When an actor's IMDb home page has no portrait photo

Right, and I've been trying to sort out the nuances, and apparently images added to title pages prior to 2015 or so, will usually appear on the IMDb name pages of people tagged in them. The same may be the case in regards to IMDb title pages that had a IMDb Title Scorecard claim set up prior to 2015 as well. Now though, somebody on here did recently point out a temporary glitch (or a temporary experimental behavior) that was occurring in regards to images uploaded to IMDb title pages through the IMDbPro UI.

More strictly speaking, only the actor or his representative is allowed to actually manage aspects of the page related to "page claim" features, such as featured images (including the official primary) image, demo reels, resume data and "known for" customization, maybe a few other things. The privileges granted allow for adding or removing featured images. However, a great many IMDb unclaimed name pages have images on them that are not locked, meaning that they originated via some means other than the IMDbPro UI, if not a glitch in the system, but these kinds of images aren't official, and when one of them occupies the primary image slot, it is only doing so as a placeholder image than can be overridden by an official image (one preferred by the actor, or by his estate manager if he is deceased).

@jeorj_euler​ 

I have a question. What's the case with a deceased actor without an estate manager? Is there a way for this deceased actor to get a primary image somehow?

If there is no verifiable next of kin, then likely nobody is eligible to claim the page, even if this person or an ancestor thereof is from the same town as the decedent. So, without the claim request being able to be approved, there would never be an official primary image but merely a placeholder for it. Just to note, every image serving as a placeholder for an official primary image won't be replaced with another so uploaded via a legacy image upload service of IMDb, unless there is ample justification for doing so, like if the incorrect person is tagged, or if the correct person's face is out of frame in the automatic thumbnail rendition of the photograph, or if the correct person is facing away from the camera, or if maybe there are too many people in the photograph (thus making hard to know which one is the main subject).

@jeorj_euler​ 
Thank you! Very helpful! One last question - where can I find this option via a legacy image upload service? What should I do?

P.S. Sorry to take up so much of your time.

O, Lara, you wouldn't be able to find it, since only people who had access to a "legacy" image upload tool before the tool was deprecated can still use it. IMDb has been under renovation for for the past year or two, and an interesting thing about that is how at least one person has sort of reported an momentary (months-long) anomaly in IMDbPro whereby images uploaded to title pages using the IMDbPro UI would cause those images to show up (with no lock, meaning not associated with a page claim) on the IMDb name pages of people tagged in them. To be exact, the person was actually somewhat complaining that this anomaly stopped occurring. Anyway, the behavior as explained to me was one that I knew to be something that isn't supposed to happen. (The IMDb developers might have simply been conducting an experiment.) In general, customers are expected to use the IMDbPro UI to claim their respective page and be able to control exactly which images are included in the feature images within the gallery of the page being claimed. Absent a maintained page claim (specifically through IMDbPro standard subscription), the content of the primary image slot reverts to the placeholder image (originating from one of the "legacy" upload widgets), or no image at all (but the blank-face-icon stock image generated uniformly by the IMDb software).

@jeorj_euler​,
thanks a lot for the answer. You've been most helpful. Yes, I recall that anomaly. To tell you the truth, I'm a bit sad that it didn't last. When that anomaly occurred IMDb looked so colorful. If you'll allow me to express my opinion, it's much better all actors' profiles to have a primary image. Otherwise the profile looks very plain. Moreover in cases when there's more than one actor with the same name and if all of the suggested people lack a primary image, it's far too difficult to choose the right one. Anyway thanks for your time.