create the most incredible designs, whether they’re digital or physical. And quite often, you might want to put these into different contexts or scenarios, so they can see how they would look in the real world. Imagine designing a logo and getting to see it on a jumper, on a mug or on a can of drink.

All of those would be really cool ways to bring that learning to life in real-world situations, but they’re really difficult unless you’re an expert in Photoshop, with all the layers and stuff. Well, actually, not any more, because Pixelmator Pro on the iPad has a bunch of features built in that let you create your own mockups on physical items, using whatever artwork you give it. Let me show you how it works. It’s simpler than you might think.

And before I do, if you’re new around here, then hi, I’m Jacob, a former teacher and now a YouTuber, here to help you make the most of your devices, whether that’s at school, in the classroom or at home. So, if you want more quick and easy-to-follow guides to unlock the full value of your tech, please do press subscribe now.

Okay, I’ve opened up the Pixelmator Pro app on the iPad, and we’re going to create a brand-new document. Now, we have a bunch of different templates here that we can use, from social media graphics to video thumbnails and everything in between. But if we scroll right down, there’s a category called Mockups.

In here, we can see lots of different types of physical products with images put on top. We have things like vinyl records and posters. We have coffee cups, mugs and cans of drink. And there’s a whole bunch of apparel as well, including sweatshirts, T-shirts and more, both with models wearing them and laid flat on the ground.

And you’ll notice when you tap on one of these that the image on there, that kind of starting image, is actually bent and warped over the item of clothing. It’s not just a flat image stuck on top, which wouldn’t look very realistic at all.

What’s great in Pixelmator Pro is that you can simply tap the plus button next to that placeholder image and select any picture from your device. So, maybe you’ve taken a photograph of some artwork, or perhaps they’ve drawn on the iPad. Whatever you’ve got, you can use in here. My advice would be to try and remove the background first, so you’ve got a transparent PNG, a kind of irregular shape, rather than just a square that you’re sticking on top of the T-shirt.

I’ll go for my QuickTips logo here, and it appears on the sweater immediately. If we zoom in a little bit, you can even see the fabric texture on that image, and you can see that it’s not flat. There’s some warping to it. In fact, we can edit that as well if you want to, by tapping Edit here, and then we can rearrange how it looks and what size it is on that garment.

But, of course, you might not want this cream-coloured garment. In fact, for me, I’d love it to be teal. You won’t be surprised to learn that. Well, if we go on to the Layers panel here, we can choose the different preset options built into this particular template, and one of them is the colour of the jumper itself.

Tapping on the Apparel Colour layer here means I can then go to my Effects tab on the right-hand toolbar, and I can choose whatever colour I like using my colour picker. Here, you can experiment. You can see what works really well. Perhaps it’s going to complement the artwork, or contrast with it. Perhaps it will match your school uniform colour.

Whatever you decide to do, you can customise this until you’ve got the perfect design. And then, when you’ve finished it, when it’s absolutely sorted, you can simply share it as a photo straight to your device, straight to your learning platform of choice, or AirDrop it back to your students.

And that’s how quick and easy it is to create a real-world mockup from student artwork using Pixelmator Pro on the iPad. If you enjoyed this QuickTip, please do subscribe, and then you might enjoy this one next.