How many shots should a launch set have?

As many as your placements need once they are grouped by shape. For product pages, see what product photos an online store needs. For paid social volume, see how many ad creatives you need.

Should the prompts live in the shot list?

Keep them in a linked file or a column, named by shot number. The shot list is the brief a producer and a client can read. The prompt is how one tool carries it out, and it changes when you change models.

How is a shot list different from a storyboard?

A storyboard shows a sequence in time, for film or video. A shot list is a table of separate stills, each with its own size, references and use. A campaign with both usually approves the stills first.

A shot list template for an AI campaign

Checked September 24, 20267 min read

Short answer

A shot list for an AI campaign gives every photo one row: shot number, deliverable, placement and pixel size, subject and action, the reference photos it needs, ground, light, framing, copy space and notes. Plan it backward from the placements, so the 4:5 feed ad, the 9:16 story and the wide banner each get a frame composed for their shape instead of a crop of one master.

The template

Copy the header row into a spreadsheet and give each photo one row. The last two columns get filled after rendering, and over a few jobs they tell you what each kind of shot costs in tries.

Shot list header row

Shot | Deliverable | Placement and size | Subject and action | References needed | Ground | Light | Framing | Copy space | Notes | Renders | Kept

Column	What goes in it	Example
Shot	A number that never changes, used in file names	07
Deliverable	What the photo is for	Feed ad
Placement and size	Where it runs, the ratio and the pixel size	Meta feed ad, 4:5, 1440 x 1800
Subject and action	Who or what, doing what, in physical terms	Model mid-stride in rain, collar up, jacket zipped
References needed	The exact photos to attach, in order	1 character sheet, 2 jacket front, 3 fabric close-up
Ground	Surface or backdrop, with a hex code where it matters	Wet slate path, grey sea haze behind
Light	Source, direction and hardness	Overcast daylight, soft, from camera left
Framing	Lens, camera height and crop	85mm, chest height, knees up
Copy space	Where the words will go, and how much room they need	Top third plain, for a headline and button
Notes	What the reviewer must check on this shot	Hood toggles visible, patch on left chest
Renders	Tries so far	9
Kept	The file name of the keeper	07-feed-4x5-v3

A filled example: a ten-shot launch set

The product here is an example, an olive waxed-cotton field jacket. The launch needs a home page hero, a product page, paid social, a display banner and one digital billboard. Sizes are the ones Shopify, Instagram, Meta, Google and the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) published as of September 2026. The white-background shots also meet Amazon’s main-image rules: pure white (RGB 255, 255, 255) and a product filling 85% or more of the frame. Light and ground, and framing and copy space, share a column here to fit the page.

Shot	Deliverable and size	Subject and action	References	Light and ground	Framing and copy space
1	Home page hero, 16:9, the largest size your model makes well	Model on a coastal path at dawn, jacket open, walking toward camera	Character sheet, jacket front, fabric close-up	Low sun behind camera left, rim light on the shoulders. Gravel path, grey sea haze.	35mm, full length, figure on the right third. Left 40% plain for the headline.
2	Product page front, 1:1, 2048 x 2048	Jacket alone, front, zipped, on an invisible form	Jacket front photo	Large soft key from front left, soft contact shadow. White #FFFFFF.	85mm, centered, jacket filling about 85% of the frame. No copy.
3	Product page back, 1:1, 2048 x 2048	Jacket alone, back	Jacket back photo	Same as shot 2	Same lens, crop and scale as shot 2, so the carousel lines up. No copy.
4	Detail, 1:1, 2048 x 2048	Corduroy collar and brass snap	Collar close-up, snap close-up	Low raking light from camera left across the waxed cotton	100mm macro, f/5.6, focus on the snap. No copy.
5	Instagram post, 3:4, 1080 x 1440	Jacket on a peg by a back door, muddy boots below	Jacket front photo	Soft window light from camera right. Painted wood wall.	50mm, eye level. No copy; the caption goes in the post text.
6	Product page on-model, 1:1, 2048 x 2048	Model standing, jacket zipped, three-quarter turn	Character sheet, jacket front, jacket back	Large soft key from upper left at 45 degrees. Light grey seamless.	85mm, chest height, full length with clean margin. No copy.
7	Meta feed ad, 4:5, 1440 x 1800	Model mid-stride in rain, collar up	Character sheet, jacket front, fabric close-up	Overcast, soft, from camera left. Wet slate path.	85mm, knees up. Top third plain for headline and button.
8	Stories and Reels ad, 9:16, 1440 x 2560	Model close, looking at camera, rain on the shoulders	Character sheet, jacket front	Overcast. Blurred coastline.	85mm, chest up, face in the middle band. Top 14%, bottom 35% and 6% each side free of text and key detail.
9	Google Ads banner, 1.91:1, 1200 x 628	Jacket on the peg from shot 5, seen wider	Jacket front photo	Same as shot 5	50mm, jacket on the right third. Left half plain for headline and button.
10	Digital billboard (bulletin), 1400 x 400	A small figure in a wide wet landscape, the jacket the only warm color	Character sheet, jacket front	Low sun through cloud from behind camera right	24mm, figure on the right third. Left two thirds for a short line.

For the hero, Google’s Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro render up to 4K, while OpenAI calls GPT Image 2 output above 2560 x 1440 experimental. Shots 2, 3 and 6 share one size so the product page carousel lines up, and 2 and 3 also share lens, crop and scale. Shot 9 fits Google’s Performance Max landscape image; uploaded banner sizes such as 300 x 250 need their own layouts and weigh 150 KB at most.

Plan coverage from the placements back

List every placement the campaign will run in, with the ratio and pixel size each one asks for.
Group them by shape: square, 4:5, 9:16, landscape near 1.91:1, and very wide.
Give a shape its own shot when a crop would cut the product or the copy space. For Stories and Reels, Meta asks you to keep about 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom and 6% of each side free of text, logos and key elements, so the product and the words have to sit in the middle band.
Mark the copy space for each placement in the shot’s row, with where it goes and how big it is.
Check the strangest shapes first. The OAAA lists a digital bulletin as a 7:2 image of 1400 x 400 pixels. A printed bulletin is typically 14 by 48 feet and needs a file built to the media owner’s spec.
Keep the product’s scale and the light the same across every shape, so the set reads as one campaign.

How to adapt one campaign to every ad size covers extending and reframing a finished frame. Exact sizes and safe zones are in Facebook and Instagram ad sizes, Google Ads image sizes and what resolution a billboard needs.

Fill in the references column first

A model copies what it is shown and invents what it is not, so the back view needs the back photo and the detail needs the close-up. If a shot needs a reference you do not have, photograph it before you render, or change the shot. How to photograph your product for AI lists the views to take.

Budget the list in tries

Across four campaigns our agency made in 2026, 361 renders gave 45 keepers, about 8 per photo. The range ran from about 3 on a product-only ad set to about 14 on a job that kept one model across studio, cliff and ocean shots. A ten-shot list is roughly 80 renders to make and look at. Filling in the Renders and Kept columns on every job gives you your own number: see how many renders per usable photo.

Mistakes that show up in the renders

One master frame cropped to every size. The product ends up tiny in the banner and cut off in the story.
No back or detail reference. The model invents the back of the garment or the side of the pack.
Copy space left for later. A headline forced onto a busy frame covers the product.
The headline written into the prompt. Render the photo clean and set the type in a second pass.
A different light in every shot. Ten light directions read as ten campaigns.
No deliverable named. The photo gets composed for itself, with no room for the words the placement needs.

Questions people also ask

How many shots should a launch set have?: As many as your placements need once they are grouped by shape. For product pages, see what product photos an online store needs. For paid social volume, see how many ad creatives you need.
Should the prompts live in the shot list?: Keep them in a linked file or a column, named by shot number. The shot list is the brief a producer and a client can read. The prompt is how one tool carries it out, and it changes when you change models.
How is a shot list different from a storyboard?: A storyboard shows a sequence in time, for film or video. A shot list is a table of separate stills, each with its own size, references and use. A campaign with both usually approves the stills first.

Where Overs fits

Overs builds this list for you. You say what the set is for (store page, feed ads, editorial, hero, banner, billboard), and the shot plan covers each one and names the reference pictures each photo needs. A set can be 5, 8, 10 or 12 photos, and you see the plan and an estimated cost before anything renders.

Free for 40 photos a month. The AI that makes the photos is billed separately, on your own key, with no markup from Overs.

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Sources

Checked on September 24, 2026. Prices, specs and rules change; follow the links for the current versions.