Affinity Photo is a fine tool for building mockups. The problem shows up later, when the PSD you exported goes into a mockup tool and your design ends up in the wrong place, or over the whole picture.
We saw this with a seller's template this week. In Affinity the file looked perfect: a room, a black frame, a lighting group, and a layer called Smart Object where the artwork goes. The exported PSD had everything except that last layer.
What gets lost in the export
Photoshop and Affinity store things differently, so a PSD export has to translate. Most layers survive. A few don't:
- The artwork placeholder. Affinity's embedded documents don't always become Photoshop smart objects. In the file we saw, the placeholder was hidden in Affinity, and it wasn't in the PSD at all.
- Blend modes on lighting layers. The Shadow and Highlights layers came out set to Normal instead of Multiply and Screen.
- Visibility. The whole Lighting group was saved hidden.
The room photo, the frame and the adjustment layers all came through fine. Nothing in the export warned that anything was missing.
Why a missing placeholder breaks everything
A mockup tool's whole job is to find the smart object and put your design inside it. If there's no smart object, it has to guess. The biggest layer in the file is usually the room photo, so that's often the guess, and your design gets pasted over the entire scene.
That's what happened here. The seller uploaded the template, added a poster, and got back the poster on its own, with no room and no frame.
(PSDmate now handles this case. When a PSD has no smart object but does have shadow and highlight layers drawn over the frame opening, it puts the artwork where those layers are. You'll still get a better result from a file that has its placeholder.)
How to export a mockup from Affinity that works
- Make the placeholder visible before you export. A hidden layer is the one most likely to be dropped.
- Name it clearly. "Your Design", "Artwork" or "Poster" are names every mockup tool looks for. Leave "Smart Object" as a fallback, not the only clue.
- Keep lighting layers visible and give them names that say what they are: Shadow, Highlights, Reflection.
- Check spelling on the background. Call it "Background". A misspelled name like "Backround" can stop a tool recognising it as the room photo.
- Export as PSD, then open the file again somewhere else before you use it.
Check the file in a second app
Open the exported PSD in a different program from the one that made it. Photopea is free and runs in a browser, so it's an easy second opinion. Check three things:
- One smart object, sitting where the artwork goes, at the size of the frame opening.
- Blend modes on the shadow and highlight layers. Multiply for shadows, Screen for highlights. Fix any that came out as Normal.
- Visibility. Everything that should show in the finished mockup is switched on.
If the smart object is missing, the simplest fix is to add it in the second app. Draw a rectangle the size of the frame opening, convert it to a smart object, name it "Your Design" and place it below the lighting layers.
The PSD file setup guide covers the full layer structure a mockup template needs, and Photoshop smart objects explained covers how the placeholder itself works.
Size the canvas before you start
Mockup photos for Etsy don't need to be huge, but the artwork inside them should be sharp. A 3000 x 3000 pixel canvas is plenty for listing photos. The poster size pixel calculator is handy for working out the print file sizes that go into the frame.
The short version
- Affinity can build mockups, but its PSD export can drop the placeholder layer without any warning.
- Keep the placeholder visible and clearly named when you export.
- Check blend modes on shadow and highlight layers after export.
- Open the PSD in a second app before you trust it.
If a template still renders wrong after all that, why a mockup PSD renders wrong goes through the other common causes.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make PSD mockups in Affinity Photo?
Yes, but check the exported PSD before you use it. Affinity has no true Photoshop smart object, so the export has to translate its layers into Photoshop ones. The artwork placeholder is the layer most likely to go missing, and without it no mockup tool knows where your design belongs.
Why does my Affinity mockup show the design over the whole image?
Usually because the placeholder layer did not make it into the PSD. With no smart object to aim at, a mockup tool has to guess, and the biggest layer in the file is often the room photo. Make sure the placeholder layer is visible when you export, and open the PSD again to check it is there.
How do I check an exported PSD?
Open it in a different app from the one that made it. Photopea is free and runs in a browser. Look at the layer list: there should be one smart object layer where the artwork goes, the lighting layers should keep their blend modes, and nothing you need should be hidden.
Do blend modes survive an Affinity PSD export?
Not always. Shadow and highlight layers set to Multiply or Screen can come out as Normal, which turns a soft shadow into a grey patch over the artwork. Check each lighting layer's blend mode in the exported file and fix it before you save the template.