photo-refresh

---
name: photo-refresh
description: Audits every photograph a hospitality business shows on Google, its own website and its booking pages, checks each one against Google's published photo standards, settles who owns the copyright and whether the people in it agreed to be there, writes the alt text, and returns a numbered shot list for the gaps. Use before a season changes, when the pictures on the profile are older than the current menu or decor, or when nobody can say who took a photograph the business has been publishing for years.
---

# The pictures that decide whether they book

You give this every photograph the business currently publishes, wherever it appears, plus whatever you know about who took each one and when. You get back one register: each photograph measured against Google's stated format, size and quality rules, each one marked with who owns the copyright and on what evidence, each identifiable person in shot marked as consented or not, alt text written for the ones that stay, and a numbered shot list naming exactly which photographs are missing and how many of each. It will not generate a photograph of a dish the kitchen does not serve, and it will not tell you that a picture you cannot trace is safe to keep using.

## What it does

1. **Count what is actually published before deciding anything is missing.** List every photograph in four places: the Google Business Profile, the venue's own website, every booking or delivery platform the business appears on, and the social accounts it links to. For each one record where it appears, the file name, the pixel dimensions, the file size in kilobytes, the format, and the date it was first published if that can be established. Owners consistently believe they have more pictures than they do and fewer duplicates than they do, and the same three photographs recycled across nine places is the normal starting state. The register is what makes every later step checkable rather than an opinion.

2. **Measure each photograph against Google's stated numbers, because a file that fails them simply does not appear.** Google publishes the thresholds: "Format: JPG or PNG", "Size: Between 10 KB and 5 MB", "Recommended resolution: 720 px tall, 720 px wide", "Minimum resolution: 250 px tall, 250 px wide". Video is separate and shorter than people expect, "Up to 30 seconds long", "Up to 75 MB" and "720p or higher". Mark each file pass or fail against each threshold individually rather than overall, because the fix differs: a 4 MB screenshot at 180 pixels cannot be rescued and has to be reshot, while an 8 MB photograph from a modern phone only needs exporting again.

3. **Apply the quality rule as written, including the part about editing.** Google's standard is one sentence and it has recently grown a clause: "Quality: The photo should be in focus, well lit, and have no significant alterations or excessive use of filters or AI. In other words, the image should represent reality." That last line is the operative test, and it is the one a venue fails by accident. A dish photographed at a food shoot with different garnish from the plate that leaves the pass, a bar shot with the lighting pushed two stops warmer than the room, a generated image of a restaurant that does not exist: each fails "represent reality", and each also sets a customer's expectation the room cannot meet, which arrives back as a two-star review about the decor.

4. **Fill Google's own category quotas rather than uploading whatever is nicest.** The published minimums are specific, and for hospitality they name the sets a venue usually lacks. Exterior: "Add at least three great exterior photos to help customers recognize your business", shot "from each direction that customers might approach" and at different times of day. Interior: at least three, and the instruction is truthfulness rather than flattery, "Capture photos that truthfully show what it's like to stand inside your business as a customer." Food and drink: at least three. Team: at least three. For hotels and venues there are two more, "Add at least one photo of each common area (for example, spa, gym, or breakfast room)" and at least three of the most popular guest rooms. Count what exists against each quota and let the shortfall write the shot list.

5. **Settle the copyright on every single photograph before it is published again.** The default catches almost every venue that has ever hired anyone. The Intellectual Property Office states it plainly: "Where you commission a professional to take photographs on your behalf, for example wedding photographs, the copyright will usually remain with the photographer", and more generally, "when an organisation commissions a third party (such as a freelance photographer, illustrator, artist or cartoonist) to create an image, the first legal owner of copyright will usually be the person or business that created the image, unless there has been some agreement to the contrary." Staff photographs are the exception that goes the other way: "If an image was created as part of the creator's employment, rather than by a freelance creator, the employer will generally own the copyright." So each row needs the photographer's name, whether they were an employee or a freelance, and the licence document. Copyright lasts "for the life of the creator plus 70 years", so an old photograph is not a free photograph.

6. **Treat a customer's photograph and a supplier's photograph as somebody else's property, because they are.** A picture a diner posted, a shot a friend sent, a brewery's product image: the IPO's answer is the same for all of them, "You need to treat these images as you would any other images and would usually need to ask for permission", and on anything found online, "The vast majority of images on the internet are likely to be protected by copyright, so it is only safe to use it if you have specific permission to do so through a licence". Reposting a guest's photograph with a credit is not a licence. Ask in writing, record the reply, and record the scope of what they agreed to, because "When an image is commissioned for a specific use, any additional use beyond the terms of that licence will require an additional licence." Also: "Deliberate removal of metadata that identifies the copyright owner is unlawful."

7. **Name every identifiable person in every photograph and record how they agreed.** A recognisable face in a marketing photograph is personal data, and where the business relies on consent the UK GDPR standard is the ICO's: "any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement". The consequences follow from that definition. "Silence, pre-ticked boxes or inactivity should not therefore constitute consent", so a sign by the door saying photography may take place is not consent from the couple at table nine. People "must be able to refuse consent without detriment, and must be able to withdraw consent easily at any time", which is why a staff member photographed in 2023 who has since left can ask for the picture to come down. Keep the records: Article 7 requires "keeping records to demonstrate consent". Where consent is not the right basis, that is a question for the owner's adviser, and the register says so rather than guessing.

8. **Write the alt text at the same time as the photograph goes into the register, not afterwards.** The W3C's categories decide the wording, not the picture's beauty. An informative image, which is what a photograph of a dish or a room is, needs a text alternative that carries the same information. A purely decorative image gets nothing: "Provide a null text alternative (alt="") when the only purpose of an image is to add visual decoration to the page." A photograph used as a link or a button is functional, and "The text alternative of an image used as a link or as a button should describe the functionality of the link or button rather than the visual image." So a menu button that is a picture of a plate says Menu, not plate of scallops. Write it for the person who cannot see the picture and is deciding whether to book.

9. **Turn the shortfall into a numbered shot list a phone can complete in one shift.** One row per shot: the category it fills, what has to be in frame, the time of day, who has to be present, who is taking it, and the date it is due. Group them so a single walk round the building completes the exteriors, one service completes the food, and one staff meeting completes the team. Name the photographs being retired and the reason, because the ones that fail on copyright have to come down everywhere at once rather than only on Google. Date the register, set a recheck against the next menu change, and record anything that could not be verified as unverified rather than leaving the row blank.

## Then it checks

1. Every published photograph appears in the register with its location, dimensions, file size and format, and no photograph is listed twice under two file names without the duplication being marked.
2. Every file carries a separate pass or fail against format, minimum resolution, recommended resolution and file size, and every fail carries the remedy, either re-export or reshoot.
3. Every photograph carries a named copyright owner and the document that proves it, or is marked unverified and listed for removal, with no row reading "ours" or "from the old photographer".
4. Every identifiable person is named or marked unidentifiable, and each named person has a dated consent record or is listed for removal, with no reliance on a notice at the door.
5. Every photograph that stays has alt text written, typed as informative, decorative or functional, with decorative images carrying an empty alt attribute rather than a description.
6. Each of Google's published category minimums is counted against what exists, and every shortfall appears as a numbered shot with an owner and a date.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is. A photograph credited to a staff member is checked with that staff member before it is published.
- Never generate, composite or heavily retouch an image of the venue, its food or its rooms and publish it as a photograph of the place. Google requires that "the image should represent reality", and a customer who books the room in the picture and arrives at a different room writes the review that undoes the whole exercise.
- Never publish a photograph whose copyright cannot be traced to a named person and a document. An untraceable picture is a claim waiting to arrive, and the IPO's own remedy list runs from a licence invoice to a court claim for costs.
- Never use a customer's photograph, a review platform's photograph or a supplier's image without written permission that names the use, and never strip the credit or the metadata from one you are allowed to use.
- Never publish a recognisable face without a dated record of how that person agreed, and remove the photograph everywhere when they withdraw rather than only from the place they complained about.
- Never state a figure for how many bookings or calls photographs produce. No published figure exists for a single independent venue, and an owner who sets a target from a borrowed number will conclude a good shoot failed.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own photographer's contract, their employment records and their privacy notice before it is relied on. It applies published platform standards, copyright guidance and data protection guidance to one business's pictures. It is not legal advice, it is not a copyright opinion, and where ownership or consent is contested it is for the owner's solicitor to settle.

## Built from
- Google, "Tips for business-specific photos on your Business Profile", Google Business Profile Help, https://support.google.com/business/answer/6123536, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the format, size and resolution numbers and the quality and AI clause in steps 2 and 3, and the per-category minimums, including common areas and guest rooms, in step 4.
- Google, "Business Profile photos & videos policy and posts content policy", Google Business Profile Help, https://support.google.com/business/answer/7213077, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the statement that the prohibited and restricted content policies apply to published photographs and that "You're also responsible for your posted imagery to comply with all applicable laws and regulations", which is why steps 5 to 7 sit inside a photo audit at all.
- Intellectual Property Office, "Copyright notice: digital images, photographs and the internet", GOV.UK, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet/copyright-notice-digital-images-photographs-and-the-internet, updated 4 January 2021, read 16 September 2026: first ownership, the commissioned-photographer default, the employment exception, the life plus 70 years term, the licence-scope rule and the metadata point, in steps 5 and 6.
- Information Commissioner's Office, "What is valid consent?", Guide to the UK GDPR, https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/lawful-basis/consent/what-is-valid-consent/, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: the Article 4(11) definition, the rejection of silence and pre-ticked boxes, the right to withdraw and the Article 7 record-keeping duty, all in step 7.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, "Images Tutorial", https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/images/, updated 08 April 2026, read 16 September 2026: the informative, decorative and functional categories, the null alt rule and the functional-image rule, in step 8.

# photo-refresh

## You are given
Every photograph and video one UK hospitality business currently publishes, supplied as files in a folder, with a manifest saying where each one appears: the Google Business Profile, the venue's own website and the page it sits on, each booking or delivery platform, and each social account. Alongside the files: whatever provenance the owner holds, which may be a photographer's invoice and licence, an employment record, an email granting permission, a supplier's media pack, or nothing at all. A list of the people who are identifiable in each photograph, with any dated consent records the owner holds. The alt text already written by Claude for every photograph that is staying, with its type marked. The copyright and consent judgements already made by Claude for every row, including which photographs are to be retired. And the numbered shot list Claude has written for the gaps. You measure, read and record. You do not judge ownership, you do not judge consent, and you do not write alt text or shots.

## Produce
Write into a `./photo-refresh-output/` folder:

1. `photo-register.csv` with these columns in this order: `photo_ref`, `file_name`, `appears_on`, `page_or_profile`, `first_published_date`, `format`, `width_px`, `height_px`, `file_size_kb`, `duration_seconds`, `sha256`, `duplicate_of`. `photo_ref` is P001 upward. `appears_on` is exactly one of `Google Business Profile`, `own website`, `booking platform`, `delivery platform`, `social account`. One row per appearance, so a file published in three places has three rows sharing one `sha256`. `duplicate_of` names the first `photo_ref` holding the same `sha256`, or is empty.
2. `technical-check.csv` with columns: `photo_ref`, `format_pass`, `file_size_pass`, `minimum_resolution_pass`, `recommended_resolution_pass`, `video_duration_pass`, `video_resolution_pass`, `remedy`. Each pass column is `pass`, `fail` or `not applicable`. `remedy` is exactly one of `none`, `re-export`, `reshoot`, `not applicable`. Thresholds are the supplied ones: JPG or PNG, 10 KB to 5 MB, minimum 250 by 250 pixels, recommended 720 by 720 pixels, video up to 30 seconds, up to 75 MB, 720p or higher. Measure, never estimate.
3. `rights.csv` with columns: `photo_ref`, `photographer_name`, `relationship`, `evidence_file`, `evidence_date`, `licence_scope_verbatim`, `owner_supplied`, `status_supplied`. `relationship` is exactly one of `employee`, `commissioned freelance`, `customer`, `supplier`, `platform`, `unknown`. `status_supplied` is exactly one of `keep`, `retire`, `unverified` and is copied from the judgement supplied, never decided here. Any row with `relationship` of `unknown` or an empty `evidence_file` is listed in `gaps.md`.
4. `people.csv` with columns: `photo_ref`, `person_ref`, `person_named_or_unidentifiable`, `consent_record_file`, `consent_date`, `consent_withdrawn_date`, `status_supplied`. `person_named_or_unidentifiable` is `named` or `unidentifiable`. Every `named` row with no `consent_record_file` and date is listed in `gaps.md`. Never write a person's name into any other file.
5. `alt-text.csv` with columns: `photo_ref`, `image_type`, `alt_text_verbatim`, `alt_characters`, `is_empty_alt`. `image_type` is exactly one of `informative`, `decorative`, `functional`, `image of text`, `complex`. `is_empty_alt` is `yes` or `no` and must be `yes` for every `decorative` row and `no` for every other row. Copy the alt text exactly as supplied.
6. `category-coverage.csv` and `shot-list.csv`. The coverage file has columns: `category`, `minimum_required`, `count_held`, `count_passing_technical_check`, `shortfall`. `category` is exactly one of `exterior`, `interior`, `product`, `photos at work`, `food and drink`, `common areas`, `rooms`, `team`. Minimums are the supplied ones: three for exterior, interior, product, photos at work, food and drink, rooms and team, and one per common area. `shortfall` is `minimum_required` minus `count_passing_technical_check`, floored at zero. The shot list has columns: `shot_ref`, `category`, `what_is_in_frame_verbatim`, `time_of_day`, `who_must_be_present`, `photographer`, `due_date`, `fills_shortfall_for`, copied from the supplied list, one row per shot, never invented.
7. `gaps.md`, a numbered list of: every photograph with `relationship` of `unknown`; every photograph with no evidence file; every named person with no dated consent record; every category whose shortfall is above zero; every photograph published in more than one place where one appearance is retired and another is not; every technical fail with no remedy; every decorative row whose alt text is not empty; and every row where a supplied judgement was missing.

## Rules
- Codex measures, records and checks. It never invents, never rewords the owner's copy, and never makes the judgement that was supplied to it. A missing judgement leaves the cell empty and goes in `gaps.md`.
- Never generate, edit, crop, retouch, upscale or filter any image, and never create an image of the venue, its food or its rooms. The published standard is that the image represents reality.
- Never write alt text, a shot description or a licence term. Copy what was supplied, character for character.
- Never decide that a photograph may be used. Record the relationship, the evidence and the supplied status, and leave the decision where it was made.
- Never copy a person's name out of `people.csv` into any other file, and never write a consent record that was not supplied with a date.
- Never upload, publish, delete or overwrite anything. This job reads files and writes CSVs.
- Never write a figure for bookings, calls, clicks, conversion or engagement produced by photographs. No such figure exists for a single independent venue.
- Dimensions, file sizes, durations and character counts are measured from the file, never taken from the manifest. Where the two disagree, record both and list the row in `gaps.md`.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dash characters in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their photographer's contract, their employment records and their privacy notice before it is relied on. It records measurements and supplied judgements and is not legal advice or a copyright opinion.

## Return
The absolute path of every file written and the row count of each CSV. The number of distinct images by `sha256` against the number of published appearances. How many files failed each technical threshold, split by remedy. The number of photographs with an unknown photographer and the number with no evidence file, listed by `photo_ref`. The number of named people with no dated consent record. The per-category table of minimum, held, passing and shortfall, with the total shortfall. The number of shots on the list and the earliest and latest due dates. Every photograph retired in one place but still published in another. And the `gaps.md` item count.