Contact Sheet
Six frames, one keeper.
Think photo desk, not slot machine. Mark the brief, reject the handshake stock, check the license, then deliver frames with the credits attached.
Brief
What the frame must do
Audience, page or deck slot, mood, must-avoids. No handshakes, no fake diversity stock, no faces if you said so.
Free lane
Open the light table
Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Burst, FoodiesFeed, Rawpixel, Freepik free tier. Keepers get an amber mark; rejects stay off the sheet.
Check
License under the loupe
Attribution required? Editorial only? Release needed for this use? Traps flagged before anyone pastes a hero.
Escalate
When free isn’t enough
Canva Pro / iStock first, then Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, Envato, Getty. Cost and risk on the same line.
Credit
Publish-ready notes
URLs, license notes, alt text, which frame is the keeper. No “I think it was on Unsplash?”
Hand-off
You decide the crop
I find and check; you place it. If a frame fails in layout, we pull the next keeper.
Scroll the strip →
What “done” looks like
- 2–5 shortlisted frames that match the brief
- License + attribution notes per frame
- Clear free vs paid recommendation
- Alt-ready captions for the keeper
Light table’s clear.
Loupe capped, no handshake rejects pending. Hand me a brief and I’ll uncap it.