The image above is an example of what I was talking about in this post from earlier this week.

All four of the placeholder images in the border areas of the mock-up are the same image, placed into Photoshop as Smart Objects instead of pixels. Placing them in this fashion allows me to resize them without losing resolution as long as I don’t try to make the image bigger then the original placed file.

By playing around with the crop of each image, I can imply a final page design with placeholder images in place without having to spend hours hunting for 4 separate images to fill all four empty placeholders. Efficiency-wise, the cost in time to track down images 2, 3 and 4 is not worth the gain. Faking four images by experimenting with the crop of my placeholder images gives the same effect at a fraction of the time.

As you can see, even with a fairly simple image like the one I have used, several different, well-composed crops are available. A more complex image will give you even more options.

Remember: if you’re aware of what I’m doing here, it’s obvious. The goal, however, is to present a mock-up to a client so that he or she can take in the entire design and not get hung up on irrelevant issues that have nothing to do with the design. Placeholders just show where images will go. Their content in the mock-up stage doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t distract the client from the rest of the design.