If you’re a print-on-demand seller, chances are you’ve had to create custom mockup images for your store. Whether you’re selling artwork, apparel, or home decor, mockups are a crucial part of showcasing your products online. But creating them manually—opening a PSD file, inserting an image, resizing it, exporting—can quickly become a time-consuming chore, especially when you have dozens or even hundreds of products.
Fortunately, there’s an easier way. In this guide, we’ll walk through how to automate your print-on-demand mockup creation using the Batch-Replace Smart Objects plugin for Photoshop. This plugin simplifies the entire process, letting you create bulk mockups with just a few clicks.
Step 1: Set Up Your Operation
To get started, you’ll configure your operation in the plugin interface. First, choose the Photoshop document you want to use. You can work with a single PSD file for a simple operation, or switch to using a folder of PSD files if you have multiple mockup templates—like different room scenes or product variants.
Step 2: Select Your Artwork
Next, select your input folder. This is the folder that contains all of your artwork images—these are the designs that will be inserted into your mockup templates.
Step 3: Enable Smart Resizing
One important option is “stretch images to fit smart objects.” If you’re unsure whether all your artwork files are perfectly sized, it’s best to leave this enabled. With this setting turned on, the plugin will automatically resize and align your images to fit the smart object layer inside the mockup, ensuring a clean and professional result even if dimensions vary.
Step 4: Choose Your Output Settings
Then, choose your output folder—where your finished mockup images will be saved. You can also select your desired export file format (JPEG or PNG) and customize the image quality level.
Higher quality settings provide more detail but result in larger file sizes. Lower quality means faster load times—especially important if your store is hosted on a platform like Shopify. Test a few configurations to see what works best for your store’s needs.
Step 5: Run the Automation
Once everything is set, click the “Run” button. The plugin will open each image, resize it if necessary, insert it into the smart object, and export the final mockup—all automatically. Within minutes, you’ll have a complete set of high-quality mockup images, ready to upload to your store.
Save Time and Eliminate Repetitive Work
Using the Batch-Replace Smart Objects plugin is a game changer for print-on-demand sellers. Instead of wasting hours manually creating mockups, you can now produce them in bulk with just a few clicks. The plugin handles all the heavy lifting in the background, freeing up your time so you can focus on growing your business.
Automate Bulk Mockups Across Multiple PSD Templates
Another powerful feature of the Batch-Replace Smart Objects plugin is the ability to automate bulk mockup creation across multiple Photoshop documents, not just a single file. By switching into folder mode using the toggle at the top of the plugin, you can select an entire folder of PSD mockup templates to use for your operation.
This is ideal for print-on-demand sellers offering product variants—such as black frames, white frames, or plain canvases—or for those displaying artwork in multiple lifestyle scenes like kitchens, living rooms, and bedrooms. Instead of managing each file individually, the plugin allows you to automate the entire batch in one go.
How Folder Mode Works
Rather than selecting each PSD file one at a time, you can simply drop all of your mockup templates into a single folder. Then, in the plugin, select that folder, and it will process each file sequentially—one after the other. This is especially useful when you’re using different mockup scenes to give customers a realistic preview of how your products will look in various environments.
Same Setup, Expanded Power
The rest of the setup remains the same. You select your input folder of artwork images and your output folder for the final mockups. In this example, the “stretch to fit smart objects” setting was disabled, since the images were already perfectly sized. Disabling this can slightly improve processing speed if you know your assets are a perfect match for your mockup templates.
Fully Automated Mockup Generation
Once you’re ready, click “Run” and the plugin gets to work. It opens the first PSD file (e.g., a plain canvas), applies all artwork, exports the mockups, and moves on to the next template. This continues until every file in the folder has been processed. It handles everything—automatically generating mockups for all product variants and room scenes without further input.
Organized Output, Streamlined Uploads
At the end of the operation, you’ll have a complete set of organized mockup images, grouped by filename. This makes it incredibly easy to upload them to your store. Just drag and drop the matching images into your product listings, and you’re done.
This workflow saves an enormous amount of time compared to manually opening and editing PSD files one by one. No more repetitive work. No more file-by-file mockup creation. Whether you’re managing five product variants or fifty, the Batch-Replace Smart Objects plugin makes bulk Photoshop automation fast, efficient, and stress-free.
Save Time with Reusable Operations and Workflows
If you follow a standardized workflow—using the same mockup templates, dropping artwork into the same folder, and exporting mockups to a consistent destination—you can save even more time by saving your operations in the Batch-Replace Smart Objects plugin. Instead of setting it up from scratch each time, you can pre-save your full configuration. Name the operation (e.g., “Create All Mockups”), click save, and it will appear in your list of reusable operations. The next time, it’s just one click to run it—no reconfiguration needed.
Support for Transparent Artwork
Saved operations also support images with transparency. If your input files include elements like logos or PNGs with transparent backgrounds, the plugin will detect and preserve those alpha channels during export. This is especially useful for advanced mockups where transparency is part of the product design.
Create Full Workflows, Not Just One-Off Operations
Beyond saving individual operations, you can also chain multiple steps together into a workflow. For example, run a black-framed canvas mockup as step one, then process a brown frame as step two, and finish with a white-framed version for step three. Each step can use a different PSD file but share the same artwork and output folders.
Mix and Match Modes in a Single Workflow
The plugin also allows you to mix operation types within the same workflow. You can start with a single PSD file, then transition to an entire folder of mockup templates. You can change image formats, enable or disable stretch-to-fit, or adjust export quality—everything is saved per step. The plugin intelligently detects what mode to use and executes each step automatically.
Run Workflows in One Click
Once your workflow is saved, all it takes is a single click on “Run Workflow”. The plugin will execute each step in sequence—step one, step two, step three—automatically generating and exporting all your mockups in minutes.
Say Goodbye to Manual Mockup Creation
If you’re a print-on-demand seller who regularly creates high volumes of mockups, this plugin is an absolute game changer. It transforms a slow, repetitive task into a fast, automated workflow. Set it up once, save your settings, and let the plugin do the rest—completely hands-off.
The Batch-Replace Smart Objects plugin is available on the official Adobe Exchange. You’ll need an active Photoshop subscription to use it, but the time savings and productivity gains make it well worth it for any serious eCommerce seller.
Once you experience the speed and efficiency of automated mockup generation, going back to manual editing will feel completely unthinkable.
