How to Create a 3D Product Box in Photoshop

First of all, create a new canvas in Photoshop, with the following dimensions: 500x500px.

Then, you should go to View > Show > Grid, to enable the guides in order to make more precise selections later. With the grid enabled, unlock the background layer by double-clicking on its icon in the layers palette. Use the gradient tool on the background layer. The gradient should be grey to white and you should apply it vertically.

Now, let’s create the front cover of the box. Create a new Group and name it ‘Product Box – front’. Within the group create a new layer with the same name. Then make a rectangular selection like shown, using the Rectangular Marquee Tool. Fill the selection with a nice horizontal gradient. The values of the colors that I used here are: #5b86b3 and #8fc0fb. You can use whatever color you feel appropriate for your product boxes.

Next, create a new group and a layer within, and name them Product Box – Side. Make a rectangular selection and fill it with the desired color. Here, I used #44668a.

Now you can add the desired images and text on your front cover. Keep the image and text layers in the Front group. I’ll add the logo of the website, and a couple of text layers and a WordPress icon to the front cover. When you finish adding the images and texts to the front cover, add something to the side of the box, too. I suggest just adding a logo at the bottom of the side and the name of the product. When you finish ordering and centering the layers, you will have something like this:

Now, we need to adjust the perspective. Go to the Front group and merge all the layers into one, final front layer. Select the layer and go to Edit > Free Transform. Right-click on the transformation and select Distort. Adjust the right corners as shown in the screenshot:

Then, repeat the merging procedure for the side of the box and distort the corners as shown in the screenshot:

Ok, you ended up with something similar to this. It looks OK, but it can be better.

We can add a shadow behind the box. Create a new layer and name it Shadow. With the empty layer active make a polygonal selection using the Polygonal Lasso Tool and fill it with grey. Place the layer below the box layers and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and experiment with the value until you’re satisfied.

Here’s our product box:

The box we have been creating is very simple and you might want to add more text and pictures to your product box. Just follow the instructions in this tutorial and you should be fine. Remember to distort the sides of the box after you’ve aligned all the picture layers and the text layers. Once you merge and distort the layers, there is no more rearranging or realigning them.

A tutorial by Bonifacio Cruz