How To Make REALISTIC A.I. T-Shirt Mockups In Minutes

Summary

This video script demonstrates how to use AI, specifically Mid Journey, to create realistic mockups for t-shirt apparel and print-on-demand businesses. It showcases the process of generating a personalized image of an ideal customer wearing a blank t-shirt, then adding a design to make it look professionally printed. The tutorial includes tips on using the zoom out feature for better image generation, and concludes with a step-by-step guide on enhancing the mockup's realism in Photoshop, emphasizing the power of AI in simplifying the design process for businesses.

Takeaways

• 🧑‍🎨 AI can be utilized to create highly realistic mockups for apparel businesses, making the process easier than traditional methods.
• 🎨 Midjourney is highlighted as an effective tool for generating realistic images that are difficult to distinguish from real-life photos.
• 👕 The script emphasizes the importance of creating mockups that display the ideal customer for a brand, enhancing the appeal of products.
• 📸 There's no need for hiring photographers, models, or ordering products for photoshoots when using AI-generated mockups.
• 🖼️ The speaker demonstrates using Midjourney to create a mockup of an African-American man wearing a blank black T-shirt, showcasing the tool's capabilities.
• 🔍 The 'zoom out' feature in Midjourney allows users to expand the generated image, providing more of the scene if needed.
• 🛠️ Photoshop or its free alternative, Photopea, can be used to add designs to the AI-generated mockups, making them look professional.
• 📐 A smart object in Photoshop can be used to easily update the design on the mockup without having to recreate the entire image.
• 🌈 Adjustments such as changing the blend mode to 'Hard Light' and tweaking the curves can make the design on the mockup look more realistic.
• ✨ Reducing the opacity of the design layer can help the mockup look more natural and less overly imposed.
• 📈 The final result is a realistic mockup that can be used across various marketing channels, potentially increasing business effectiveness.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of using AI to create mockups for T-shirt apparel or print on demand business?

The main purpose is to generate realistic images of customers wearing the apparel, which can be used in marketing materials like websites, ads, and social media, without the need for hiring photographers, models, or ordering products.

What is Mid Journey and how does it help in creating mockups?

Mid Journey is a tool that can create very realistic images that are hard to distinguish from real photos. It helps in generating mockups by allowing users to input prompts to create images of specific types of customers wearing blank T-shirts in various settings.

Why is it beneficial to create your own mockups instead of using other tools like Placeit?

Creating your own mockups allows you to display the exact type of customer you want to sell to, making the mockups more personalized and potentially more appealing to your target audience.

How does using Mid Journey help in representing the ideal customer for a brand?

By inputting specific details about the customer's appearance and environment in the prompt, Mid Journey can generate images that represent the brand's ideal customer, enhancing the brand's image and marketing efforts.

What is the 'zoom out' feature in Mid Journey and how can it be used?

The 'zoom out' feature in Mid Journey allows users to generate more of the image if the initial generation does not show the entire desired area, such as when part of the T-shirt is cut off in the generated image.

What is the purpose of upscaling an image in Mid Journey?

Upscaling an image in Mid Journey enhances the resolution and detail of the image, making it more suitable for use in high-quality marketing materials.

Why is it recommended to use a clipping mask when adding a design to the T-shirt mockup in Photoshop?

Using a clipping mask ensures that the design only appears within the designated print area on the T-shirt, allowing for precise placement and avoiding any unwanted visibility outside the intended area.

What blending mode is suggested to make the design on the T-shirt look more realistic after applying a clipping mask?

The hard light blending mode is suggested as it allows the underlying texture of the T-shirt, such as wrinkles, to show through the design, making it look more realistic.

How can the design's appearance on the T-shirt be adjusted to look more realistic in Photoshop?

Adjustments can be made using the curves tool in Photoshop to match the design's brightness and darkness to what would be expected on an actual T-shirt, and reducing the opacity slightly to allow the T-shirt texture to blend with the design.

What is the significance of using the free AI style guide provided by the speaker?

The AI style guide provides 171 different words that can be used in AI prompts to generate better and more tailored designs for T-shirt apparel, print on demand, and creative e-commerce brands.

Can the process demonstrated in the script be replicated using a free alternative to Photoshop?

Yes, the process can be replicated using Photopea, a free Photoshop clone, which offers similar functionalities for editing and creating mockups.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Creating Realistic AI Mockups for Apparel

This paragraph introduces the concept of using AI to create hyper-realistic mockups for T-shirt designs in a print-on-demand business. The speaker demonstrates how to use 'mid journey' to generate images that are almost indistinguishable from real photos. The process involves creating an ideal customer avatar to showcase the brand's products, which is more effective than traditional methods involving photographers and models. The speaker also mentions a free AI style guide available for download to enhance AI-generated designs for T-shirt apparel and e-commerce brands.

05:00

🖼️ Editing AI-Generated Mockups in Photoshop

The second paragraph details the process of refining an AI-generated mockup using Photoshop. The speaker explains how to import the mockup into Photoshop, create a new layer for the design area, and convert it into a Smart Object to easily update the design. They then demonstrate adding a design to the mockup, adjusting its position, and using a clipping mask with a 'Hard Light' blend mode to make the design look more realistic on the T-shirt. The paragraph concludes with adjusting the curves to match the T-shirt color and slightly reducing the opacity of the design for a more natural look.

10:01

🚀 Finalizing and Utilizing AI Mockups

The final paragraph emphasizes the effectiveness of using AI to create realistic mockups that can be used across various marketing channels, such as websites and social media. The speaker highlights the power of AI in generating mockups that align with the ideal customer avatar, which can significantly boost the appeal of the brand. They encourage viewers to apply this technique to their business to enhance their marketing efforts, concluding with a motivational note to 'crush it' in their business endeavors.

Keywords

💡AI

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and act like humans. In the context of the video, AI is used to create realistic mockups for T-shirt designs, showcasing its ability to generate images indistinguishable from real ones. The script mentions using AI to create 'very realistic images' for apparel businesses.

💡Mid Journey

Mid Journey appears to be a tool or software used in the video for generating realistic images. It is highlighted as being 'great for creating very realistic images' and is central to the video's demonstration of how to create AI-generated mockups without the need for physical photography or models.

💡Mockups

In the video, mockups refer to the visual representations of how a T-shirt design would look when worn by a person. The script emphasizes the advantage of using AI to create 'the exact ideal customer' for these mockups, which can then be used in marketing materials to appeal to the brand's target audience.

💡Print on Demand

Print on Demand is a business model where products, such as T-shirts, are only produced when a customer orders them. The video script mentions this term in relation to using AI-generated mockups for marketing these types of products, emphasizing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of this approach.

💡Prompt

A prompt, in the context of AI image generation, is a text input that guides the AI to create a specific image. The script provides examples of prompts, such as 'African-American man 25 years old wearing a completely blank black T-shirt,' which the AI uses to generate a realistic mockup.

💡Upscale

Upscaling in the video refers to the process of enhancing the resolution or quality of an AI-generated image. The script mentions 'upscaled' images to show how one can improve the detail and clarity of the mockups, making them more realistic and suitable for use in marketing.

💡Photoshop

Photoshop is a widely used software for image editing. In the script, it is mentioned as the tool for editing the AI-generated mockups to add the T-shirt design. The video demonstrates a simple process of using Photoshop to create a realistic representation of a T-shirt print.

💡Smart Object

In Photoshop, a Smart Object is a layer that allows non-destructive editing, meaning the original content can be replaced or edited without affecting the appearance of the image. The script describes using a Smart Object to 'drop in our design' and update it easily within the mockup.

💡Clipping Mask

A clipping mask in Photoshop is used to restrict the visibility of the content of a layer to the shape of another layer below it. The video script describes creating a clipping mask to apply the design to the T-shirt mockup in a realistic way, showing the 'crinkles' and 'wrinkles' of the shirt.

💡Blend Mode

Blend modes in Photoshop determine how layers interact with each other to create various visual effects. The script mentions changing the blend mode to 'Hard Light' to make the AI-generated design look more realistic on the T-shirt mockup by allowing the shirt's texture to show through.

💡Curves

Curves in Photoshop is an adjustment tool used to modify the tonal range and contrast of an image. The script describes using the Curves adjustment to make the design on the T-shirt look more realistic by adjusting its brightness and darkness to match the appearance of a printed T-shirt.

💡Opacity

Opacity in Photoshop refers to the transparency level of a layer. The video script suggests reducing the opacity of the design layer to make it blend more naturally with the T-shirt mockup, enhancing the realism of the final image.

Highlights

AI can create super realistic mockups for T-shirt apparel or print on demand businesses.

Mid-journey is used for creating very realistic images that are hard to distinguish from real ones.

Creating custom mockups allows displaying the ideal customer for a brand.

No need to hire a photographer or models with AI-generated mockups.

AI mockups can be used on websites, in ads, and on social media for a professional look.

A basic prompt in Mid-Journey can generate a realistic image of a person wearing a blank T-shirt.

AI-generated images can sometimes have inconsistencies, requiring selection of the most realistic option.

The zoom out feature in Mid-Journey allows for generating more of the image if needed.

Upscaling AI-generated images can improve their realism and usability for mockups.

A free AI style guide is available for improving AI prompts for t-shirt apparel and print on demand.

Photoshop or its free clone, Photopea, can be used to add designs to AI-generated mockups.

Smart objects in Photoshop allow for easy updating of designs in mockups.

Adjusting the opacity of the design layer can make the mockup look more realistic.

Using the curves adjustment in Photoshop can enhance the realism of the design on the T-shirt mockup.

AI-generated mockups can represent the exact type of customer a business wants to sell to, which is powerful for marketing.

The process of creating AI mockups is simple and can be done in just a few steps.

AI mockups can significantly enhance the professional appearance of a brand's online presence.

Transcripts

did you know that you can use AI to

create super realistic mockups for your

T-shirt apparel or print on demand

business today I want to show you how

you can do it in just a few steps and it

might even be simpler than you think so

we're going to start by using mid

journey and mid journe is really great

for creating very realistic images that

are actually even hard to tell the

difference from you know what is real

and what is actually AI generated and

the cool part about creating your own

mockups is you get to create the exact

ideal customer that you want to display

on your in your brand that you want to

sell to and this makes your mockups look

so much better than using something like

place it or maybe another tool out there

and you don't have to go you know hire a

photographer and get models and order

your products and all that kind of stuff

you can make these look really really

good and then you can use these on your

website in your ads on social media and

they look super professional and again

the biggest thing is that you can

display the exact type of customer that

you want to sell to and that can be

really really powerful so inside mid

Journey I've put in a very basic prompt

I put in an African-American man 25

years old wearing a completely blank

black T-shirt standing outside in the

city facing the camera smiling and this

is what it gave me and this is it's

pretty awesome right all of these are

actually really really good sometimes

you get one or two that are that are

okay sometimes you get you know all four

like this that look really really good

I'm going to scroll up in my feed and I

want to show you one more that I did

which is uh right here I put in a

45-year-old Woman white Caucasian with

BL blonde hair long hair smiling at the

camera wearing a white T-shirt

completely blank outside with palm trees

in the background and this is what it

gave me now I think like this one down

here and the third one uh looks a little

more fake it looks a little more AI

generated but this one was the one that

caught my eye the second one because it

looked very realistic and so after you

put in that initial prompt and you get

kind of a really good looking blank

mockup that looks pretty real there's a

couple other things you can do that I

want to show you now I'm actually going

to scroll down to the bottom here cuz

I'm going to show you with this this

most current prompt that I put in so you

can see these are the first four that I

got and the idea here is just that we

generate a person wearing a blank

t-shirt in The Next Step we're going to

be adding on our own design and making

it look really real but right here we've

got these four generations and we want

to choose the one that we'd like to

upscale now I've gone ahead and upscaled

a few of these because I want to show

you something really cool so I upscaled

three of these this is actually the one

that I'm going to go with this is the

one I like the most I like that it's got

a lot of crinkles in the shirt you know

a lot of kind of wrinkles in there which

make it which is going to make it look a

little more real a little more lifelike

once we add our design and I like that

the entire shirt is actually in the

photo now sometimes what you'll get is

you'll get one like this where the

entire kind of shirt isn't in the photo

and there's a really cool feature here

in mid Journey which is the by the way I

just put together a free AI style guide

over at ker.com

prompts and you can download this

completely free and it's 171 different

words you can use in your AI prompts to

get better designs that are specifically

tailored to t-shirt apparel print on

demand and creative e-commerce Brands so

just go over to ker.com promps and

download that completely free and

there's a really cool feature here in

mid Journey which is this zoom out

feature so we've got zoom out 1.5x and

zoom out 2x now if we click on zoom out

1.5x what it's going to do is it's

actually going to generate more of the

image for us uh if we were to need more

you know more of the photo in the in the

actual the actual generation here so the

fact that that t-shirt is cut off we can

actually use this zoom out function to

get the rest of the image right that's

really really cool so sometimes you know

you get something out of mid journey and

you can use this for a lot of different

things but you get an image out of mid

Journey that you're like this is what I

want I just can't see all of the

elements that I need I can't see the

whole image so you can use that zoom out

function to actually get the rest of

what you need generated so here's what

it gave me after I zoomed out it

actually gave me four generations and

these are very very similar and you can

see that the middle image here of the of

the the man is the exact same image that

I had before but now I can mainly what

I'm looking for is I can see his arms

tucked into his pockets and now I can

pick which one that I like the most now

these are very similar so there's

there's not a lot to go through here but

one thing I do notice is that he's

wearing a watch in this one and it looks

almost a little fake or AI generated but

I do like this one where he's actually

wearing some some like uh you know

bracelets so I'm going to use that one

so I'm going to go ahead and upscale

number two now even though the original

generation was not exactly what I wanted

I was able to use the zoom out function

to get the entire t-shirt in the photo

and now this is a more usable mockup so

after I've downloaded that image from

mid Journey I'm going to drop that into

a Photoshop file so I'm just going to

open up Photoshop and open this image

right here now just for reference you

can do the exact same thing in photo P

which is a free Photoshop clone so you

don't need a full version of Photoshop

you can do pretty much the exact same

thing in photo pea

photo.com that's a just a free clone you

can kind of do the same thing in there

so if you don't have Photoshop you can

follow along in photo but what I want to

do here in Photoshop and I'm going to

show you I think the simplest way to do

this there are other things you can do

in here to make it look even more

realistic but I want to show you just a

very basic step so that this isn't too

too difficult to understand so the first

thing that I'm going to do is I'm going

to drop down here and just create a new

layer click on this little plus button

create a new layer the next thing I'm

going to do is I'm going to grab my

rectangle tool over here and I'm just

going to create a box where I want the

print area to be kind of similar to what

you would see in maybe a print on Demand

app I'm going to kind of create a box

here that's going to represent my print

area and I can move that around if I

want so probably about right there is

going to be kind of what I would think

would be the print area on this t-shirt

the next thing I'm going to do is over

here in the layer box I'm going to right

click and I'm going to select convert to

Smart object so I'm going to convert to

Smart object that's going to make it to

where we can actually drop in our design

and we can just update the design and it

will automatically load that into our

image the next thing I'm going to do is

just open up this layer with my

rectangle that will open up the smart

object and this is where I can actually

drop in my design to the print area next

I'm going to drop in one of my own

designs in here to the to this Photoshop

file I'm going to hit enter and that now

I have my Oklahoma City design dropped

in here after that I can go ahead and

delete the red layer underneath that so

I can just press the delete button and

now you can see it's only my Oklahoma

City designed right in here now I can

place this just by moving my mouse

around I can place it kind of wherever I

want and then I'm going to hit on my

keyboard I'm going to hit command s to

save you can also just hit file save but

I'm actually going to save this and what

it should do is upload into my mockup

right here so you can see it on the

shirt now looking at that that's a

little bit low to me so I'm going to go

back to my uh to my smart object and I'm

just going to drag this up a little bit

and I'm going to hit save again so

either command s on a Mac or you can hit

file save now if I go back over now it's

looking like it's in the right place on

my mockup now we're not done yet we need

to make a few adjustments here to

actually make this look a little more

realistic what I'm going to do next is

I'm actually going to duplicate the

mockup image so this layer zero down

here I'm going to drag it to this little

plus sign and it's going to create a

duplicate of that I'm going to drag this

up above my uh my um my little design

there my OKC design and I'm going to

right click on it and what I want to do

is I want to create a clipping mask so

I'm going to hit create clipping mask

just like that the next thing I'm going

to do is change my blend mode so right

here instead of normal I'm going to

click on that and I'm actually going to

do hard light and you can instantly see

that right there even though the

Oklahoma City design is very dark it

looks a lot more realistic because now

we're actually seeing some of those

crinkles come through and so that's kind

of the biggest thing we need to do the

next thing we need to do to make this

look really realistic is with the layer

selected the top layer this uh this kind

of clipping mask that we have created

we're going to open up uh image here at

the top we're going to go to adjustments

and we're going to open up curves you

can also just press command M on your

keyboard and that should pull it up and

it's going to pull up a window that

looks like this now depending on the

color of your T-shirt this color is

black if you're dealing with white it's

going to be a little bit different

you're going to want to drag either this

side back or drag this side back if

you're on a white t-shirt usually you'll

be dragging this end but on a black

T-shirt we're actually going to drag

this end back and we're going to drag it

back until we get it

looking like it should on the T-shirt

now we can kind of just we have to judge

with our eye whether that looks too too

bright or too dark I think somewhere

around there is probably about right

when it's printed on a t-shirt it will

look a little bit darker you know then

it then it will look on your screen so

probably somewhere around there is a

good is a good place to put it so so I'm

going to put it right there and hit okay

we just have to use our eyes for best

judgment and already that's looking I

mean that looks a lot better it looks

pretty realistic because if we zoom in

we can see uh you know the wrinkles in

the T-shirt kind of shining through we

can see even kind of some almost some

some Dots here that make it look like

you can see the Garment shining through

and the last thing we want to do is very

subtle but if we just click on layer one

which is going to be the Oklahoma City

design I like to take the opacity down

just a little bit so if we take this

down like 90 maybe even like 80 or 85

you can see it starts to blend just a

little bit more I'm going to go 85 with

this one and so that just helps it look

a little more realistic and just like

that within a few minutes we've created

a really realistic looking mockup that

we can use on our website on social

media in paid advertising and it should

be our exact ideal customer that we were

able to put in some of those features

into the prompt get exactly what we're

looking for this is a really powerful

tool and I hope you take it back to your

business and crush

[Music]

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