Glossary
The mockup & print glossary
The vocabulary behind photorealistic mockups — defined plainly, with how each idea shows up in the product.
- Displacement map
- A grayscale image whose brightness shifts pixels of an overlaid design, making it bend into wrinkles, seams, and surface relief.
- DPI (dots per inch)
- A measure of print resolution: how many ink dots fit in one inch. Higher DPI means finer detail; 300 DPI is the common standard for sharp prints.
- Fit mode
- The rule that decides how a design is scaled into a slot: cover (fill, cropping overflow), contain (fit entirely), or stretch (distort to fill).
- Mockup template
- A reusable design file (usually a PSD) that places your artwork onto a product photo so it looks like a real, printed product.
- Perspective transform
- A projective mapping (homography) that places a flat design onto a surface viewed at an angle, so parallel lines converge correctly.
- Print file
- A flat, production-ready export of just the artwork at the template's source resolution with embedded DPI metadata — the file a print shop actually prints.
- Print-on-demand (POD)
- A fulfillment model where products are printed only after a customer orders, removing inventory risk — and making listing imagery the seller's main upfront cost.
- Shading map
- A grayscale layer that multiplies a design's brightness so it picks up the shadows, highlights, and texture of the product underneath.
- Smart object
- A Photoshop layer that holds its source content in a separate embedded or linked file, so it can be scaled, warped, and replaced without destroying the original pixels.
- Warp mesh
- A grid of control points that bends a flat design to follow a curved or irregular product surface, like a mug, folded shirt, or tote bag.
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