What leaves your computer
The update check, reporting a bug, and the survey
The update check, reporting a bug, and the survey
Your photographs never leave your computer. Everything SaltPrint does — decoding, converting, building negatives — happens on your own machine.
Beyond that, SaltPrint makes exactly one request you didn't ask for, and you can switch it off. Everything else leaves only because you pressed a button.
On launch, SaltPrint asks the website whether a newer version exists and tells you only if one does. It sends nothing about you, your photographs or your equipment — it's a request for a small file, the same as loading a web page.
Turn it off in Settings and it stops entirely. Help ▸ Check for Updates… asks on demand.
When a newer version exists, a strip appears above the window. It's never modal — it will not interrupt a darkroom session to nag.
Help ▸ Report a bug… composes an email to fabiani@stevefabiani.com with your version and build number already filled in — the two things that are tedious to look up and awkward to do without.
It's an ordinary email in your own mail app. Nothing is sent until you send it, and you can read and edit every word first. Attach a photograph if it helps explain; that's your decision, not the app's.
Help ▸ Answer the survey… asks a few questions about your process and equipment — which processes you print, what printer and film you use, how experienced you are.
Everything it would submit is shown on screen before you press Submit. That is enforced by the software rather than promised by it: a field that isn't displayed cannot be sent, and a test fails the build if one ever could. There is no install identifier, no usage counting, and no location taken from the app.
It asks at most three times and then retires itself. There's no "don't ask again" button on purpose — offering one mostly collects a no, and a fourth ask would only teach people to click past it. If you dismissed it and later changed your mind, the menu item is how you get back.
Why ask at all: it's the only way to find out what people actually print with. The alternative is guessing, and this software has been wrong when it guessed.
The website keeps a few anonymous running totals — visits, downloads, update checks — with no cookie and nothing that ties a count to a person. The complete account is in the privacy policy, which is written to be read rather than to protect anyone.