TikTok Shop: "digital renderings are prohibited" and AI images

TikTok Shop's listing-quality page says "Digital renderings are prohibited" and asks for a main image over 600x600 pixels. The page does not define "digital rendering" or mention AI images by name, so a fully generated hero shot is a risk you should avoid rather than test.

What the page requires

A safe split

Use a real photo of the real product for the main image. Spend generated art where the rules do not require a photograph of the item: backgrounds, lifestyle scenes, supporting slots. If a generated image changes how the product looks, it also runs into the AI policy's ban on altering a product's appearance.

The page covers images only. It has no video specifications, and this post does not claim any.

Generating the supporting images

Sume's Image API takes n of 1 to 4 and an aspect_ratio that includes 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 and 3:4. For custom sizes, both edges must be multiples of 16, the maximum edge is 3840, the aspect ratio can be at most 3:1, and the image must have 655,360 to 8,294,400 pixels. A 1024x1024 image has 1,048,576 pixels, so it passes the pixel range and clears the 600x600 floor.

Those are Sume's rules for generation. Whether a given output counts as a "digital rendering" is TikTok's call, and the page is silent on it.

How to handle ambiguity

Because the page does not define a digital rendering, take the conservative reading for the hero slot. A photo of the physical product cannot be mistaken for a rendering. A generated image that shows the product might be, even if it is accurate.

If a generated image is useful in a secondary slot, keep the product itself unchanged in it. The AI policy separately prohibits changing a product's appearance so that it does not match what customers receive, so the product must look like the one that ships.

Before you upload

• Is the main image a photograph of the actual product?
• Do the supporting images show the same product, unaltered?
• Do five or more images exist for the Good tier?
• If you are unsure how a generated image will be read, ask TikTok Shop support rather than uploading it.