Licence

Everything you do in PxlMonk — your catalogue, your edits, your ratings, albums and masks — stays on your machine and stays yours. A licence decides whether you can edit, never whether you can reach your own photographs.

Read-only

Without an active licence PxlMonk opens in read-only. The library behaves exactly as before with one exception: you cannot make new edits.

You can still:

browse, search and compare everything in the catalogue
see every edit you have already made, rendered as you left it
rate, flag, keyword, sort and organise into albums
import new photographs
save the original files — copied as they arrived, byte for byte, so any other program can open them

Exporting a rendered photograph — the edits baked in, at a size and format you choose — needs a licence. That is the thing PxlMonk makes for you; the photograph itself was yours before it ever arrived here, and Save the original file… in the right-click menu hands it back at any time.

You cannot make new adjustments, and the develop palette is greyed out with a note saying why.

Trying it first

Without a licence PxlMonk opens the licence dialog at every start, so the offer is never something you have to go looking for. Type your email address under Try it for 30 days and press Send me a trial licence. PxlMonk unlocks straight away — there is nothing to open and nothing to import. No card, and no password to choose.

The licence also arrives by email. Keep that message: it is the copy you need if you reinstall your system, and it is what we can send again if you lose it.

The address and the computer each get one trial. Ask again from the same computer while the thirty days are running and you simply get the same licence back. Ask from a second computer with the same address and the licence goes to your inbox instead — a trial covers one computer, so to move it there, choose Deactivate this computer on the first one and import the file from the email. If a computer has already had a trial under a different address, or its thirty days are over, the dialog says so; get in touch if you need another look.

Hearing from us

Both the trial dialog and the order page carry an optional, unticked box for occasional PxlMonk news — new versions and tips. It is not required for either: the trial arrives and the order goes through whether you tick it or not.

If you do tick it, nothing happens until you confirm. A confirmation email arrives first, and only clicking the link in it puts you on the list. Every mail from that list has an unsubscribe link.

Activating a computer

Importing a licence also registers the computer you import it on, and that needs an internet connection. The activation itself does not expire, and there is nothing to renew.

If you import a licence with no connection, the licence is kept and the dialog says the computer is not activated yet. Connect once, open the licence dialog, and it sorts itself out.

What PxlMonk asks us, and when

Once per start, in the background, PxlMonk speaks to the licence service. It does two things: it fetches the list of withdrawn licences — one signed document, the same for everybody, which asks nothing about you — and it registers this computer again.

Registering again is what keeps the slot yours. It is also how a computer learns that its slot was given away from another machine, and how a renewal you bought reaches you without opening an attachment.

Without a connection none of it matters. Both simply fail, quietly, and PxlMonk carries on: your licence is verified on your own machine, against a key built into the app. A computer that is never online again keeps working with the licence it has.

Your three computers

A licence runs on up to three machines. The count is kept by us; the licence file itself works offline and always will.

Moving to another computer? Open the licence dialog on the one you are leaving and choose Deactivate this computer. That frees the slot and removes the licence from that machine — your catalogue and every edit stay exactly where they are.

A licence can also be withdrawn — after a refund, or a chargeback. PxlMonk finds out by fetching a list that is signed with the same key your licence is, and it acts on nothing it cannot verify: a list that does not check out, or that never arrives, changes nothing.

Deactivating is the only way to free a slot, and it can only be done from the machine itself. That is not an oversight. Nothing we could do from a website would stop a computer that is still running, so a “release” button elsewhere would free the slot and leave the machine working — which would make the limit meaningless.

A computer that died before you could deactivate it keeps its slot for a while, then gives it back on its own after twelve months without being seen. If you need it sooner, get in touch.

Reinstalling the operating system usually makes a machine look like a new one to us, because the identifier it reports is handed out fresh along with the system. Reinstalling PxlMonk itself changes nothing — only the system underneath. If that leaves you a slot short, deactivate the machine before you wipe it where you can, and otherwise get in touch and we will free it.

Renewing

Twelve months of new features come with a licence. Updates themselves never stop: every later version installs and runs in full — fixes, support for new cameras, speed. When the window runs out nothing is taken away either; only individual features that appear after it stay locked until you renew.

A renewal buys another twelve months of new features and is offered from two months before the window ends, in My licences. Renewing early costs you nothing: the months are added to the end of what you already have. If the window ran out long ago, they start from today.

You do not have to do anything with the new licence. The next time PxlMonk starts with an internet connection it picks the renewal up by itself — and it only ever accepts one that reaches further than what you have, never one that reaches less.

Installing your licence

After buying, the licence file arrives by email. Open the licence dialog — the button in the toolbar, or any Unlock link — and choose Import licence file…. Pick the attachment and the app is licensed straight away. This computer then registers with the licence check, so that the three-computer limit can be counted — your photos and edits never leave it.

The dialog then shows who the licence belongs to and how long its update window runs. You can see the same at a glance under Settings → Account.