WHAT WE’RE CREATING:

Hello lovely designers! Renee back for round two of tutorials this month! Today we’re going to put together a festive holiday scene in Photoshop featuring 3 separate pieces of artwork created in Illustrator. You’re going to get a great idea of how easy it is to use mockup templates, as well as how effective they can be for showcasing your work.

This tutorial features the mockups currently available as part of our Most Extensive Mockup Templates Bundle of All Time.

Holiday Scene

Let’s jump right in!

Step 1: The Setting

Instead of starting with a new document like we usually would, we’re going to start with the scene creator that has everything already loaded into it.

Navigate to your Place.to folder and open DesignCuts-Scene-Creator.psd.

To tell you the truth, we’re already like 50% done. All the items are already there with their shadows and it’s just a matter of finding the pieces you want to keep, arranging them how you like and adding a few custom touches!

The first thing we want to do is save a new copy of the file with a different name. Don’t save over your original!

After saving as a new file, take a look at your folders in your Layers palette (Window > Layers). We can delete the layer Thank You (at the very top) and the folder called DesignCut Team (not because we don’t love them—we totally do). In order to delete the Thank You layer, just click once on the padlock icon to the right of the layer in the Layers palette. Then you’re free to click the trash icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to delete.

Next up, click on the arrow to the left of the folder called Light Filters to open the folder and view the layers. Delete all of the folders inside Light Filters EXCEPT Film: Sepia. Each of the folders contain locked layers, so to delete the group, you’ll need to unlock the layers first. Open each folder (for instance: Fashion – Midnight) and select all of the layers inside by clicking on the top layer, then holding shift and clicking on the bottom layer. With all the layers selected, click the padlock icon at the top of the Layers palette to unlock them all at once. Once they’re unlocked, you’ll be able to delete the entire group.

Holiday Scene

Click the little box to the left of Film: Sepia to turn the group on. Select the Film: Sepia folder and at the top of the Layers palette, change the Opacity to 50%.

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You can now close the Light Filters group by pressing the arrow to the left of the group name in the Layers palette.

Open the group named Infront of desk. Delete the folder named Metallic Chair. Turn on both groups named Plant top. Select the top Plant top group and hold shift while pressing your left arrow on the keyboard 3-4 times. This will move the plant a little more out of the image area.

Repeat for the bottom Plant top group, but press only about 2 times on your right arrow while holding shift.

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The last bit of tidying up before starting into our objects will be the Desk group. Open the folder called Desk. Inside of that is a folder called Surface. Open that, then open the folder inside called Surface Types. In Surface Types, turn on the group named Grunge Wood. Turn off the layer named White Glossy.

Holiday Scene

Back out of the folder until you’re back inside the Desk folder. Open the group called Legs. Turn on Black thick trestle legs and turn off Black thin trestle legs.

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There are several different Wall color and texture options, but I like the default white concrete wall, so we can leave that alone.

Now open the Poster framers group. Inside, turn on the groups 30 x 40 cm – Thin (small whitespace), 30 x 40 cm – Thick and 50 x 70 cm – Thin.

Holiday Scene

As you can see, these are stacked together. In your Layers palette, select the group 30 x 40 cm – Thin (small whitespace), the frame on the top, and use your Selection tool (v) to drag it to the right until it only overlaps the largest frame by a small amount. Hold down shift to stay on the same horizontal axis.

Holiday Scene

Now we’ll do the same thing for the 30 x 40 cm – Thick frame, except drag it to the left while holding down shift.

Holiday Scene

We’ll fill in the frames last. Let’s start on the accessories!

Step 2: Desktop Items

Open the Accessories folder and stand back! There’s a lot in there.

There’s not really a straightforward technique for this part – it’s just about picking out what looks good together and putting them in pleasing clusters that support your theme.

Starting at the top…turn on the following layers:
Candle light holder ( c )
Christmas Elf ( c )
Christmas Elf
Hanging decoration ball ( c )
Hanging silver ball ( c )
Hanging pinecone
Red Christmas tree ( c )
Yule Goat ( c )
Red pom-pom ( c )
Snowman – this is the larger of the two snowmen with the same group name
Candle light ( r ) – there are three groups with this name, turn on all three
Gift packs ( c )
Hanging large decoration ball – turn on all three of these groups
Hanging small decoration ball
Pinecone 2
Pinecone
Wooden Christmas tree
Large decoration ball ( grunge ) laying ( c )

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Now we just need to do a bit of rearranging and reordering of the layers to make sure everything looks natural.

I like the default position of the Candle light holder ( c ) and Christmas elf, but I want to line up Christmas elf ( c ) with the left edge of the far right frame. Select the group named Christmas elf ( c ) and use your Selection tool to click and drag the elf to the right while holding down Shift. I’m going to line the top of his hat up with the left edge of the far right frame.

Holiday Scene

Next, we’ll move the 3 hanging balls on the left. In the Layers palette, select the groups Hanging decoration ball ( c ), Hanging silver ball ( c ) and Hanging pinecone. On the artboard and still with your Selection tool, click and drag them to the open space on the far left of the artboard.

Holiday Scene

Next up, select Red Christmas tree ( c ) in your Layers palette and on your artboard, click and drag it a little to the right…not quite to the edge of the desk.

Holiday Scene

Move the Red pom-pom group up (which visually translates to moving it further back on the desk) and to the left. Use the new space to slide the Yule Goat slightly to the left and down.

Holiday Scene

Let’s move our Snowman so that the top of his hat lines up with the right edge of the far left frame. This will somewhat mirror our elf on the other side and provide some balance.

Holiday Scene

I’m pretty happy with the location of the three Candle light layers, so we’ll leave those where they are.

Next is our Gift packs group. I want these to sit in front of the candles. To achieve that look, we’ll need to reorganize our layers. In the Layers palette, select Gift packs ( c ) and click and drag up to the space between Snowman and Candle light ( r ). There’s a little bit of an art to getting the group to drop in the correct place. If you’re too far over one of the other groups, it will be added to those. If that happens, just open the group and drag the Gift packs layer out again.

On the artboard, drag the gifts to the right until they rest in front of the candles.

Holiday Scene

Our next groups contain the hanging ornaments on the right. Select the group Hanging small decoration ball ( glitter ) ( c ). On the artboard, drag it to the left while holding shift and place it to the left of the white ornaments we moved earlier.

This will help carry a little of the color over to the otherwise monotone upper left corner.

Holiday Scene

Select the remaining hanging ornament layers in the Layers palette by holding cmd/ctrl to select multiple, non-sequential layers. Select Hanging large decoration ball ( grunge ) ( c ), Hanging large decoration ball ( matte ) ( c ) and Hanging large decoration ball ( blank ) ( c ). On the artboard, click and drag to the right while holding shift until the balls are in the large white area.

Holiday Scene

I would like Pinecone 2 to sit just in front of the Snowman, so this is another group we’ll need to re-organize. In your Layers palette, select Pinecone 2 and drag the group up above Snowman.

On the artboard, drag Pinecone 2 to the left side of the Snowman.

Holiday Scene

Select the group named Pinecone. On the artboard, move it up and to the right so it’s just peeking out from behind the elf.

Holiday Scene

The Wooden Christmas tree will sit just behind (move it up) and to the right of the elf.

Holiday Scene

And for our last item, Large decoration ball ( grunge ) laying ( c ), move it up a tiny bit and to the left so you can see more of it poking out from behind the snowman.

Holiday Scene

This is a pretty good looking scene!

Holiday Scene

Now we’ll create our poster art.

Step 3: Illustrator Posters

As you can see on our frames, they are nice enough to tell you exactly what size fits best. We’ll use that as our guide.

Open Illustrator and go to File > New. We’ll start with our large poster.

In the New Document dialog box, change the Units by clicking on the dropdown menu and selecting pixels. Then enter a width of 1000 and a height of 1400, then press OK.

Holiday Scene

First, let’s create a swatch. Open your Swatches palette (Window > Swatches). At the bottom of the palette, click on the New Swatch icon. Enter CMYK values of 98/75/50/52. This will be a very deep blue.

Select the Rectangle tool (m) and click once on the artboard. In the pop-up dialog box, enter a width of 1000 px and a height of 1400 px, then click OK.

Holiday Scene

Open your Align palette (Window > Align). Under Align Objects, click Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center.

Note: Any time your Align icons aren’t working, check the dropdown menu below Align To. It may be set to Align to Selection when you need Align to Artboard for centering a single item on the artboard.

With your Rectangle tool still selected, click and drag out a rectangle along the top of the artboard. Mine is about 125 pixels high. Make it wide enough to bleed off the edge of the artboard.

Holiday Scene

Open your Swatch palette and click on the tiny arrow on the top right to bring up a flyout menu. Go to Open Swatch Library > Gradients > Metals. This will open a very handy pre-made set of metallic gradients.

Click on Gold, the first swatch.

Holiday Scene

I want to add a bit of a rough edge, so we’ll use a brush. Open your Brush palette (Window > Brushes). Click on the tiny arrow at the top right to access the flyout menu. On the flyout menu, go to Open Brush Library > Artistic > Chalk Charcoal Pencil.

In the palette that opens, scroll down to a relatively thin charcoal line. I’m using Charcoal Feather.

Holiday Scene

Open your Stroke palette (Window > Stroke) and increase the weight to 10 pt.

Holiday Scene

We want to apply a nice even gradient to this entire shape, so we’ll go to Object > Expand Appearance. As you can see, that outlines your brush stroke, but to get it to create one single shape, we’ll need to open our Pathfinder palette (Window > Pathfinder) and select the first icon under Shape Modes, Unite.

If your color reverted back to blue, just select the gold gradient swatch again.

Holiday Scene

To duplicate this shape on the bottom of the artboard, use your Selection tool (v) and hold opt/alt + shift while clicking and dragging down on the rectangle. Position the second rectangle so that it dangles off the bottom of the artboard.

Holiday Scene

Open your Layers palette (Window > Layers). Double click on the name of the layer and rename it Background. Lock this layer by clicking once on the empty spot to the right of the eye icon on the Layers palette.

Click the Create New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Name this one Content.

Select your Type tool (t) and click on the artboard. Type Happy Holidays.

In your Swatches palette, change the color to white.

Change the font in your Character palette (Window > Type > Character). I’ve decided to use Wallington Pro from last month’s font bundle since it has so, so many fun alternates that can be access from the Glyphs palette (Type > Glyphs). To use the alternates, I simply find the one I want in the Glyphs palette and double click on it. Because this is a tall poster and I’m nothing if not non-traditional, I’ve decided to break my words into two pieces each.

Holiday Scene

My final font size has ended up around 231 pt after a bit of manual resizing to fill the area we have.

With the Selection tool, click on your text to select it. Copy by pressing cmd/ctrl + c and Paste in Place by pressing cmd/ctrl + shift + v.

Outline the copied text by pressing cmd/ctrl + shift + o (or go to Type > Create Outlines). Change the color to our Gold gradient.

Holiday Scene

On your keyboard, press your left arrow key 5 or 6 times to move the outlined text to the left.

Holiday Scene

Send this text group behind the other one by pressing cmd/ctrl + [ (or go to Object > Arrange > Send Backward).

Holiday Scene

Let’s add a line after the word Happy to indicate a break to a separate word. It will help with readability on our broken up words. Select your Line Segment tool (/). To the right of the Y in Happy, click and drag to the right until you reach the end of the i in Holi.

Holiday Scene

In your Swatches palette, select the stroke color by pressing x. Then, select the Gold gradient.

Open your Stroke palette and change the weight to 4 pt.

Holiday Scene

Let’s adjust our white text color to warm it up a little. Use your Selection tool to select the white text. Open your Color palette (Window > Color) and change the CMYK values to 2/2/12/10.

Holiday Scene

For a final bit of fun with the copy, I’m going to add in an exclamation mark using Bonbon Light at about 200 pt and position it after Holidays. I’ll Create Outlines (cmd/ctrl + shift + o) and change the color to the Gold gradient.

Holiday Scene

Our big poster is done! Save your file.

Open a New Document and this time use a size of 600 px x 800 px.

Select your Rectangle tool and click once on the artboard. In the dialog box, enter a width of 600 px and a height of 800 px. Click OK.

Open your Color palette and enter CMYK values of 15/100/70/50. This is a nice, deep red that matches many of our desk items.

Holiday Scene

Select your Type tool. Click on the artboard and type:
So long
2015.
Hello…

Change the color to white. I’ve set mine in Nanami Light at 30 pt. To set the paragraph to align left, open your Paragraph palette (Window > Type > Paragraph) and select the first option, Align Left. Place the copy in the top left corner of the artboard.

Holiday Scene

Lastly for this poster, use your Type tool and type:
20
16

I set my font to Wanderlust Caps. Enlarge it by dragging the corner handles with your mouse while holding down Shift. Fill the whole right side, top to bottom. Change the color to the default dark red color in your Swatch palette (15/100/90/10).

Save the file! Use your Selection tool to copy the background layer by selecting it and pressing cmd/ctrl + c….we’re going to reuse it on the next poster!

Holiday Scene

For our last frame, create another new document in Illustrator at 600 px x 800 px. Press cmd/ctrl + shift + v to paste the background we just copied.

I’m going to copy and paste in this fabulous vector wreath by Julia Dreams from the file Merry Christmas elements.ai that was in our birthday freebie pack.

Holiday Scene

Use the Type tool to add
From your friends at
Design Cuts.

I set the first line in 30 pt Thriftshop Sans . I sampled the coral color in the wreath by selecting the type with the Selection tool, then selecting the Eyedropper tool (i) and clicking on one of the coral ribbons in the wreath.

Holiday Scene

Design Cuts is set in 90 pt Wanderlust Gold Pro Regular with 90 pt leading to bring the lines closer together.

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We’ll finish this one up by adding a couple of additional elements from the birthday freebies file above and below the copy, then tie it all together with a few lines drawn roughly using the Line tool.

Holiday Scene

Save the file and close it. Now we’ll head back to Photoshop to finish our scene!

Step 4: Final Mockup

Back in Photoshop on your holiday scene? Good!

In your Layers palette, open the folder named Poster framers. Scroll down to the last frame group called 50 x 70 cm and click the arrow next to the folder to open it. Inside, you’ll find a layer called Place poster image here. Double click on the thumbnail for that layer.

Photoshop will open a new linked file for that layer. In the new file, go to File > Place Linked and navigate to the first poster we made. Select it and press Place. The poster will automatically be the correct size since we built it specifically for this frame. Press enter to complete the placement.

Holiday Scene

Press cmd/ctrl + s to save, then close the file. And it’s magically appeared in our holiday scene (because mockup templates are the coolest)!

Holiday Scene

Repeat this process for 30 x 40 cm – Thick ( + ). Open the folder and navigate to the Place image here layer. Double click on that layer’s thumbnail to open the linked file.

Once it opens, go to File > Place Linked and choose the second poster we made.

Holiday Scene

Save the file, then close it and watch the new poster magically appear in our scene.

Holiday Scene

For the last poster, open the group 30 x 40 cm – Thin (small whitespace) ( + ) and double click on the thumbnail for Place image here.

When the new file opens, go to File > Place Linked and choose the last poster we created. Press enter to complete the placement, then save the file and close it.

Holiday Scene

Click Enter to complete the transformation, then save the file and close it.

And that’ll do it!

We have a fantastic holiday scene that’s ready to be used on a card, poster, or anything else you can think of!

Holiday Scene

Remember that whether it’s your outcome for this tutorial or something new you’ve made, we’d love to see your designs on our Facebook page too.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions. As always, I look forward to hearing from you!

There’s still time to snag The Most Extensive MockUp Templates Bundle of All Time at an amazing 94% off! If you already have, I hope I’ve helped you explore just a tiny portion of what’s possible. ‘Till next time…!