PhotoDesk scenes vs catalog stills

PhotoDesk scenes are empty plates. Showroom, clean lot, studio white, studio grey, concrete pad — those names describe the stage, not a different car. The vehicle in the frame must be this VIN’s lot still. Intelligence may suggest which plate to shoot. It does not hand you a substitute image.

Catalog stills live in Automotive Intelligence: OEM press, configurator, or licensed factory photos keyed to a generation or paint code. They answer “what does this nameplate look like in Wind Chill?” They are labelled factory examples. They are never this stock number.

PhotoBooth is the colour-options path. Palette and chips come from official paint names for the generation and Settings country. An on_lot badge means a rooftop unit’s exterior colour matched that marketing name. It does not mean the catalog still is your VIN. Recolor-as-unit is refused: do not paint a Blueprint lot photo another factory colour and list it.

Integrity is the same on every scene. Allowed: background, lighting, crop, shadow. Blocked: damage fill, dent fill, rust removal, odometer change, plate swap, VIN edits. Generative redraw (Gemini, Imagen, diffusion) is not the listing engine. Missing catalog stills stay “No still.” Do not scrape a Marketplace photo to fill the hole.

When you export for Marketplace, you may pick a marketplace-only plate such as urban street. That still starts from this unit’s file. OEM or manufacturer channels should not receive marketplace lifestyle plates, and they should not receive a catalog hero captioned as this VIN.

If the unit has no lot photography, upload stills on the inventory card first. PhotoDesk will not invent a car so the scene picker has something to show. Originals stay on the unit. The composite is a HITL listing_photo draft, never an in-place overwrite.