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For film & TV productions
Image Approvals pairs a purpose-built stills approvals platform with an expert photo lab — so you can curate what cast see, track every kill automatically, and deliver approved images without drowning in spreadsheets.
Trusted by industry leaders
Working with leading studios & production companies
One secure platform for producers and publicists to manage cast clearances from capture to final delivery.
Production accounts curate the set so cast only ever review the shots you want them to.
Enter each actor's contracted approval percentage and we track kills across solo and group images — no manual counting.
Let producers, publicists and the studio agree the final distributor-ready set together, in real time — no email chains.
Account-based access, customisable permissions, optional watermarking and download controls keep your images safe.
A responsive platform — nothing to install. Get cast approvals from desktop or mobile, anywhere.
Detailed contact sheets, approval status and full audit trails for every talent clearance.
When you have thousands of images across a full cast — each with different contracted percentages — counting kills by hand is a nightmare. Image Approvals tracks every kill across solo and group shots automatically, and recalculates instantly when new images arrive.
You always know who has approved what and who still needs to act — and because the platform won't let anyone kill more than their contracted allowance, cast can never exceed their limit.
Do a first pass before cast ever log in. Filter out duplicates, test shots and misfires so actors review a clean, considered set — protecting trust and keeping the approval process moving.
Producers and publicists decide precisely which images reach which talent, with smart tagging so cast only see the shots they appear in.
Need help with this? If you're staring down thousands of images and the thought of working through them is overwhelming, our expert editorial team can do that initial pass for you — filtering out the duplicates and misfires and surfacing the shots worth showing. See our editorial & finishing services.
For publicists clearing cast across several productions at once, a single dashboard tracks progress, deadlines and team collaboration — with JPG downloads ready for First Look and Start of Production releases.
Beyond the platform, our editorial team handles the technical side of your unit photography — RAW-to-JPG conversion, .xmp and Capture One edit preservation, file renaming, captioning, metadata embedding and quality control.
In our experience, most stills sets arrive with errors, corrupt files or missing frames. We audit every one to catch them before your images reach your distributor.
The lab can also keep an eye on the numbers for you. Ask us about episoding and delivery quota tracking — we categorise each image as it arrives and watch your approved totals build against your distributor's minimums, so an under-covered principal or a thin episode gets flagged while your photographer is still on set.
Our technical expertise ensures your production stills are handled professionally from capture to delivery — grouped into three areas of care.
Streamlining Delivery
From your photographer to your distributor; we liaise with both to ensure your unit stills photography is where it needs to be, ensuring a smooth and efficient delivery process.
Technical File Handling
Professional image processing, format conversion, quality control, file renaming, tagging and technical compliance for all your production stills.
Format Conversion
We can convert RAW to JPG and provide professional handling of all image file types including JPEG, DNG, TIFF, and proprietary camera RAW files with editing file preservation.
Talent Approvals
Streamlined cast clearance processes with digital approval workflows, automated kill tracking, and comprehensive reports.
Talent Tagging
Our smart tagging processes save you hours of manual organization, ensure cast only see the images in which they appear and are fully customisable to your preferences – determining exactly what kind of shots talent need to approve.
Full Reporting & Audit Trail
A complete set of reports logs every image and its final status – approved, killed or marked as a key select by stakeholders – including who made each decision. No more piecing it together from scattered emails, spreadsheets and Dropbox folders: it's all consolidated in one place as a single source of truth.
Loss Prevention
80% of productions have stills sets with errors or missing files. We fully audit all images to spot and resolve missing, corrupt or incorrectly formatted files.
Editing Preservation
Professional management of photographer edits, ensuring all supporting .xmp and Capture One settings files are maintained so that cast and client see images at their best.
Secure Delivery
Encrypted transfer, secure cloud storage, and comprehensive backup systems ensure your images are protected throughout the delivery process.
Behind every frame
Whether it's missing frames, missing formats your distributor needs, problematic naming conventions that can lead to lost or corrupted images or even technical issues with the images themselves like noise or banding rendering them unusable. Every image you send is audited by our editorial team as they come in so problems are caught and fixedearly.
Every stills approvals package includes our comprehensive technical file handling as standard. Without it, these problems go unnoticed until it's too late.
Without proper technical oversight, missing or damaged files can go unnoticed until it’s too late.
RAW files are massive and complex – improper storage and organization can lead to chaos and lost assets.
Photographer edits are stored in sidecar files – lose these and you lose all the creative work that makes images look their best.
Complex productions generate massive amounts of varied files – proper organization and delivery systems are essential for efficiency.
Without proper security protocols around how images are stored and shared, sensitive production images can easily end up in the wrong hands.
Banding, noise, chromatic aberration, and other technical issues can fly under the radar if not properly spotted, causing your production to take reputational damage if amateur-looking stills are released as part of your PR campaign.
Not all JPGs are created equal – using low-resolution files for high-quality deliverables can result in unusable images but it’s often these that producers often receive without realising it or following up with photographers.
Manually finding and pulling out approved RAW files for your post-production team is a time-consuming and error-prone process, especially if you discover they have completely different file names to the JPGs you’ve been working with.
Sound like a nightmare? It doesn’t have to be. Our platform and expert team handle all of this automatically, so you can focus on your production instead of drowning in spreadsheets and manual image counting.
When you have 3,000 images across 8 actors with varying kill percentages, are you really going to count each time each actor appears in an image by hand? What happens when your photographer delivers more images mid-process and you need to recalculate everyone’s allowances? One miscalculation and you’re either letting talent kill too many images or incorrectly telling them they’ve hit their limit.
Actor A approves an image but Actor B kills it. Now what? Are you maintaining separate spreadsheets for solo vs group images? What if Actor C changes their mind later? Without automated tracking, you’ll spend hours cross-referencing kills across multiple actors just to figure out which group shots are actually approved.
Three months after delivery, the distributor questions why a particular image was excluded. Can you prove which actor killed it? What if an actor claims they never saw certain images? Without timestamped records of every decision, you have no defence – email trails and phone calls aren’t legally robust documentation.
Your photographer delivers 500 new images on Friday. Each of your 6 actors now needs their kill allowances recalculated based on how many new images they appear in – solo shots, group shots with 2 people, group shots with 3+ people, each with different contractual percentages. Can you do that math accurately in 10 minutes, or will it take hours while production waits?
You’ve sent images to 12 actors. Who’s finished? Who’s still working on Day 3 of 8? Who hasn’t even started? Without real-time progress tracking, you’re flying blind until deadline day when you discover half your cast hasn’t even looked at their images.
Your lead actor has 50% kill rights but marks 75% of the images you sent via Dropbox. How do you tell them to un-kill 25% worth of images? Now they’re frustrated, and you’re spending an hour on the phone managing a situation that should have been prevented automatically.
You’re managing images via Dropbox or WeTransfer links. What’s stopping Actor A from sharing their link with Actor B? What if an assistant accidentally sends Actor C’s folder to Actor D? Without secure, account-based access, you have no control over who sees what.
Your actors approved the JPG versions, but post-production needs the RAW files of the approved shots – and your photographer named the RAWs differently to the JPGs. Now you’re manually matching thousands of approved images to their source RAW files by eye. Hope you have hours to spare and a good eye for detail…
Free scorecard · 5 minutes
Take the free 5-minute Stills Delivery Readiness check. Answer a few plain-English questions and get a score across the five areas that decide whether your stills land on time, on spec and fully approved — plus where your biggest risks are.
No cost · No obligation · Your score in 5 minutes
Delivery readiness
On Track
Need more help with your images? Our editorial team can handle the details while you focus on your production.
Distributors set a minimum number of approved images — per key cast member, per episode, or split between episodics and BTS. We size your working set to hit it, and log coverage as you shoot so a shortfall is flagged while the photographer can still fix it. How it works.
Don’t spend days sifting through thousands of shots you don’t need. We can do a first pass for you, filtering out duplicates, test shots, misfires and other unneeded images.
Detailed, accurate captions that ensure your released production stills are searchable, accessible and properly credited — and which delivery specs routinely require to be embedded in every image. Read our captioning guide.
Comprehensive metadata integration including copyright information, usage rights, captions and more so publications can easily find and use your production stills correctly.
With options for both affordable high-volume batch editing for when your unit photography needs a little clean up before publication, and bespoke individual retouching for key shots, we’ll have your unit stills looking their best.
Need a unit photographer for your production? Our ShootBuddy platform can help you find the perfect one – matching your production’s style, energy and budget – and share the common pitfalls of booking unit photographers so you can avoid them.
Every photographer has heard “you should have been here yesterday” so often it’s an inside joke. Don’t waste budget booking your photographer on the wrong days – schedule them on the days that count and keep them moving as schedules shift by using our ShootBuddy platform.
From planning your coverage before the shoot, through the photo lab, talent approvals and episoding, to hitting your distributor's image quota — see the full breadth of how we help productions land a successful stills delivery.
Planning the shoot itself? Meet ShootBuddy, our stills coverage-planning tool for film & TV publicity teams. →
“I have worked with Image Approvals for 4 years. Their service has been invaluable to streamlining the approvals process and delivering final/approved images to our clients. They are extremely responsive and professional. I intend to work with them for the years to come.”
“The Image Approvals service was such a life saver. They helped us unravel our unit photography into manageable folders that were easy for us and talent to navigate. Aimee's team were patient and gave us guidance throughout. They are incredibly good value and I would work with them again in a heartbeat.”
“Aimee and her team at Image Approvals are truly fantastic. They made the process seamless from start to finish, were incredibly communicative throughout, and ensured everything was delivered at the end of the project in an organised fashion as promised. Highly recommended.”
Join the production companies who trust Image Approvals for their cast clearances.
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