How To Use the PSDCovers v1.0.x Panel

Welcome, and thanks for installing the PSDCovers panel!  If you haven’t installed the plugin yet you can find a detailed getting started guide here which will walk you through the entire process of installation and signing up to our service to access your first 100 free mockups.  This can be considered as a follow-up to the getting started guide which helps you download and install the plugin. In this tutorial we will describe the 4 main areas of the panel, the profile page, mockup list page, mockup details page and bookmarks page.  

Introduction

The following tutorial walks you through the various features of the PSDCovers panel including your account, product search, mockup rendering and bookmarking favourites.  

Sign In Process

Whenever the panel is opened from a closed state, it will open on the Mockup list page and present you with a subset of mockups which can be rendered without having to log in. To view a set of 100 free mockups you will need to create an account and log in using the blue “Sign In” button at the bottom of the mockups list.

Creating A New Account

If this is your first time using the PSDCovers plugin then you will need to create an account to access our 100 free mockups:

1. Click “Create a new account” to continue…

1. Enter your name and email address into the fields which appear.
2. Click “Create New Account”

Email Confirmation Sent!

The panel will notify you immediately that it has created your new account and that a confirmation email has been sent to the address you provided. Click “Close” to close the email notification…

Activate Your Account

To activate your account you must first enter the temporary password.  This temporary password can be found in the confirmation email that was sent to your email address when you created your account and will look something like the following:

1. Enter the email address you used to create the account
2. Enter the temporary password found in your invitation email.
3. Copy the temporary password from the confirmation email and paste it into the password field
4. Click “Sign In”.

After the panel accepts your temporary password it will prompt you to enter a new password of your choosing to replace the temporary password:

1. Enter your new password.

Click Update. You are now logged in and ready to find and render mockups!  

Account Profile Settings

Whenever you log into the panel it will always place you in your account profile, from here you can see the current status of your subscription.

1. The account profile area allows you to change your name or email address
2. Your current subscription model, default is FREE with access to 100+ mockups
3. Change your password

 

Updating Your Name

The Update Profile button remains disabled when it detects that no changes have been made to your name or email address.

1. To change your name, type the desired name into the Name field
2. When the Update Profile button becomes active, click it to apply the changes

Congratulations!  You just updated your user name.  

Updating Email

Updating your email address is a similar process to updating a name, simply replace the email displayed with the desired address.

1. Change the email address to the desired email
2. When the Update Profile button becomes active, click it to apply the changes

 

Changing Your Password

Updating your password will require entering the old one first.

1. Enter your old password
2. Enter your new password, twice to be certain
3. Click Update Password to apply the change

 

Notification Of Password Change

When a password is updated successfully, a modal appears informing you the changes have been applied. Click Close to continue  

Email Confirmation

When your password is changed, an email confirmation will be sent to you informing you of the change.  

View Mockups As Paginated List

To view all the mockups we need to switch to the Mockup View page which can be done by clicking on the Action Mockup icon at the top of the panel.

1. Click on the Action Mockup icon at the top of the panel
2. Paginated list of all our mockups

 

Caching Image Previews

When the PSDCovers panel is installed it does not contain any mockups — mockups are downloaded to your computer as you navigate through the panel viewing each Mockup list page and rendering the mockup found there.

1. Navigating through the paginated Mockups List will cache the mockup preview thumbnails.

The caching is fast and mostly imperceptible, however you may catch glimpses of the caching process as revealed by the loader icon which appears while the thumbnail is being retrieved.  

Finding Content

The Panel has a few options for finding the mockups you are interested in…

• By search term
• By category
• Finding FREE Mockups

 

By Search Term

The Panel allows you to find your content through the use of regular words, keywords and tags which are associated with the mockup.  For instance, to search for paint cans simply requires entering the word can into the search field.

1. Enter the product name, keyword or tag.
2. Results appear as you type.
3. Pagination is updated to reflect results.

 

By Category

Mockups can also be filtered by category to narrow down search results quickly.

1. Select the category menu and select the desired category
2. Mockups list is instantly filtered to that category
3. Pagination is updated to reflect results, in this case there is not enough content to warrant pagination for this category

  The category can be further refined by using the search field which will filter the category results even further.

1. Select the category
2. Enter the search term to filter down the category results

 

Finding FREE Mockups

To view all our 100+ free mockups you will need to create an account and Sign In. Once you are signed in you can access the free mockups simply by typing the word free into the search field.

1. Type free into the search field
2. Free mockups are instantly filtered for you to use

 

How To Identify Free Mockups

We have included a visual clue that you can use to spot which mockups are FREE for any member.

1. Chevrons without an external circle are for premium members only.
2. Chevrons with a circle are FREE for all members.

 

Rendering Your First Mockup

Once you find a mockup you would like to render, simply select it from the list to view the Details Page for that mockup.

1. Hover over the desired mockup and click to view the Details Page

 

The Mockup Details Page

The Mockup Details page is a condensed version of the same page on our website, using the panel means you never have to visit our site for previews, details or downloads.

1. Preview of the mockup to be rendered
2. STEP 1 and STEP 2 rendering buttons
3. Mockup description
4. Add to bookmarks and other miscellaneous details

 

Running STEP 1

Whether you are new to PSDCovers mockups or are a long-time user of our mockups, running STEP 1 is required to generate the template into which your 2D artwork will be placed.

1. Click on STEP 1 to generate a new PSD to use as a template

 

STEP 1 Template

Within a few seconds of running STEP 1 the following template is generated, in this particular case the template is for the GRAPHICNOVEL008 book mockup which comes with 3 specific zones…

1. The design of the book spine
2. The book cover design
3. Page texture

 

Adding Your Artwork To The Template

Always ensure that your artwork is placed at the top of the Layers panel — placing your artwork at the top of the Layers panel guarantees your artwork will cover any template elements.

1. Your artwork, shown with a green label, is placed on layers above the template layers
2. Template layers, shown with a purple lable, reside below your artwork

  Once your artwork is placed it would look something like this:  

Rendering STEP 2

When the template has all the artwork required you are ready to render your mockup.

1. With your template document open as the active document, click STEP 2.

 

The Final Result

Within seconds STEP 2 will generate a new PSD file with your mockup. The final result is fully yours to own and sell as you see fit!  

Bookmarking Favorites

The PSDCovers panel supports bookmarking.  By cultivating a favorites list you can bypass the Mockup List and go directly to your own personal list of most often used mockups.

1. While on the Mockup Details Page, click on the Add to bookmarks link

 

Viewing Your Bookmarked Favorites

To view your bookmarked favorites, simply toggle to the Favorites Page.

1. Click the Favorites tab
2. List of bookmarked favorites

 

Offline Mode

The PSDCovers panel has an offline mode which is helpful when no internet connection is available.  However, only mockups which have been cached locally to your computer will continue to be available to you while offline.  For example, in the image below we can see that all the thumbnails were cached when we browsed through the Mockups lists, but if the Mockup Detail page itself is not viewed, and rendered, then the sources for that mockup are not cached locally.

1. Cloud with warning icon appears to indicate the sources for this mockup was not cached and is therefore unavailable
2. Mockups which are cached will not display the cloud warning icon at the far right of the item row.

 

Help And Support

At anytime you may access information about your current panel version or link to the panel installation tutorial.

1. Click the HaptUX Inc. corporate link at the bottom of the panel.

 

About Panel Modal

Clicking on the HaptUX Inc. corporate text at the center-bottom of the panel will cause the About modal to slide down from the top with helpful information.

1. Click Close to close the modal.
2. Panel release version with links to product information.
3. Support flyout menu.

 

Support Flyout Menu

At any point while using the panel you can access the Support flyout menu at the top-right corner of the panel.   Using the Support slyout menu members can ask for support, report bugs, ask general questions, log out of the panel, clear the cache (forces the panel to re-download the mockups) and enable logging.  The last one is for us if — if you submmit a bug that baffles us we will contact you and ask you to turn on logging and send us the report it generates after you recreate the event that causes the bug. Thank you for trying our Photoshop panel!