A branded proof link is a single URL on your own subdomain — yourcompany.proofscene.com/CG24001234 — that opens the customer's job as an interactive 3D proof, in a browser, with your name on it. No attachment, no account for the client, no "which version was that". The link is the job.

The problem with emailing proofs

Every shop has lived this thread. You attach proof_v2_FINAL.pdf. The customer forwards it to their manager, who forwards it to the brand team, who forwards a screenshot back with a comment. Somewhere in there a v3 goes out to one person and not the other two. Two weeks later somebody asks which one was approved and you are reading email timestamps to find out.

Attachments create copies, and copies drift. They also strip away everything you would want the reviewer to have: the job number, the spec, the finish notes, an obvious approve button, and a record of who looked at what. The PDF arrives as a naked file in a downloads folder.

Worse, it arrives looking like nothing. A generic attachment from a generic email does not feel like a document you sign. That is a small thing, and it changes how carefully people treat it.

What a proof link changes

A link is a single source of truth. There is one address for the job. If you push a revision, the same address shows the current proof, with the earlier versions still on record underneath it. Anybody the customer forwards it to sees the same thing, at the same time, in the same state.

And because it is a web page rather than a file, it can carry the whole context of the job around the proof itself:

The interactive 3D product, which the reviewer can rotate, zoom and inspect under real lighting.
The job number, product spec, quantity, substrate and finishing, written out in plain language next to the model.
The original press-ready PDF, available to download for anyone who wants the technical file.
An explicit approve or request-changes action, with comments.
A record of the approval: who, which version, and when.

That last point is the one production people care about most. The approval and the artifact that was approved live in the same place permanently, which is a much better position than an inbox search.

It should look like your shop, not ours

This is the part we were opinionated about from the start. The proof link is a customer-facing surface for your business. It carries your subdomain, your logo, your colors, and your contact details. Your customer's experience is with your shop.

Practically that means:

Your subdomain — yourcompany.proofscene.com, with your own domain available on the white-label and self-hosted routes.
Your branding — logo, accent color, and the tone of the page set to match the rest of your customer communication.
Your job numbering — the URL path is your reference, not an opaque token. If your job is CG24001234, the link is /CG24001234, which means the link is readable over the phone and searchable in your own systems.

A proof link that reads like your job docket is a proof link your production office can actually use.

Creating one: drag the PDF onto the job

The workflow we wanted was the one we already did informally: take the proof PDF that prepress just produced, and put it against the job number. So that is the interaction. Drag the PDF into the job and the link exists.

Behind that: the artwork is applied to the product model for that job's spec, the 3D proof is built, and the URL becomes live. If the job already has a link — because this is revision three — the same URL updates and the previous revision is kept in the version history rather than overwritten.

Nothing about your prepress changes. The file you upload is the same press-ready proof you would have attached to an email. The difference is where it lands.

Access: open by default, locked when it matters

Most proofs do not need a login. Requiring your customer to create an account to look at their own job is friction that costs you approval time, and it is the single fastest way to make a proof sit unopened for three days. The default should be that the link just opens.

But some jobs genuinely are confidential — unreleased packaging, a rebrand under embargo, credentials for a client's staff, anything under NDA. For those, a proof link can carry an optional password, so the URL alone is not enough. You send the link in one message and the password however you normally handle that.

Sensible companions to that, which any proofing setup should let you control:

An expiry date, so a proof for a finished job stops being a live URL.
Revoking a link outright if it went to the wrong address.
Turning off the PDF download when the underlying file should not circulate.

The principle is that security is a per-job decision, not a blanket policy that slows down the ninety percent of jobs that do not need it.

What to put in the email around the link

Since the page carries the detail, the email can be short. What works is: the job number, one sentence saying what the customer is looking at, the link, and one clear instruction about what you need from them and by when. Anything else you would have written into the email belongs on the proof page instead, where it stays attached to the job.

One practical habit worth adopting: send the link to the person who actually signs, not only to the coordinator forwarding it. A proof link is easy to forward, which is a strength, but it does not solve a chain where the decision-maker never sees it.

Where this is heading

ProofScene is pre-launch and opening early access now, so the honest framing is that this is the workflow we built for ourselves and are packaging up rather than a product with a decade of customers behind it. If you run a shop where proofs currently live in email attachments, we would genuinely like to hear how your job numbering and approval chain work before we finalize this.

Branded proof links: send clients a proof they can actually explore