What a proof is for
A proof is a copy a client uses to choose. It has to show the picture well enough to judge — the expression, the focus, the moment — and badly enough that nobody wants to keep it instead of buying the real one. Stock libraries solved this years ago with a dense diagonal mark across a smaller preview; this mode does the same for your own shoots, on your own device, without sending a single photograph to a gallery service to have it done.
The studio opens with the proof recipe already set: your wording repeated in a brick lattice at −30°, PROOF and the file’s number across the middle, a 1,600-pixel long edge, and a file name that carries the same number. Drop one picture to check the look, or a whole folder to make the set.
Size, density and numbering
| Lattice | Gaps of 1.1 × the mark's width across and 1.6 × its height down — the Dense preset — at 28 % opacity. Lighter presets are one press away under Tile. |
|---|---|
| Centre line | Its own wording, width (48 % of the frame) and opacity (40 %). Tokens work here too: {n}, {name}, {date}. |
| Rules | Thin diagonal lines across the whole frame, off by default. A style, not a lock. |
| Size | Long edge 1,600 px, resized before the mark is drawn. A picture already smaller is left as it is. |
| Name | {name}-proof-{n}, so the 37th file is called after its original with -proof-037 on the end — three digits, so the files sort in order. |
The lattice can be laid from each picture’s centre or from its top left corner. From the corner, crops of one shoot that share that corner keep the same pattern phase, so a set of proofs looks like a set.
Keeping the original clean
Nothing in this mode writes to the file you opened. The proof is a new file made from a canvas; the original stays exactly as it was, on your disk, with its full size and its camera data. The proof carries none of that unless you ask under Export: the camera details can go back into a JPG (never the GPS position), and your name and copyright line can be written into the file.
- A determined person with retouching tools can paint out a lattice. A proof discourages keeping the copy; it does not make keeping it impossible.
- The lattice density is a choice about how much of the picture you are willing to cover. There is no setting that is both unobtrusive and impossible to remove.
Sending a proof gallery
Drop the whole shoot on the batch route with these settings saved, or straight on this page: several files open the run panel in place. Every file is marked in name order and written into one ZIP, or into a folder you choose where the browser allows it, with a CSV listing each proof, its number, its size and the contrast the mark reached on it. A run you stop can be picked up later without marking the finished files twice.
Proof watermark questions
What size should client proofs be?
This mode saves them 1,600 pixels on the long edge — big enough to judge expression and focus on a laptop or phone, small enough to be a poor print. You can change it under Export → Size to any long edge or width; the picture is resized before the mark goes on, so the lattice is drawn at the final size rather than shrunk with the picture.
Will a proof watermark stop printing?
It makes a print look like a proof, which is the point, and the smaller copy will not enlarge well. It cannot stop somebody printing what is on their screen, and nobody can promise that. A proof is for choosing; the clean original stays with you until the client has chosen and paid.
Can I number the proofs?
Yes. The centre line says PROOF {n} by default, and {n} is each file's place in the queue — 1, 2, 3 — so a folder of 120 proofs comes back numbered, with the same number in the file name ({name}-proof-{n}, written 001, 002… so the files sort in order). The client can say “number 37” and you both mean the same photograph.
Does the original get changed?
No. The original file is read on this device and never written to; what you save is a new, smaller, marked copy with its own name. Nothing is uploaded to make it.