How to Create a Frame Mat (Passepartout) in Photoshop | Step-by-Step Tutorial

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to build a flexible and fully customizable passepartout mat effect from scratch directly inside a Smart Object in Photoshop. This method gives you total control: you can change mat colors, resize artwork, work with virtually any aspect ratio, change the light direction, customize the mat shadow, and quickly toggle the mat effect on and off at any time.

For this demonstration, I’m using one of my single frame mockups. Normally, all of my frame mockups already include a fully customizable mat option, but for this tutorial I removed everything except a sample artwork so we can build the effect step by step from scratch.

If you prefer learning by watching, I’ve also recorded a detailed YouTube video tutorial where I walk you through the entire process on screen. You’ll find it embedded at the end of this article.

Step 1: Open the Smart Object

Start by double-clicking your Smart Object to open it. If there's already an artwork or placeholder layer inside, hide it for now. You'll bring it back later.

Step 2: Create the Passepartout / Mat Color Layer

Add a Solid Color fill layer by clicking the small adjustment icon (the middle circle one) at the bottom of the Layers panel and selecting Solid Color, or go to Layer → New Fill Layer → Solid Color.

Set the color to white, pure white or a slightly off-white, depending on the look you want.

Move this layer to the bottom of the layer stack. This layer will act as your mat color, and you can change it at any time.

Step 3: Create the Mat Shadow Layer

Now you'll set up the inner shadow effect that gives the mat its realistic depth.

Create a Temporary Rectangle

Select the Rectangle Tool from the toolbar, or press U on your keyboard.

Draw a rectangle above the Solid Color fill layer.

Set the rectangle fill color to a light gray.

The exact size and color don’t matter too much here because this is only a temporary placeholder layer used to create the shadow effect.

Add an Inner Shadow Effect

With the rectangle layer selected, add an Inner Shadow effect by clicking the fx icon at the bottom of the Layers panel and choosing Inner Shadow, or go to Layer → Layer Style → Inner Shadow.

Here are the settings I usually use as a starting point:

• Blend Mode: Multiply
• Opacity: 30–35%
• Distance and Size: around 6 pixels*

* The exact values will depend on your document size and resolution, so feel free to adjust them until the effect looks natural.

Make sure Use Global Light is enabled.

Then set the Angle so it matches the lighting direction in your mockup.

If you’re unsure, simply look at the shadows and highlights in your mockup and adjust the angle until the shadow feels consistent with the rest of the scene.

And if you ever change the light direction in your mockup later, remember to update it inside the Smart Object as well.

Transfer the Shadow to an Empty Layer

At this point, you could technically just move the rectangle below the Solid Color layer. But let’s move it to a dedicated empty layer for a cleaner setup.

Create a new empty layer:

• click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel, or
• use:
  • Ctrl + Shift + N on Windows
  • Command + Shift + N on Mac

Move this new layer to the bottom of the layer stack and rename it if you’d like.

Now expand the rectangle layer so you can see the Effects section, then drag the Inner Shadow from the rectangle onto the new empty layer.

Once the effect has been transferred, you can safely delete the rectangle layer, as it's no longer needed.

Step 4: Place the Artwork and Apply the Shadow

Now place your artwork into the Smart Object, or simply unhide the one you already have. Scale it down so the mat border becomes visible around the edges.

Next, copy the shadow effect from the MAT SHADOW layer to the artwork layer: hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) and drag the Inner Shadow effect from one layer to the other.

Your artwork now has a realistic frame mat shadow.

Save the Smart Object (Ctrl+S / Command+S) and return to your main mockup file to see the final result.

Why I Love This Method

Once your mat is set up this way, you get a lot of flexibility without any extra work:

• You can scale artwork up or down and the shadow updates automatically.
• You can quickly toggle the mat effect on or off with a single click.
• You can easily change the mat color anytime by editing the fill layer.
• You can place artwork in any aspect ratio, and it will still work perfectly with the mat.
• You can place multiple artworks and quickly apply the same shadow effect to all of them.

Tips for Keeping Mats Consistent

Since this method uses a flexible, non-fixed mat, here are a few tricks for maintaining consistency across different artworks:

Use guides to mark a consistent border size. When placing a new artwork, scale it down to align with the guides.

Add multiple guides for different common sizes, or use a placeholder layer to snap artwork into place quickly.

For different aspect ratios, you can also create placeholder boxes and use them as clipping masks, or even convert them into separate Smart Objects. This makes it much easier to maintain consistent borders automatically when working with different aspect ratios.

Overall, this method gives you a huge amount of flexibility while still keeping your layouts clean and consistent.

Alternative Method: Premade Mats Inside the Mockup (Quick Overview)

There's another approach where you build the mat directly inside the mockup file itself, using premade mat layers with pre-cut openings in different sizes. Each mat is a separate layer with its own shadow effect, and a single Smart Object sits behind them, already duplicated and scaled into position.

So, once your artwork is placed into the Smart Object, you can simply toggle different mat layers on and off to instantly preview different sizes.

This method is faster to switch between preset sizes, but less flexible overall than building the mat inside the Smart Object.

But if you’d like a full tutorial covering this alternative workflow as well, feel free to let me know.

Download FREE Frame Mockup

If you’d like to try both methods yourself, you can download this free 5:7 A4 frame mockup.

Watch the Full Tutorial on Youtube

If you want to see the entire process in action, watch the full Youtube video tutorial below, where I walk you through every step on screen. It’s especially helpful if you’re a visual learner and prefer following along in real time.