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Open any design template and you’ll see two canvases side by side. Understanding what each one is for is the single most useful thing to know about the editor.
The template editor showing the Design Template canvas on the left, the Design Preview canvas on the right with the artwork on a canvas print, a small round button on the arrow between them, and a strip of preview thumbnails below.
  1. Design Template, the artwork that gets printed · 2. The button that switches how you edit the preview · 3. Design Preview, your artwork shown on a product · 4. One thumbnail per preview, plus + to add another
Everything you sell is made from the Design Template. The Design Preview exists so you and your customer can see how that artwork will look on the real thing: on a mug, on a t-shirt, on a canvas.
A brand-new template has no preview yet. The right-hand frame shows an Add Mockup button until you pick a product photo. See Add a mockup preview.

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The label above each frame

Each frame is labelled with its name and its size in pixels, followed by a few small icons. The two sizes are often different, and that’s normal. The Design Template is your print size. Each Design Preview is as big as the area the product photo has for artwork.

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The preview follows your design

By default a preview frame simply mirrors your artwork. Move a layer on the Design Template, and it moves on the preview too. Change the wording, swap a photo, restyle the text, and the preview keeps up without you doing anything. That link holds until you rearrange something on the preview frame itself.
The moment you move, resize, rotate, or hide a layer while you’re working on a preview frame, that frame stops following the Design Template and keeps its own arrangement instead. From then on, moving layers on the design frame no longer moves anything on that preview.This applies to the whole frame, not just the layer you moved. And it applies to that one frame only, so your other previews carry on following as normal.
This is usually what you want. A design centred on a print file often needs nudging up a little to sit nicely on a t-shirt chest, and you don’t want your next design edit to undo that nudge.

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Putting a preview back in step

If a preview has drifted somewhere you didn’t intend, click the circular arrow next to its label. Every layer jumps back to where the Design Template has it, and the frame starts following your design again.
The Design Preview frame label showing its size, a download icon, and the circular reset icon highlighted.

The circular arrow next to the Design Preview label returns the layers to their design positions.

It only changes where layers sit; the wording and pictures on them are untouched. If you clicked it by mistake, ⌘ Z brings your arrangement back.

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Working on a preview frame

Click inside a preview frame and the editor quietly switches its attention to that frame. Two panels change with it, and each one tells you so.
The Layers panel with a notice reading Showing the layers of Design Preview (Library 316155 1), not the Design Template, above a list of numbered layers.

The Layers panel lists the layers of the preview frame you clicked into, not the template's.

The Elements panel with a notice reading Editing Design Preview (Library 316155 1). Elements added here stay on this frame, not the Design Template, and aren't printed.

Anything you add while a preview frame is active belongs to that frame alone.

So an element you add here, such as a shadow, a sticker, or a bit of styling that flatters the photo, shows up on that one preview and is never printed. That’s deliberate, and it’s genuinely useful for making a listing photo look good. It also catches people out: if a layer you added has vanished from your print file, check whether you added it while a preview frame was selected. To go back to editing the artwork itself, click the Design Template canvas.

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Two ways to edit a preview

The small round button on the arrow between the two frames switches how you work on the preview. Use layer by layer to fine-tune where individual pieces sit on the product. Use whole design when the artwork is fine but the whole thing needs to sit a little higher, smaller, or at an angle on the photo. Resizing in whole-design mode keeps the proportions locked so your artwork can’t stretch.
Whole-design mode isn’t available on a preview where you’ve placed extra copies of a layer. Remove the extras, or switch to a different preview first.

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If your artwork covers the whole product

Sometimes the preview shows your design spread across the entire photo, hiding the product underneath.
A Design Preview frame where the artwork is spread across the whole product photo instead of sitting inside a marked print area.

The artwork covers the shirt because this mockup has no print area defined.

That means the product photo has no design area, meaning no marked-out patch where artwork belongs, so Customei fills the frame instead. The fix is on the mockup, not on your template: open it and draw the print area. See Design areas.

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Download a preview as an image

The download icon next to the Design Preview label saves the preview exactly as you see it. It’s the quickest way to get a listing photo for Shopify.
The Quick Export popover with a Format dropdown set to PNG, a Size dropdown set to 1x, and an Export button.

Quick Export: pick a file type and a size, then Export.

  • Format: PNG for anything with transparency, JPEG for a smaller file, PDF for print.
  • Size: 1x matches the frame, 2x and 3x give you a bigger image for a hero shot.

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Where to next

Add a mockup preview

Put a product photo behind your artwork.

Preview settings

Blending, surface warp, and switch animations.

Mockups

Where product photos live and how they’re prepared.

Create a design template

Back to the artwork side.