Guides

Stills file handling & delivery

The technical craft behind a clean stills delivery — how unit photography is captioned, converted, organised and packaged so a production's images arrive searchable, correctly credited and press-ready.

A unit stills editor organising, captioning and converting production photography files on a laptop

Between a unit photographer’s memory card and a press-ready set of stills sits a layer of technical craft most productions never see until it goes wrong: captioning, metadata, format conversion, contact sheets and the file handling that keeps thousands of images traceable.

These guides cover that layer in plain English — how to caption film and TV stills so they stay searchable and correctly credited, when to use RAW versus JPG, what a contact sheet is for, and how the pieces fit together so an approved set is delivered clean. They pair with the unit stills workflow (how images are shot, curated and approved) and the talent image approvals guides (how cast sign them off).

How to caption film and TV stills (and why captions matter)

A practical guide to captioning film and TV production stills — what to include, how to embed it and the mistakes to avoid.

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Contact sheets for film stills: what they are and how to use them

A plain-English guide to contact sheets for film stills — what they show, how they're used in the approvals workflow, and best practice.

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RAW vs JPG for production stills: which to shoot, approve and deliver

Shoot RAW, approve as JPG, archive RAW, deliver to spec: how RAW and JPG files fit a film and TV stills workflow.

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Image metadata for press stills: IPTC, captions and credits that travel

What image metadata is, the EXIF, IPTC and XMP layers, and the fields film and TV press stills need to travel correctly.

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Watermarking production images: when and how to do it

A plain-English guide to watermarking film and TV production stills — when to mark review copies, when to keep deliverables clean, and how to do it well.

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What is an EPK (electronic press kit)? A film & TV guide

A clear film & TV guide to the EPK: what an electronic press kit is, what's inside it, and how it's delivered to press.

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DAM for film & TV stills: do you need digital asset management?

Does a film or TV production need a DAM for stills? What DAM does well, where it stops, and what clears stills first.

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Reference

What are RAW files?

A plain-English primer on the camera RAW format — what it holds, why photographers shoot it, and why it is never the file you publish.

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Reference

Everything you need to know about XMP files

How .xmp sidecars carry a photographer's edits and metadata alongside a RAW, and what happens when they get separated from it.

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Back to all guides · Browse the glossary.

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