How to make a t-shirt mockup for free

Pick the right tee before the right photo

Drapeshot has five t-shirt cuts, and each one has its own print areas measured in inches. Choosing the cut first saves you from a mockup that promises a print size your printer can't do.

Open the scene wall, use the product filter and pick the cut you actually sell. The wall shows your design on every matching scene at once, so you can compare settings side by side.

Make the mockup, step by step

1. Export your artwork as a PNG with a transparent background. JPG, WebP and SVG also open, but a JPG brings its white box with it.
2. Drop the file onto the landing page or the scene wall. Drapeshot trims empty transparent edges, so the design fits the print area by what is actually drawn.
3. Choose a garment colour. It changes every scene in the project at once, with the folds and shadows kept.
4. Open the scene you like best. Pick the print area, then drag the design on the photo or use the size, position and rotate sliders.
5. Pick a print look. Original keeps your colours as they are. Stencil, two colour and three colour reduce it to one, two or three inks, like a screen print.
6. Download the mockup as a JPG. If you also need the file for your printer, use Print file in the same panel.

Small things that make a tee mockup look real

• Match the print size to what you will really print. A left chest logo blown up to fill the front looks fine in a mockup and then disappoints when the shirt arrives.
• Try your design on a dark and a light colour before you decide. Thin lines and pale colours often vanish on heather grey or sand.
• If your art is a photo, try Halftone or Grain. They break the image into dots the way a print shop would, which reads as printed rather than pasted.
• Use a back view scene when the back print is the selling point. Filter the wall by Back to find them.
• Keep the same garment colour across a listing set so the photos look like one product.

Settings your buyers will recognise

Most tee scenes are shot in real places: a bike repair shop in Chennai, a Delhi metro platform, a Bangalore coffee counter, a concrete stairwell. Use the setting filter to switch between studio, out and about, at home and festive scenes, and the person filter to pick between worn shots and product only shots.

A plain studio shot is good for the first listing photo because the print is easy to read. A lived-in scene works better as the second or third photo, where you are selling the feeling.

What the free download gives you

On the free plan every scene and every garment colour is open. Mockups download as JPGs 2,000 pixels on the long edge with a watermark, and print files come at 150 ppi with a watermark so you can check them.

Pro removes the watermark, doubles the mockup to 4,000 pixels, gives transparent print files at 300 ppi and lets you tick many scenes and save them as one ZIP.