Services for film & TV productions

A photo lab and software platform for film & TV stills.

Image Approvals is a specialist unit stills photo lab with web apps built to make life easier for publicists and producers, from planning coverage before the shoot to delivering fully-approved, press-ready images to your distributor.

Plan and defend your stills coverage with ShootBuddy
Expert photo lab: file handling, loss prevention and delivery
Hit your distributor's approved-image quota, tracked from day one
Talent photo approvals and editorial finishing under one roof

Talk to our team

The Image Approvals platform on a desktop and laptop on a studio backdrop: an iMac showing the talent photo-approval review grid, with a MacBook in front showing the ShootBuddy stills schedule

Stills scheduling

Stills scheduling with ShootBuddy

Publicity coverage still lives in spreadsheets, PDFs and one person's memory, and the shoot only happens once. Miss a guest star's only day on set and no reshoot brings it back.

ShootBuddy is a tool built for unit publicists to make that planning easier. It turns your one-liner into a living coverage plan you stay in control of, so you shoot the right days, cover every principal and catch the gaps while you can still act. Tired of cross-checking every new schedule by hand? See how ShootBuddy takes that pain away.

Explore ShootBuddy

ShootBuddy coverage plan card: three shoot days with scenes and cast, one day flagged as having no stills coverage

What ShootBuddy does for your coverage

Read your one-liner

Upload the one-liner PDF and ShootBuddy reads scenes, cast, shoot days and locations into a structured, searchable plan.

Plan coverage for stills

Use ShootBuddy to surface the data that gives you the coverage you need, whether that's specific cast combinations, the busiest days on set or shoots happening in certain locations. Whatever is important to your coverage, ShootBuddy helps you find it.

Catch silent gaps

Surface the cast and key moments your plan has yet to cover, while there's still time to add a day. ShootBuddy summaries tell you exactly what's missing.

Auto-track schedule changes

Import the latest one-liner and see exactly what changed and how it impacts your publicity plans.

Protect the budget

Find photographers local to the shoot, flag night shoots and prioritise stills days by how many cast are on set.

Share a plan you can defend

Export a polished coverage report for the producer, photographer and the wider team.

Photo lab

Gallery and unit photography photo lab

However your photographer delivers (day by day as you shoot, in batches, or as one set at the end), their raw output has to become a properly organised, distributor-ready set. Our photo lab takes it end to end, handling the technical files, catching the errors and streamlining delivery from your photographer all the way to the distributor. The earlier we start, the more we can do for you.

It comes included as standard with our photo approvals work, so the images you clear are the same images we handle, organise and deliver.

Line illustration of the photo lab auditing a contact sheet of unit stills: a magnifier inspecting frames, most ticked as verified with one flagged in red as a missing or corrupt file, and the clean, organised set filed ready for delivery

What's in the photo lab package

Streamlining delivery

We liaise with both your photographer and your distributor so your unit stills are delivered securely, cleanly and complete.

Technical file handling

All the right formats, sizes and edits (including .xmp and Capture One sidecars) for a smooth, professional delivery.

Loss prevention

We fully audit every image to spot and resolve anything missing, corrupt or in the wrong format before it reaches your distributor.

File cleanup & organisation

No more hunting for images! We organise the set into a clean, consistent structure with file naming that makes it easy to find and identify images and maintain cross-referencing.

JPG exports

Missing JPGs? No problem. We'll export them from the RAW files or track the edits down from your photographer, so you don't have to.

Tagging

Our tagging processes ensure your cast are correctly identified across all of their shots and only see the images they're supposed to. No hours lost sorting folders.

Photo approvals

Take the stress out of managing talent photo approvals. Our photo approvals platform lets producers and publicists choose which images reach each actor, then automatically tracks and caps every kill in line with contract percentages, across both solo and group shots.

Production and viewer accounts give your wider team controlled, permission-based access, and every kill and select is captured in a full, exportable audit trail. That's the documentation email chains and phone calls can never give you.

Image Approvals gives you a single source of truth on which stills are talent-approved.

More about the approvals platform

A hand holding a phone showing the Image Approvals mobile app: a day's unit stills laid out for talent review with kill, star and view controls and a Mark day as done button

What's in the photo approvals platform

Talent photo approvals

Producers and publicists select which images reach talent, while the platform tracks and caps each actor's kills against their contract percentages.

Talent, reps, publicist, producer, director & creative team

Customisable accounts give all the stakeholders the permissions you need to ensure everything stays secure and streamlined.

Approval reports

Spreadsheet and contact-sheet reports give a full audit trail of every image killed and selected, proof your released images are fully approved.

Editorial & finishing

Unit photographers often deliver 500+ frames a day, and sometimes these can be full of duplicates, misfires and test shots. Our image experts filter out the noise and surface the best selections, then finish them to a press-ready standard so the stills actually sell your production.

From curation and retouching to captioning and metadata, editorial is where a working set becomes searchable, on-brand marketing assets.

Ask us about editorial services

Line illustration of an editorial finishing desk: a film still being colour-graded on a calibrated monitor, contact sheets being curated with rejects crossed out and one frame starred in red as the select, beside a grading-control panel and a colour-reference chart

What editorial services are available

Curation

When your stills number into the thousands, our experts filter out duplicates and misfires to find the best selections for a highly curated working set, whilst giving you all of the options you need.

Episoding

We organise your images into the categories that actually matter to a producer, by episode and by image type: behind-the-scenes, unit (also called episodics), locations, props and more. It's what makes your set navigable, and it's what lets us track your delivery quota as the shoot goes on, so a shortfall can be caught and briefed back to the photographer mid-shoot instead of surfacing at wrap.

Batch image editing

A rapid, high-volume batch sweep to correct exposure and white balance, crop out kit and crew and straighten shots, press-ready without expensive retouching fees.

Retouching & colour grading

Precise, high-end retouching on hero and key-art frames (blemish, distraction and continuity fixes that stand up to poster-scale use), and colour grading that matches the final grade of your film, so the images you release reflect the look and tone audiences see on screen.

Captioning

Distributor specs routinely require every image to arrive captioned, with the caption embedded in its metadata. Good captions make stills discoverable and accurately used, giving editors immediate context and turning images into searchable marketing assets. See our guide to captioning film & TV stills.

Metadata embedding

Properly embedded metadata drives discoverability, accessibility, legal compliance and brand control across every outlet before release.

Delivery quotas & coverage

Hitting your distributor's image quota

Delivery specs don't just dictate formats. Most set a minimum number of approved images you have to hand over. That might be a single total for the title, a count per key cast member, or a floor every episode has to clear on its own. Specs often break it down further still: so many unit stills (episodics), and so many behind-the-scenes.

Here's the catch: only talent-approved images count towards that number, and cast kill rights take images out of the pool at the very end. So the set you send to talent has to be big enough that what survives approvals still clears the spec, in every category it measures. Get that wrong and you find out when the shoot is long wrapped and there is no clean fix.

We work the number backwards with you, and we watch the coverage build while there's still time to change it so you know you'll be able to meet your delivery obligations. That tracking is powered by our episoding service. Because we categorise every image by episode, cast and type as it arrives, we can see a shortfall forming and brief your photographer mid-shoot, rather than counting up at wrap and finding you short.

Talk to us about your delivery spec

Line illustration of coverage tracking: incoming stills feeding a board that tracks each cast member's approved image count against a dashed delivery target, four rows meeting the target and one falling short, flagged in red, with a dotted arrow back to a stills camera on a tripod showing the gap can still be shot

How we get you to the number

Work backwards from the spec

We take your distributor's minimums, apply each actor's contracted kill percentages, and size the working set, so we know how many images need to reach talent for the approved pool to meet the spec.

Episoding from day one

Our episoding service is what makes this possible: as images come in we log what each one actually is, which cast appear, which episode, whether it's unit (episodic), BTS, a location or a prop, rather than reconstructing it all at the end. Start with us at the top of production and the picture builds while the shoot is still live.

Flag shortfalls while you can still shoot

We track running totals per actor and per category, so if a principal is under-covered or an episode is light on BTS we can tell you, and your photographer can be briefed to capture more of it before the unit wraps.

Common questions about our services

What does Image Approvals actually do? +

We're a film and TV stills photo lab with our own web apps. We help you plan coverage before the shoot with ShootBuddy, run your unit photography through an expert photo lab (technical file handling, loss prevention and delivery), manage talent photo approvals on our secure platform, and finish images with editorial services. Take it all as a package or pick just the parts you need.

How does ShootBuddy help with stills scheduling? +

ShootBuddy turns a production's one-liner into a living stills coverage plan. It flags which principals are on each day, surfaces coverage gaps before wrap, tracks schedule changes and helps you place photographers on the highest-value days, so publicity coverage isn't stuck in a spreadsheet or one person's head.

How do talent photo approvals work? +

Producers and publicists select which images reach each actor. Talent then log in to view only the shots they appear in and kill any they want to veto. Our platform tracks kills across solo and group images and won't let an actor exceed their contractual percentage. No manual counting, no spreadsheets.

What is loss prevention and why does it matter? +

Do you know what sidecar files are, and how their file naming and their location in a folder, relative to the image they belong to, can decide whether the edits your photographer made survive or are quietly lost? Would you know how to spot a corrupt or a missing file, or the risks that lead to them, when you've been handed thousands of images across a mix of different formats? These are exactly the failure points that cost productions their best frames. Loss prevention is us auditing every image that comes to us so those problems are found and fixed before they reach your distributor, because the shoot only happens once.

How many images do we need to send to talent to hit our delivery quota? +

More than the quota itself, and working out how many more is exactly what we do for you. Most distributor delivery specs set a minimum number of approved images (a total, a count per key cast member or per episode, often split between episodics and BTS), and cast kill rights remove images from that pool right at the end of the process. So the working set that goes out for approval has to be large enough that what survives still clears the spec in every category it measures. We take your spec's minimums, apply each actor's contracted kill percentages, and size the set accordingly, rather than discovering a shortfall once the shoot has wrapped and there's no way to fix it.

Can you tell us if our stills coverage is falling short while we're still shooting? +

Yes. This is one of the most valuable things we do, and it only works if you come to us at the start of production. As images arrive we log what each one actually is: which cast appear, which episode, whether it's a unit still (episodic) or behind-the-scenes. That lets us track running totals per actor and per category as the shoot progresses, so if a principal is under-covered or an episode is light on BTS we can flag it and your photographer can be briefed to capture more. Wait until wrap and the option is gone. A shortfall discovered after the unit has stood down can't be reshot.

Do distributor specs require captions? +

Usually, yes, and the caption normally has to be embedded in the image's IPTC metadata rather than supplied as a separate list. Captions typically identify the cast and characters in shot, the episode, the photographer credit and the copyright line. A distributor ingesting your stills into a press library will often reject or return a set that arrives without them. We handle captioning and metadata embedding as part of our editorial service; our captioning guide covers what a good caption contains.

Do I have to take the whole service, or can I pick parts? +

Both. Many productions take scheduling, the photo lab, photo approvals and editorial together for a fully managed delivery, but each service stands on its own. Tell us where you need help and we'll scope it to your production.

Do you handle the technical file formats and photographer edits? +

Yes. We handle all common image file types alongside editing sidecar files such as .xmp and Capture One settings, so your photographer's edits and metadata are preserved and your delivery meets distributor specifications.

Free scorecard · 5 minutes

How delivery-ready is your production?

Before you brief anyone, score your stills delivery process across the five areas that decide whether images arrive on time, on spec and fully approved, and see exactly where the gaps are.

✓ Score your delivery readiness across 5 key areas
✓ Pinpoint the gaps that put your stills delivery at risk
✓ Get a prioritised, plain-English action list

Start the free scorecard

No cost · No obligation · Your score in 5 minutes

Delivery readiness

On Track

Example

Let's handle your production stills.

From coverage scheduling to file handling, cast clearances and editorial, our team and platform take the stress out of your unit photography.

Talk to our team