Can you send the product shot, high-res, by 4?
A journalist writing a gift guide asks for a high-res cutout of a client's new blender on a white background, and a lifestyle shot, by 4pm. The executive searches the client's shared folder. There are forty images with names like DSC_4471_final_v2.jpg. Some are low-res web versions. One has a photographer's credit in the file name, another has none. The lifestyle shots might have been shot for social media only, and she cannot remember whether the photographer's licence covers editorial use.
She emails the client's marketing manager, who is off today. At 3.45 she sends the best guess she can find with a note saying credit TBC. The magazine prints it with the wrong credit, and the photographer emails the client.
Why the right image is never where you look
- Press images arrive from clients by transfer links that expire.
- File names say nothing about content, resolution or approval.
- Credits and usage terms are in an email with the photographer, not with the image.
- Old product shots stay in folders after the product changes.
- Each account team files images its own way.
Usage rights for photography are agreed between the client and the photographer, and your agency follows what they agreed. The build only makes sure that agreement travels with the image.
What slow and wrong images cost
Gift guides, round-ups and news pieces are often decided by which brand sent a usable image first. Slow answers lose places. Wrong credits or out-of-date product shots create corrections and awkward conversations with photographers and clients. Executives also lose surprising amounts of time to digging through folders, a few minutes at a time, many times a week.
How we build the press image library
- Approved press images for each client are collected into one library, in SharePoint, Google Drive or a store we set up, with the old folders left untouched until you are happy.
- Each image carries fields: product or subject, orientation, background type, resolution, photographer credit, caption, approved uses and any expiry date for the licence.
- A language model can draft captions and subject tags from the image for a person to check, which speeds up adding large batches.
- Web-sized previews make browsing quick, and the full-resolution original is only sent when shared.
- Sharing creates a link for the named journalist with the credit and caption included in the email and the file metadata.
- Images past their licence expiry, or marked as superseded, are hidden from search and flagged to the account team.
| Image field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Credit | Printed correctly every time |
| Approved uses | Editorial, social, advertising, as agreed by the client |
| Licence expiry | Stops images being sent after terms end |
| Background and orientation | Finding a cutout or portrait fast |
| Superseded | Hides old product shots |
The same request, next month
The executive searches the client's library for the blender, white background, cutout. Two images appear, both high-res, credited and marked for editorial use. She adds one lifestyle shot, also cleared for editorial, and shares them in one link with credits and captions in the email. It takes a few minutes, and the credit printed is the right one.
The share is recorded against the journalist, so if the magazine asks again, or the client asks who has the image, the answer is there. When the client sends new product photography, it goes into the library with the credit filled in on the way in, and the old shots are marked as superseded so nobody sends them by mistake.
Clients benefit too. Their own marketing team can use the same library, so the agency and the client stop keeping separate copies of the same shoot in different folders.
Are image requests like this at your agency?
- Press images are in folders with camera file names.
- Credits are looked up in old emails.
- Nobody is sure which images are cleared for editorial use.
- Old product shots still get sent.
- Image requests take far longer than they should.