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How to speed up your client mock-ups using Adobe Stock’s integrated AI image editing workspace
Creating mock-ups for your clients is a great way to test ideas before committing to a final design. It doesn’t need to be fully-polished, but should demonstrate the intended look and feel and show how key brand elements will come together.
This might be for a website or app design, a marketing campaign, or even packaging/physical collateral. The point is to create something that the client can review and feedback on before you start the full design process.
To make strong mock-ups, you need strong visuals. Designers often use stock images when creating their concepts, but finding something that perfectly fits the desired layout and messaging can be difficult. Adobe Stock AI Studio helps fix this by offering tools to edit existing stock images, rather than compromising on your idea.
Getting started
The first step of the process is to find a stock image that roughly matches your design concept. For instance, if you’re mocking up a new home page layout, you’ll want to find a stock image that will fit well in the hero spot.
Head to stock.adobe.com and start searching until you find what you need. It’s also helpful to note the slider menu at the side of the search bar. Open this up for additional options such as excluding GenAI content, deciding whether your image should include people or not, and selecting the orientation you need.
Once you’ve found an image you like, select it to open up the image editor.
Developing your design
Now for the fun part. Adobe Stock AI Studio presents a range of different options for refining your stock image. Here’s how each one works, and what you might want to use it for.
Type to edit: The most powerful tool, and the one you’ll be using the most, is right up top. Type to edit may look basic – a small text box with the instruction add text to edit this image – but inside is a very impressive AI assistant. Your imagination (and client needs) are the limit: simply describe what you would like to change and let it do the rest. This might include:
- Changing the subject, styling or visual details to better match your client’s audience
- Changing elements of the image to reflect a specific product or service
- Moving the subject of the image to a different background or context.
Change background: While you can change the background of the image as part of the type to edit function, Adobe also includes a dedicated background editor, allowing you to get a little more targeted. As before, it works using a prompt box with the instruction to describe the new background.
- This feature means you can select an image with the right components and then fit them to an appropriate background
- For design mock-ups, it’s also useful for presenting the same image with a range of different backgrounds so that the client can decide which works best.
Remove background: Alternatively, you can remove the background entirely, creating a transparent PNG. A simple but useful feature that does what it says on the tin. This is particularly helpful for creating cut outs to place against existing backgrounds, for instance when designing packaging or more complex marketing collateral.
Expand image: Found the right image but not the right dimensions? With the expand image tool you can essentially generate a larger background, allowing you to widen the image if you need it, or change the orientation. Again, this is not just useful for refining your content but also for presenting multiple examples of the same design for use in different places.
Animate image: Adobe Stock AI Studio isn’t just for working on static images – you can also use it to add light animation. This can be useful when developing digital campaign ideas, showing how a static web banner or social media asset could be brough to life.
Change mood: The change mood tool offers a range of preset mood options such as serene, whimsical and energetic. Adobe says that editing Moods will influence qualities like lighting, color tone, and even the expressions on people's faces. This makes it quick and efficient to experiment with different creative directions for your campaign.
Change color: You can play around with color as part of the ‘type to edit’ or ‘edit background’ options, but to make things even easier the change color option lets you select a palette and apply it to the whole image. Again, consider using this feature to offer a range of alternative suggestions, or to match the image to your client’s brand identity.
From stock image to client-ready design
Once you’re happy with the result, the final step is to download the image for use in your design. In the plan we signed up for you get ten credits per month, with each unique original asset needing one Stock credit to licence.
Note that you only need to download the licence for each image once, regardless of how many rounds of edits you create. After that, you can create and download edited variations without using additional Stock credits. Your existing license allows you to create variations.” Their FAQs also confirm that edited content can be used commercially.
Overall, Adobe Stock AI Studio doesn’t replace the creative process: you still need to bring the ideas to the table. However, it speeds things up considerably, meaning that the time once wasted searching for a perfect image can now be used to quickly adapt visuals to suit your design goals.
Our AI image editing test
Click through the gallery below to see our original stock image, and the changes we made from start to finish using the platform's AI tools, all from a single asset.
