What Technical Requirements Should You Ask When Hiring a Commercial Photographer for Advertising Projects?
When clients approach me for an advertising or commercial shoot, the conversation often begins with mood boards, peg images, and visual direction. That’s important—but equally important, and often overlooked, are the technical foundations behind the images that a commercial photographer must deliver.
Commercial photography is not just about creating something beautiful. It is about producing files that will survive real-world use: retouching, layout design, resizing, printing, archiving, and sometimes repurposing years later in advertising campaigns. From my professional experience, asking the right technical questions at the beginning prevents limitations at the end.
Here are the key specifications I believe every client should clarify when hiring a commercial photographer for advertising and brand work.
1. What Sensor Format Are You Using?
Clients often ask whether a shoot requires medium format. The truth is, the answer depends on usage—not prestige.
Most commercial and advertising work today is successfully produced using full frame systems, which provide an excellent balance of resolution, dynamic range, flexibility, and efficiency. A properly executed full frame capture can absolutely meet billboard requirements. Billboards are viewed from a distance, so what matters is not extreme pixel density, but clean files, strong detail, and solid production technique.
Medium format becomes relevant only when the project demands:
Extremely high-resolution multi-use assets
Heavy cropping flexibility
Ultra-premium campaigns where every tonal transition must hold under scrutiny
Medium format systems also come with significantly higher production costs and can raise photography fees up to three times compared to full frame, so they should be chosen only when the project truly requires them.
For the majority of advertising, editorial, fashion, and corporate applications, full frame delivers more than enough data—provided the photographer knows how to maximize it.
Sensor size is only one part of the equation. Lighting, lens quality, exposure discipline, and workflow matter far more.
2. At What ISO Will the Images Be Captured?
In my workflow, I aim to operate within the base ISO range of 100–400 whenever possible.
This is where the camera performs at its best:
Maximum dynamic range
Clean tonal structure
Accurate color reproduction
Files that tolerate retouching without falling apart
Commercial and advertising photography are usually done in controlled environments. We shape the light to suit the camera—not the other way around. Relying on high ISO may be acceptable in documentary situations, but in commercial production it introduces unnecessary degradation that compounds during post-production.
Keeping ISO low is not about being conservative. It is about protecting the file so it remains flexible across every stage of use.
3. Will the Files Be Delivered in 8-bit or 16-bit?
This is one of the most critical questions, yet it is rarely asked by clients commissioning advertising imagery.
Most professional cameras capture 14-bit or higher information internally. If the workflow is reduced to 8-bit too early, a significant amount of captured data is discarded.
An 8-bit file contains 256 tonal values per channel.
A 16-bit file contains 65,536 tonal values per channel.
That difference becomes very visible when:
Retouching skin tones
Adjusting gradients or backgrounds
Performing color grading
Printing in large format
Avoiding banding in smooth transitions
4. Understanding When to Use 8-bit vs 16-bit
Both formats have their place in a professional commercial photography workflow. The choice depends on how the images will be used after the shoot.
8-bit files are highly versatile:
Smaller file sizes for easier transfer and storage
Efficient for web use, social media, and everyday marketing materials
Suitable when the image is already finalized and will not undergo heavy manipulation
16-bit files are intended for high-end advertising production:
Greater tonal information protects subtle color transitions
Better handling of highlights and shadows in complex lighting
Ideal for advanced color grading, compositing, and detailed retouching
Reduces risks of banding, especially in large-format output
5. My Workflow Approach
My workflow is built around a 16-bit processing pipeline to maintain maximum image integrity from capture through post-production. This ensures smoother tonal transitions, stronger color accuracy, and greater flexibility for retouching, grading, and large-format reproduction—particularly important for commercial and advertising work where files may go through multiple stages of use.
When a project calls for lighter delivery requirements such as web use or fast deployment, files can be exported to 8-bit formats as needed. This approach preserves quality at the source while still allowing practical output options depending on the final application.
The goal is to protect image data during production, then tailor deliverables to the real-world usage of the photographs.
6. Ask About the Entire Image Pipeline — Not Just the Camera
A commercial photograph is not created at the moment of capture. It is the result of a chain of technical decisions:
Shooting in RAW to preserve full sensor data
Controlled lighting to maintain optimal exposure and ISO
Color-managed processing
Calibrated displays for accurate evaluation
Bit-depth maintained appropriately during editing
Export tailored to the final medium (print, digital, or both)
When any link in that chain is weak, the final image suffers—sometimes invisibly at first, but noticeably once it enters design and production.
Final Thoughts
In my experience working across commercial and advertising assignments, clients rarely regret asking for stronger technical foundations. They only regret discovering limitations when the images are already in production.
A successful commercial photography shoot is not defined solely by creativity. It is defined by whether the files remain usable, adaptable, and resilient long after the shoot is finished.
Great images attract attention.
Well-produced files sustain value.
And in advertising, value is what ultimately matters.