Welcome. Someone using On-Model (a fashion brand, retailer, or photo studio) invited you to review or retouch images on one of their jobs. This guide covers how the portal works so you can get started in minutes.

Are you a PiktID-vetted QA partner? If you're part of PiktID's official partner pool and receive jobs through managed-service routing, the longer QA Partner Handbook is what you want. This guide is for people invited directly by a client, not through PiktID.

You don't need an On-Model account. The client sent you a secure link; you click it, and you're in. Everything you do is scoped to that one job.

About On-Model
Your role
Getting started
Reviewer workflow
Retoucher workflow
- §5.5 When you can't retouch — request regeneration
The claim system
Annotation categories
Confidentiality
FAQ
Who to contact
Glossary

1. About On-Model

On-Model is PiktID's AI image platform for fashion e-commerce. Brands and retailers use it to generate model-swap, flat-to-model, and packshot imagery at scale. Every output passes through a Review step before it ships, and any flagged output can go through a Retouch step.

The client who invited you is the job owner. They configured this job, set the brief, and chose to bring you in either to review the outputs, to retouch flagged ones, or both.

Vocabulary you'll see in the portal

Job: the work package the client invited you to. Holds many images.
Image / image index: one image in the job. Stable position; versions stack on top.
Version: an iteration of an image. A retouch always produces a new version.
Output: the image the AI (or a retoucher) produced for review.
Verdict: your decision on one image, either Approve or Needs Retouch.
Annotations: structured feedback you attach when flagging.

2. Your role

The client invited you with one of four permission scopes. Your link carries that scope, and the portal only shows actions you're allowed to take.

	Permission	What you can do
view_only	Inspect images and annotations	Read-only. No verdicts, no uploads.
review_only	Approve or flag images	Submit verdicts and annotations. Cannot upload retouches.
retouch_only	Upload corrected images	Download flagged images, upload retouched versions. Cannot submit verdicts.
review_and_retouch	Both roles in one session	Flag an image and retouch it yourself in the same flow.

If you don't see a button you expected, you probably don't have permission for that action. Ask the client to adjust your invitation if needed.

3. Getting started

The invitation

The client sent you an email with a link of the form /review/<token>. Click it; you're signed into a scoped session for that one job. No account needed.

The link is time-limited. If it's expired, ask the client to send a fresh one. PiktID can't re-issue a client-owned link.
The link is personal and tied to your email. Don't forward it. If a colleague needs access, the client should issue them their own link.

What you'll need

Chrome, Firefox, or Safari (latest two versions).
A stable internet connection, since the portal streams full-resolution images.
For retouch work, a color-accurate monitor is strongly recommended.

Treat the link like a password. Anyone who has it can do everything you can do in the portal, attributed to you. If you suspect the link has leaked, ask the client to revoke and re-issue it.

4. Reviewer workflow

4.1 Opening the portal

The link takes you to the Review Portal scoped to one job. You'll see a job header, a filter row (Pending Review, Reviewing, Approved, Needs Retouch, Retouching, Regenerate), and a grid of images.

Regenerate marks images the retoucher decided couldn't be fixed; the client regenerates a fresh version, which joins the next review round. See §5.5.

4.2 Pick an image

Click any unclaimed image to open the viewer. The portal places a claim under your name so other reviewers can't act on the same image while you're working on it. The claim refreshes on every interaction and expires after one hour of inactivity.

4.3 The viewer

The output image at full resolution.
The input images the AI worked from (source garment, identity reference, pose/composition hints). Look at these; they tell you what the AI was trying to produce.
The Brief panel on the right sidebar: what the AI was asked to produce (pose, lighting, framing). Read it before deciding whether the output matches intent.
A Guidelines link in the top right, opening a job-type-specific quality bar.
A version strip if previous retouches happened on this image.

4.4 Make a verdict

Two verdict buttons sit at the bottom of the right sidebar:

Approve Image when the image is good enough for the client's purpose.
Submit flag & next when there's a fixable defect. Fill in the What's wrong? form above the buttons first (see §4.5), then click submit — the mark is recorded and the viewer advances to the next image.

The quality bar is the client's call. If you're not sure what "good enough" means for this job, ask the client.

4.5 Annotations (required for Needs Retouch)

The annotations form asks for:

Categories: tick everything that applies, from a fixed list (see §7).
Per-category notes: short, specific, actionable. "Left hand has 6 fingers; thumb is doubled" beats "hands weird".
Overall notes (optional): anything that doesn't fit a category.

You can also mask the region the annotation applies to. With a category selected, a drawing toolbar appears on the canvas; drag to paint the affected area. A mask plus a short note is usually more useful than a long note alone — the retoucher can go straight to the right pixels.

Masking an issue. The mask becomes an overlay in the retoucher's session — they see exactly where you flagged.

The retoucher reads your notes and never speaks to you. Specific notes save everyone time.

4.6 Submit

Marks made with Approve Image or Submit flag & next update the per-image counters but stay as drafts until you commit the session. Click Submit All Reviews in the bottom bar to commit every draft at once. While the review round is still open (some images don't have a committed verdict yet), you can revisit any image and change your mark. The moment every image in the job has a verdict, the round closes and verdicts lock; after that, only the client can reset an image.

The job alternates between review rounds and retouch rounds. Your verdicts make up a review round; if any image was flagged, a retouch round opens, and when the retoucher resolves every flagged image, the corrected versions come back to you together as the next review round. The loop repeats until a round ends with everything approved.

If retouchers were also invited to this job, they can't begin retouching until every image has a verdict from a reviewer. This holds in every round, not just the first. Submitting your verdicts promptly unblocks them.

5. Retoucher workflow

5.1 Pick up a flagged image

Flagged images sit under Needs Retouch in the portal. Click into one; the portal places a retouch claim under your name (same 1-hour idle rule as review claims).

You'll see:

The flagged output image, full resolution, with a download button.
The input images the AI used (so you can see what the source was).
The reviewer's annotations: categories and notes telling you what to fix.

Download the original via the download button.

If you open a job where the reviewer hasn't verdicted every image yet, the Start Retouch action stays disabled with a notice. You can still inspect the flagged images and read the annotations; the retouch flow only opens once the current review round is complete for the whole job. This applies in every round: after your first batch of fixes, the reviewer must re-verdict everything before the next retouch round opens. If review is dragging, ask the client.

Retoucher's pre-Start view: flagged image in the center, the orange Flagged Issues annotation and Brief panel on the right, and both Start Retouch and Cannot retouch — request regeneration buttons at the bottom — Pre-Start view. The orange Flagged Issues panel holds the reviewer's notes; the Brief tells you what the image was supposed to be. Start Retouch claims the image; Cannot retouch — request regeneration (below) hands it back to the client (§5.5).

5.2 Edit locally

Open the file in your tool of choice (Photoshop, Affinity, Capture One, anything that can save high-quality PNG or JPEG). The goal is fix the flagged defects without changing anything else.

In scope: artifact removal, shadow correction, logo fixes, skin-tone adjustment, background cleanup, garment-distortion repair, pose corrections, lighting evening-out.

Out of scope unless the annotation asks for it: changing the model's identity, hairstyle, ethnicity, or age; changing garment design, color, or cut; re-posing or recomposing the shot; beautifying beyond what the brief specifies.

If the image is unfixable — the garment is unrecognizable vs the source, body parts are missing, the composition is completely off-brief, or the base output is broken at the pixel level — use the Cannot retouch — request regeneration action in the panel footer (see §5.5). The client is notified automatically; they regenerate a fresh version that joins the next review round. You don't need to message them first.

5.3 Save and upload

Format: PNG (preferred) or JPEG quality ≥ 90.
Color space: sRGB.
Resolution: match the original output exactly. Don't up- or down-scale.

Then in the portal:

Click Upload Retouch.
Drag your file or browse for it.
Wait for the progress bar to finish. Don't close the tab.
Click Confirm to register the file as a new version.

If the confirm step fails, the portal lets you retry without re-uploading. If you exit the page mid-upload, the file may not be registered, so you'll need to upload again.

Manual Retouch panel with a Preview thumbnail of the uploaded retouched file and Change / Submit buttons at the bottom — Pre-confirm state: file uploaded and previewed. Submit registers it as a new version; Change swaps the file before confirming.

5.4 What happens after

A new version is created and the image shows as Pending Review. Your claim is released automatically. Pick the next image.

The reviewer doesn't re-check images one by one. Re-review opens only when the whole retouch round is done: every flagged image either has a corrected upload or has been marked for regeneration. Resolving the last flagged image is what opens the next review round, and the reviewer is notified once, for the whole batch.

If your retouch is rejected, you'll see the image return to Needs Retouch with a new annotation set. Treat the second pass as a small task: only the new annotations need addressing.

5.5 When you can't retouch — request regeneration

Some images come back so broken that retouching is a waste of effort. Instead of fighting the pixels or asking the client what to do, you can mark the image as unfixable directly from the portal. The client is notified and regenerates a fresh version, which joins the next review round.

When to use it. Same criteria as the in-app help dialog:

Missing or severed body parts (no torso, half a head, hand without fingers).
Garment is unrecognizable vs the source — wrong cut, melted, or replaced entirely.
Completely off-brief composition (wrong pose, framing, or scene).
Base output is broken at the pixel level — the work needed to fix it is greater than re-running the generation.

The action is self-serve and shouldn't require checking with the client first; the criteria above are the canonical bar.

Where the button is. Two places, depending on when you spot the problem:

Before clicking Start Retouch — in the flagged-image view from §5.1, the Cannot retouch — request regeneration action sits below Start Retouch in the panel footer.
After clicking Start Retouch — the same action moves to the retouch panel footer alongside Upload Retouch.

There's an inline confirm; the action only commits after you confirm.

What happens when you confirm. The image's status flips to Regenerate and the job-level counters update. If you'd already clicked Start Retouch, the in-progress retouch closes cleanly and your claim is released. No charge applies — the client isn't billed for an abandoned retouch, and you aren't penalized either. The client is notified (in-app and email) and clicks Regenerate when they're ready; the new version joins the next review round. A Regenerate mark counts as resolved for the current retouch round, so marking the last flagged image this way also completes the round and hands the job back to the reviewer.

What you do next. Pick the next image, or close the tab if you're done. When the new version lands, it may come back to you, to another invited reviewer, or to another retoucher — depending on how the client set permissions on the job.

You can't reverse a Regenerate mark from the portal. If you misclicked, ask the client; they can reset the image from their side.

6. The claim system

When multiple people are invited to the same job, the claim system prevents collisions.

Open an image and it's claimed under your name.
Any interaction (zoom, scroll, draft save) heartbeats the claim.
After one hour of inactivity, the claim becomes stale and someone else can take it.
Visible signals: Claimed by you / Claimed by <name> / no pill (unclaimed).

Rule of thumb: never start work on an image where someone else holds the claim. Wait for them to release it or pick a different image. Stepping on a live claim creates duplicate verdicts in the audit log.

7. Annotation categories

When flagging Needs Retouch, pick from this list. Multi-select is allowed; use multiple categories when an image has multiple distinct issues.

Category	Use it for
Artifact	AI-introduced visual noise: extra digits, melted edges, ghost limbs, stray pixels, hallucinated text.
Shadow	Missing, doubled, or wrongly-directed shadows; inconsistent shadow direction.
Logo	Brand marks that are smudged, misspelled, distorted, or mis-positioned.
Skin Tone	Uneven patches, unrealistic hues, inconsistent tone across body parts.
Background	Visible seams, vignetting, color cast, distracting elements.
Garment Distortion	Fabric warping, broken pattern continuity, pocket misalignment, hem irregularities.
Pose	Implausible body positions, hands or feet at wrong angles, "floating" limbs.
Lighting	Blown highlights, crushed shadows; color-temperature inconsistencies; harsh transitions.
Other	Anything that doesn't fit above. Always add a detailed note explaining what's wrong.

Write notes that are specific and localized. Reference the region by words ("top-left of jacket", "right hem", "under the collar"); the retoucher doesn't have annotation pins.

If the image is unfixable rather than fixable-with-defects, don't force it into the Other category. Flag with the closest category plus an overall note describing what's wrong, and let the retoucher decide whether to mark it for regeneration (see §5.5).

8. Confidentiality

The images you see belong to the client who invited you. Treat them accordingly.

Don't copy, share, or use them outside the portal except as required to do your retouch.
If you downloaded files locally for retouching, keep them only as long as you need them and delete when done.
Confidentiality terms between you and the client are governed by whatever agreement (NDA, contract, working relationship) you have with the client, not with PiktID. Defer to that agreement.

If you're unsure what's allowed, ask the client.

9. FAQ

My link won't open, it says expired. Ask the client to send a fresh one. PiktID can't re-issue client-owned links.

I submitted the wrong verdict. While the review round is still open (other images are still pending), revisit the image and change your mark. Once every image has a verdict, the round closes and verdicts lock; ask the client, they can reset the image from their portal.

The brief is unclear, what counts as "good enough"? The client knows. Ask them. The quality bar on this job is theirs to set.

Two reviewers disagree on the same image. Both verdicts are recorded. The client decides.

Upload failed mid-way. Retry from the Upload Retouch button; the portal handles partial uploads. If it keeps failing, ask the client to investigate.

My file is too large. Resave as PNG or quality-90 JPEG. Avoid 16-bit uncompressed TIFFs.

Can I bookmark the portal? The link is per-invitation and time-limited. Bookmark on a personal device only if you're comfortable with that, and only for as long as the token is valid.

Can my colleague help? Ask the client to issue them their own invitation. Don't forward your link, since verdicts get attributed to you, not them.

"Claim taken by another user", what do I do? Pick a different image, or wait for the other person to finish (claims auto-release after an hour idle). Don't try to force an override.

Why can't I start retouching yet? The reviewer needs to issue a verdict on every image in the job before the retouch flow opens, and this gate applies in every round. If only some images are flagged but others are still pending review, Start Retouch stays disabled until the review round is complete. Ask the client if review seems stalled.

I uploaded my retouch, why hasn't the reviewer re-checked it? Re-review opens only when the whole retouch round is done: every flagged image either re-uploaded or marked for regeneration. Your upload sits as Pending Review until the last flagged image is resolved, then the reviewer is notified once for the whole batch.

Why are the verdict buttons locked? A retouch round is in progress. Once the review round completes, verdicts lock until the retoucher resolves every flagged image; then the next review round opens and you can submit verdicts again.

What does the Regenerate status mean? The retoucher decided the image couldn't be fixed and handed it back. The client (job owner) regenerates a fresh version from their side, which joins the next review round. See §5.5 for when and how a retoucher uses this action.

I marked an image for regeneration by mistake. You can't undo from the portal. Tell the client — they can either go ahead and regenerate (which they were about to do anyway) or reset the image from their portal so it goes back to Needs Retouch.

10. Who to contact

For anything about this specific job (the brief, an ambiguous annotation, a question about whether something is in scope), contact the client who invited you. They own the job and the relationship; PiktID is just the platform underneath.

For platform issues (the portal won't load, an upload errors out, a link won't open), tell the client first. The client has a direct line to PiktID support and can escalate on your behalf. PiktID doesn't have a support relationship with you directly.

11. Glossary

Abandoned: a retouch that the retoucher started but consciously dropped because the image was found unfixable. Terminal status; not the same as failed (which is reserved for processing errors). See §5.5.
Annotation: structured feedback on a Needs Retouch verdict. Categories, per-category notes, and optional overall notes.
Claim: a soft lock on an image. Heartbeated by activity, expires after one hour idle.
Image / image index: one image inside a job. Versions stack on top.
Job: the work package the client invited you to.
Job owner: the client who created the job and invited you. Your point of contact for everything.
Needs regeneration / Regenerate: image status meaning the retoucher decided no retouch was viable; the client generates a fresh version, which joins the next review round. Counts as resolved for the current retouch round; reviewers and retouchers don't act on it again until a new version lands.
Output: the image the AI (or a retoucher) produced for review.
Permission: what you're allowed to do on this job, one of view_only, review_only, retouch_only, or review_and_retouch. Set by the client when they invited you.
Review session: the scoped session created when you opened the invitation link.
Round: one full pass of the alternating loop. A review round ends when every image has a verdict; if anything was flagged, a retouch round runs until every flagged image is re-uploaded or marked for regeneration, then the next review round opens. The job is done when a review round ends with everything approved.
Token: the secret in your invitation link.
Verdict: your decision, either Approve or Needs Retouch. Revisable while the review round is open; locks the moment every image in the job has one.
Version: n-th iteration of an image. Increments on every retouch upload.

Document changelog

Date	Version	Summary
2026-06-11	1.2	Documented the strict alternating review/retouch rounds: verdicts lock when the review round completes; the retouch flow opens per round; re-review opens only when every flagged image is resolved; regenerated images join the next review round; one notification per round transition. Updated §4.1, §4.6, §5.1, §5.4, §5.5, three FAQ entries (two new), and the glossary (Round, Verdict).
2026-05-29	1.1	Documented the Cannot retouch — request regeneration action and the Regenerate status; added §5.5, the partial-review-gate notes in §4.6 and §5.1, three new FAQ entries, and two glossary entries (Abandoned, Needs regeneration / Regenerate).
2026-05-22	1.0	Initial publication.

External Reviewer & Retoucher Guide

Contents