Digitals and Polaroids: The Other Photos Actors Get Asked For

Digitals, also called polaroids, are plain, unretouched, unstyled photographs that show what you look like right now. That is the whole definition. A headshot is an argument about who you could play; a digital is evidence of who you actually are. Every rule that makes a headshot good, the lighting, the styling, the retouching, the flattering angle, makes a digital useless. And you do not need to hire anyone: a phone, a window and a blank wall meet the published requirements of the agencies that ask.

What is a digital, and how is it different from a headshot?

A headshot is persuasion. The parent complete guide to actor headshots covers what it is doing: arguing castability, surviving a page of thumbnails, making one clear proposal about a person. A digital argues nothing. Its reader is not asking "would this person be interesting in the role." They are asking "is this the same face and body as the headshot, as of this month." The headshot is the pitch. The digital is the receipt.

This is why actors get caught out. The request reads like a request for photos, so the actor sends photos: their best ones, in nice light, with a little help from an app. That is backwards, and the recipient can tell instantly.

Every actor I have asked for digitals has tried to make them good. It is instinct, and it is the failure. They find their light, they find their angle, they smooth something, and what they have made is a second headshot nobody asked for. The point of a digital is to be checkable. If you improved it, it is not. - Joshua Michael Shelton, editor

Why are the rules the opposite of headshot rules?

Because the job is verification. Casting already has your headshot; what they are checking is whether it lied, and by how much. Anything that flatters you is noise in that measurement, which is why published guidance runs uniformly in one direction.

The fitted clothing rule is the one actors resist most and the least negotiable. Published checklists ask for form-fitting neutral basics so proportions read; loose clothing hides the exact information the photo exists to carry.

What shots are in a standard set?

The clearest published answer comes from Photogenics Media: five images, being a natural headshot, a full-length, a profile, a three-quarter, and a relaxed smile. Skylar Modeling's guide lists a fuller version: a headshot smiling and neutral, a three-quarter waist-up front and profile, a full body front, side and back, plus a swimsuit shot for modeling submissions. The reliable core across both:

1. Head and shoulders, front, neutral
2. Head and shoulders, front, relaxed smile
3. Head, profile
4. Three-quarter or waist-up
5. Full body, front
6. Full body, side or back

Hands are not part of a standard set. Backstage's hand-modeling guidance describes hands palm up and palm down with close-ups of fingers and nails, but that is a separate specialty submission. If a request asks for hands, that job needs hands.

What is convention rather than rule. No published standard fixes the composition of a set, and agency lists disagree at the edges. Published and consistent: the styling, meaning unretouched, minimal makeup, plain background, fitted clothes, natural light. Convention only, widely practiced but not written down as a rule this guide could verify: the count and order of frames. A real request with a list beats anything here.

Who asks for digitals, and when?

Agency and management submissions are the most common ask. Harris Talent Agency's form requests digitals alongside professional photos, defines them as current snapshots in good lighting, and caps files at 3 MB each. It is how an agency confirms your headshot matches a current person.

Commercial and modeling submissions lean on digitals hardest, because the product is often the body, the age read, or the plain everyday look. Our commercial versus theatrical guide covers why that side reads different signals.

Wardrobe and fittings need your real shape before you arrive. Measurements live here too: the Actors Access size card is a wardrobe sizing form you can attach to commercial submissions. Photos and measurements answer different questions; both get asked for.

Self-tape requests sometimes build the digital into the tape, asking for a full-body slate or a turn. Slate requirements vary by casting director and the instruction governs, the same discipline our self-tape guide applies throughout.

What "current digitals" means: photographs taken since your appearance last changed, with nothing done to them. Not new headshots. If you cut your hair in May, a set from March is not current, however good it is.

How do you shoot your own digitals?

A phone, a window, a blank wall and a friend. Thirty minutes.

1. Pick the wall. Plain, light, uncluttered; published guidance names white or light-colored backgrounds. Stand about two feet off it so you do not cast a shadow onto it.
2. Pick the window. Soft daylight, not direct sun. Overcast is excellent. LA midday sun carves shadows under the eyes; use morning, late afternoon, or the shaded side of the building.
3. Face the light. You face the window, camera between you and it or just off to one side. Window behind you means silhouette.
4. Dress plain and fitted. Published checklists say black, white or grey. Fitted t-shirt or tank, fitted jeans or leggings. No logos, patterns, jewelry or jacket. Shoes on for full-body frames.
5. Do nothing to your face. No makeup, or nothing past moisturizer, chapstick and light coverage on a blemish. Hair natural, down or pulled back off the face.
6. Mount the phone. Tripod, shelf, stack of books. Chest height for full-body frames, eye height for head-and-shoulders. A friend holding it is fine. A mirror is not.
7. Turn everything off. No filters, no beauty mode, no portrait mode, because fake background blur is an edit. Rear camera, not the selfie camera. Flash off. Skylar Modeling names 12 megapixels as a workable minimum, which every current phone clears.
8. Shoot the set. Front neutral, front with a relaxed smile, profile, three-quarter, full body front, full body side or back. Arms relaxed, weight even, standing straight. Do not pose. Do not tilt your chin to your good angle.
9. Keep it vertical and consistent. Same distance for both head-and-shoulders frames, and full body means head to shoes actually in frame.
10. Choose without improving. Pick the sharpest, most neutral frame of each setup, not the most flattering one. Then stop. No crop-to-slim, no exposure lift, no app.
11. Name, size and date the files. No published naming standard exists, so use one that survives forwarding and carries the month: Lastname_Firstname_Front_2026-07.jpg. Check the size cap in the request; Harris Talent Agency publishes 3 MB per image. Reshoot on change, not on a calendar.

Are actor digitals different from modeling digitals?

In one respect that is actually published: the swimsuit frame. Skylar Modeling's guide and LA studio digitals packages both include a swimsuit look in a standard modeling set, because fashion and commercial clients need proportion information clothed frames do not carry. It is not part of a normal actor submission and you should not volunteer it.

Otherwise the two overlap almost completely. Most published guidance on digitals is written by and for the modeling side, and there is far more of it than actor-specific material. That is not a difference in the photographs, it is a difference in who wrote the rules down. Treat modeling guidance as applicable, minus the swimwear.

Should you pay for digitals?

Usually no, and this guide will be blunt about that because the editor sells photography for a living.

LA photographers publishing digitals rates as of July 2026 sit in the $250 to $500 range. Antonio Espino publishes $250 for a shared session, $300 for one look and $350 for two. Headshots LA, the editor's own studio, publishes $300 for standard modeling digitals with no retouching, $500 with light retouching, and $1,000 for a digitals-plus-portfolio session.

Those are real posted prices for a real service. They are also, for most actors, an unnecessary purchase. Unretouched, natural light, plain wall, fitted basics: a phone and a window meet all of it. No paid session clears a quality bar that a careful home set does not, because the picture is not supposed to be good. Note that the Headshots LA $500 tier adds retouching, the one thing every published definition of a digital excludes. That tells you what you are buying at that price: a portfolio product, not a digital.

Paying makes sense narrowly: a swimwear set you cannot light at home, or digitals shot alongside a modeling portfolio. That is not most actors on the Tuesday an agent asks for current digitals.

I will happily shoot digitals for anyone who wants them shot. I will also tell you, on the record, that the actor who shoots their own in a bedroom with the curtains open has met the requirement exactly as well as the actor who paid me. That is not modesty, it is what the picture is. My headshots are worth what I charge because a headshot needs someone directing you. A digital needs you to stand still against a wall. - Joshua Michael Shelton, editor

What are the most common mistakes?

• Retouching them. Every published definition says unedited. A retouched digital is just a worse headshot.
• Using an old set. A set from before your haircut is not a set.
• Filters, beauty mode and portrait mode. All three are edits. Portrait mode is the sneaky one, because it feels like a camera setting.
• Mirror selfies. Phone in frame, wrong geometry, visible posing.
• Hiding the body line. Hoodies, oversized shirts, crossed arms. If the shape is not readable, the frame is wasted.
• Taking "polaroid" literally. Do not buy an instant camera.
• Confusing digitals with the size card. Photos are not measurements.
• Making them flattering. Which is every mistake above, restated.