Generated images

When you generate a digital negative in Calibration Flow, the resulting PNG file is downloaded to your device. Without an archive, that file lives in your downloads folder and you have to find it by hand — by name, by date, by luck. If you produce dozens of them over a production day, that folder quickly becomes unreadable.

The Generated images tab of the library keeps a reference to each export, with its thumbnail and its parameters. You visually find the negative you produced last week, you check the parameters used, you re-download if needed without going through the full transformation chain.

#What you see

The tab shows a grid of thumbnails — one per export you've made. Each thumbnail shows the miniature of the negative (the image as it will be printed on transparency), the generated file name, the generation date.

You click a thumbnail to open a detail card: the miniature enlarged, the source image used to generate it (with a link to that source in the HD media tab), and the full list of export parameters used at the moment of generation — size, orientation, DPI, background, frame, registration, dither, mirror, mode.

You can re-download the file if you lost it or deleted it from your downloads folder. The library keeps the complete file (not just the thumbnail), so the re-download gives you back exactly the original file, identical to the first export.

You can delete an entry. This does not delete the source image — only the generated negative. You can always go back to the source image and regenerate a new negative with other parameters if you want.

#Why it matters

For consistency across a print series. If you produce ten successive negatives with the same parameters for an exhibition, the library shows you the ten side by side. You can visually check that they're consistent, that none has a different frame or a shifted orientation. Easier than inspecting ten files in the Finder.

For traceability. Three months after a print, you might wonder "which parameters did I use for this image?". The library answers in two clicks — the negative's detail card, the full list of parameters. You can reproduce it identically if needed.

For comparing variants. You can generate several versions of the same image with slightly different parameters (thin frame vs thick, dither on vs off) and compare them side by side in the library before deciding which one to print. Without an archive, you'd have to save each variant with a telling name in your downloads folder.

#When you don't need it

For single-use productions. If you generate a negative, print it immediately, expose it, and have no intention of reusing it, keeping a record in the library adds nothing. Delete the entry to avoid clutter.

If you organize your negatives in your own file system. Many practitioners prefer their personal tree (folders by project, by process, by date). In that case, the Calibration Flow library duplicates your system — use the app to produce, archive in your system, delete from the library.

To save space. A4 negative PNG files at 300 dpi are several MB each. On an iPhone with limited storage, keeping fifty negatives in the library can weigh. Purge the entries you no longer need regularly.

#Worth remembering

#The test

Generate a negative with distinctive parameters (for example thick frame + registration on). Note the exported file name. Go to the library → Generated images. Your negative should be there with its thumbnail. Click to open the card: you should find all the parameters you used, in the right state. Now delete the file from your downloads folder. Go back to the library and click "Re-download" — you should get a file identical to the original.