Efficient ways to batch-export poster mockups in Photoshop?

[pavlonjablon]

Hi! I’m curious about your go-to methods for batch-exporting poster mockups in Photoshop. Let’s say you have one or several PSD mockup scenes (with Smart Objects for the poster area), and you need to generate 20–30 exports, each showing a different visual in the same scene.

Do you:

• Use Actions + Replace Contents for the Smart Object?

• Go with Variables and Data Sets?

• Work with Linked Smart Objects and overwrite the linked file?

• Or rely on scripts / generators / plugins (like Batch Mockup, Exporter, etc.)?
  
  

I’d love to hear what actually works fastest and most reliably for you, especially for high-res layered mockups that include textures, shadows, and displacement.

Thanks

[S_Gans · Accepted solution]

Personally, I haven't needed this too often, but when I have, I use a combination of Actions and Variables. Replacing the Smart Object, even within an action would be terribly time-consuming for 20-30 exports. Same with changing linked Smart Objects. And, for me, I do it so rarely that buying some kind of third party thing to do it would be overkill (I don't code, so I'm not writing scripts). Using Actions and including the Variable within the action is, to me, the most efficient method. The only time consuming part may be the actual creation of the data set. Just my opinion.