Lesson 5 — Shipping a Full Creative Set
Clients do not buy an image. They buy a set: hero, ratios, variants, and a disclosure line that keeps them out of trouble.
- Sell sets, not images: one hero plus ratio and copy variants, all sharing one lighting recipe.
- Compose inside platform safe zones and outpaint to reach new ratios instead of cropping.
- Quote cost as honest ranges (cents-to-a-few-dollars per generation vs low hundreds for a traditional lifestyle image) and count your editing hours.
- Actionable now: ship a full set for one product today, run the anti-slop QA checklist, and log how long it took.
A campaign is not one picture. It is a hero frame, then ratio variants, then copy variants, all sharing the same lighting recipe. Build the hero, sign it off, then let editing and outpainting produce the rest of the set.
Ship four by five for feed, nine by sixteen for stories, sixteen by nine in stream, one by one for catalog. Keep the product and the type inside the safe centre, because platform chrome will cover your edges.
Be honest about economics. Generation typically costs cents to a few dollars per image. A traditional lifestyle shot often lands in the low hundreds once crew, talent and licensing are counted. Your editing hours are the hidden cost.
Labelling matters. Several platforms and marketplaces now expect AI-generated imagery to be disclosed, and some models embed invisible watermarks like SynthID. Check the current rules for each destination before you publish.
Run the same checklist every time. Hands, teeth, reflections, label text, logo shape. Does the light physically make sense on the product? Would you print this and hand it to a client? If you hesitate, it is not done.
Do it today. Pick one product. Write one house recipe. Produce one hero, three ratio variants, two copy variants, then run the QA checklist. Deliver the set, time yourself, and then cut that time in half next week.
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