Knowledge base
Image approvals glossary
The terms producers, publicists and stills photographers use when curating, approving and delivering film & TV photography — defined in plain English.
Key terms, A–Z
- Batch editing
- Batch editing is applying corrections — exposure, white balance, cropping and straightening — across many images at once: a fast, high-volume way to make a stills set consistent and press-ready. Read more →
- Capture One
- Capture One is professional photo-editing and tethering software widely used by unit stills photographers; its adjustments are stored in a catalogue or session rather than baked into the RAW file. Read more →
- Cast clearance
- Cast clearance is confirmation that the talent appearing in an image have approved its use for publicity — the contractual, permissions side of the approvals process. Read more →
- Contact sheet
- A contact sheet is a single-page or PDF overview grid of thumbnail images, used to review, reference or sign off a whole set of stills at a glance without opening each file individually. Read more →
- Culling and curation
- Culling — also called curation, and sometimes the edit — is the first pass through a shoot to remove duplicates, test frames and misfires, narrowing hundreds or thousands of images down to a usable working set before review. Read more →
- Digital asset management (DAM)
- Digital asset management (DAM) is software for storing, organising, searching and sharing media files — images, video and documents — keeping a large library findable, version-controlled and securely shareable over the long term. Read more →
- Distributor delivery specification
- A distributor delivery specification is the documented set of formats, sizes, colour space, naming and metadata rules a distributor or network requires when a production hands over its stills. Read more →
- Electronic press kit (EPK)
- An electronic press kit (EPK) is the digital package of approved stills, captions, production information and supporting assets that a film or TV production supplies to press and media outlets to publicise a title. Read more →
- Embargo
- An embargo is an agreed restriction on when images or information may be published, used to coordinate a film or TV publicity release so stills and news only appear from a set date and time. Read more →
- First look
- A first look is the first official release of images from a film or TV production to the press — usually a small set of approved, captioned stills, timed to launch the publicity campaign. Read more →
- Image metadata
- Image metadata is the information embedded in or attached to an image file, such as IPTC captions and credits or EXIF capture data, used for captioning, rights management and search. Read more →
- IPTC metadata
- IPTC metadata is a standardised set of descriptive fields — such as caption, creator, copyright and keywords — embedded inside an image file so its description, credit and usage terms travel with it wherever it goes. Read more →
- Key art
- Key art is the central, designed image used to market a film or TV title — the poster or artwork that anchors the campaign across posters, streaming tiles and advertising. Read more →
- Key selects
- Key selects are the strongest images chosen from the approved set — picked by the unit publicist or a producer once cast and stakeholders have signed off — and delivered to the distributor for publicity use. Read more →
- Kill rights
- Kill rights are an actor's contractual right to reject — or "kill" — unit stills photographs of themselves before they are used for publicity, usually capped as a percentage of the images they appear in. Read more →
- Likeness rights
- Likeness rights are a person's right to control the commercial use of their recognisable image, name and appearance — the broad basis for an actor's say over how they are depicted in publicity. Read more →
- Photographer selects
- Photographer selects are the photographer's own pick of the strongest frames from a shoot day — their highlight set, delivered ahead of (or sometimes instead of) the wider take, to get approvals moving. Read more →
- Publicity still
- A publicity still is a unit stills photograph that has been selected and approved for use in the marketing and press for a film or TV programme — a frame cleared and ready to release. Read more →
- RAW file
- A RAW file is an unprocessed image file straight from the camera sensor, carrying the maximum data the camera captured so it can be edited flexibly and non-destructively before export. Read more →
- Start of production (SOP)
- Start of production (SOP) is the early-publicity milestone when a production announces filming has begun, often accompanied by a first release of approved stills to the press. Read more →
- Talent approval
- Talent approval, also called cast approval or stills approval, is the process by which actors review and sign off the unit stills they appear in — contractually they must approve a minimum percentage of their images, typically around 50% of solo shots and 75% of group shots. Read more →
- Unit stills photography
- Unit stills photography is the on-set photography of a film or TV production, captured for promotional and publicity use such as posters, press, streaming artwork and social media. Read more →
- Watermarking
- Watermarking is the practice of overlaying a visible mark on images during review to deter unauthorised use or sharing before they have been approved and released. Read more →
- XMP sidecar file
- An XMP sidecar file is a small companion file that stores the non-destructive edits and metadata for a RAW image, recording adjustments and captions without altering the original file. Read more →
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