Here's how to set up Prooftide, publish your first galleries, and manage your account day to day.
Open the menu (☰), then Settings. Paste in your API key. It was emailed to you and shown right after checkout. Until a valid key is saved, a banner at the top of the app reminds you; it also appears if a saved key becomes invalid or its account goes inactive.
The Studio and Pro plans also let you add a studio logo there (JPEG, PNG, or WebP), shown on all your galleries, including ones already published. This option stays greyed out on the Free plan.
You'll get an email whenever a client marks their selection done (see Selection done below). It goes to your account's email by default, but you can change it in Settings with the Notification email field, and choose that email's language with Notification language.
On the Create a gallery tab, choose the source folder containing your photos, then check the formats to include (JPEG, PNG, WebP, TIFF). Prooftide never touches your original files; it works on copies.
Choose a Text or Logo PNG watermark. The Free plan locks the watermark: the text is fixed to Prooftide and the logo option isn't available; both require the Studio or Pro plan.
Position can be fixed (one of the four corners or the center) or automatic: Smart avoids covering faces detected in each photo, while Random places the watermark somewhere different on each photo without regard for faces. The Opacity, Size, and Margin sliders adjust how it looks; Margin doesn't apply when the position is Center.
The Max resolution slider sets the size of the longest side of published photos (600 to 1600px), letting you limit the quality of the files available in the gallery.
Fill in the Gallery name, a Subtitle (optional), and a Date (optional), plus a Client reference if you use one for your own tracking. The Style field lets you pick the gallery's look (colors and fonts) from several styles besides the default Aurora one; a link below the list opens an interactive preview in your browser. Click Publish gallery: Prooftide watermarks, resizes, and uploads your photos, then shows the gallery link with a Copy button.
Copy that link and send it to your client however you like (email, text…). No account is needed on their end; the link itself is the only key to their gallery, so treat it as sensitive and only share it with them.
Your client clicks the heart shown on each photo to add or remove it from their selection; Select all and Deselect all buttons speed things up, and a My selection tab lets them review only the photos they've chosen. Every click saves instantly, with no final confirmation step.
Depending on what you enabled when publishing (see Client annotations in the gallery options), your client can also leave a Text comment, an Audio comment, or a Drawing directly on a photo, whether they've selected it or not: a note left on a photo they didn't pick is never lost.
Once happy with their picks, your client clicks I'm done selecting and confirms. The gallery then becomes read-only: they can no longer change their selection, and you get a notification email. To let them make more changes, unlock the gallery (see Unlocking a gallery below).
The Manage galleries tab lists every gallery you've published, with a field to filter by name or client reference. Click a gallery in the list to show it in the section below; its client selections load there automatically. Each row also shows how many photos have been selected out of the total. The Delete button permanently removes the gallery and its published photos (after confirmation); your local files are never touched.
A gallery whose client is done selecting shows as Locked in the list. Select it to open the Selections and annotations section, where a banner explains this and gives you an Unlock button: click it to let your client change their picks again.
Once a gallery is selected, Prooftide automatically finds the source folder used to publish it, where the original files matching the photos your client chose are located. You only need to choose it again if that folder has been renamed or moved since. Then choose an export folder and click Export selected originals. The Additional extensions field lets you also export associated RAW or sidecar files (for example CR2, XMP, NEF, no dot, case doesn't matter). The final result shows how many photos were exported, not counting any sidecars.
Refresh list also updates the annotations for the gallery currently shown. The Include client annotations (comments, voice notes, drawings) checkbox adds them to the export above for selected photos; the separate Download annotations to source folder button retrieves annotations from any commented-on photo, selected or not. Each annotation is saved next to the original photo: a text file for the comment, an audio file for the recording, a PNG image for the drawing.
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