Every setting, explained

WHAT QUARTZLAB '99 DOES

QuartzLab '99 burns an authentic 1990s LED quartz date stamp into your photos. It reads the date each photo was actually taken, renders the stamp with real dot-matrix letterforms and light bleed, and exports the whole batch as a ZIP.

• ·Everything runs locally in your browser — photos are never uploaded anywhere.
• ·Exports are JPEGs at the source image's full resolution.

GETTING STARTED

Add photos

Use the Add photos button, or drag files straight onto the preview panel.

RAW files

ARW, CR2, CR3, NEF, NRW, RAF, RW2, ORF, DNG, PEF and SRW are supported. The embedded JPEG preview is used, tagged 'RAW preview' in the list.

Dates

The date comes from EXIF where available, otherwise the file's modified date. Each row is labelled 'EXIF' or 'file date' so you know which.

Editing a date

Change the date/time field on any row to override it. Only that photo's stamp changes.

Active photo

Click a row to preview it. All settings apply to the whole batch, not just the previewed frame.

FONT STYLE

QuartzLab '99

The clean dot-matrix face. Crisp digits with a soft glow — closest to a well-exposed data-back print on a mid-tone frame.

QuartzLab '99 : Flare

The same letterforms with a multi-layer optical bloom — a white-hot core, amber and orange bleed, and a wide diffuse halo. Mimics an over-exposed LED burn on film. Unlocks the Flare bloom controls below.

FORMAT

Controls the characters in the stamp. Examples use 15 July 2021, 15:12:59.

DD MM 'YY

15 07 '21 — the classic compact stamp.

'YY MM DD

'21 07 15 — year-first ordering used by some Asian-market bodies.

MM DD 'YY

07 15 '21 — US ordering.

DD MON YYYY

15 JUL 2021 — spelled-out month, full year.

Pronto Databack

15 7 '21 — reproduces the wide day–month gap of the Pronto data-back, with a fixed-width character grid so single-digit days and months never shift the rest of the line.

Pronto Databack (YYYY)

15 7 2021 — same grid and spacing with a four-digit year.

DD HH:MM

15 15:12 — day plus clock time.

Date + Time

15 07 '21 15:12.

Date + Time w/ Seconds

15 07 '21 15:12:59.

Time-Centric

15:12 15 07 '21 — time leads, date trails.

ISO Compact

2021.07.15 15:12 — numeric and unambiguous.

MON DD 'YY

JUL 15 '21.

DD.MM.YY (Euro Dots)

15.07.21 — dot separators.

Dead Battery

-- -- -- — the placeholder a camera prints when its data-back battery is flat.

No stamp

Renders the photo untouched — useful for comparing before and after.

• ·Time formats unlock the Colon style and Colon spacing controls.

COLOUR

Presets

Pronto Amber is the warm orange of the reference scans; Digital Gold is the cooler, yellower LED found on later bodies. Clicking a preset sets the hex field.

Hex field / picker

Any hex value works. The two inputs stay in sync.

Hue

Rotates the stamp colour ±180°. Handy for nudging towards red or green without leaving the preset.

Saturation

0% renders a grey stamp; 200% pushes it to full intensity. Lower values read as a faded, aged print.

• ·Blend mode changes how these colours interact with the photo underneath — see below.

GLOW, FLARE BLOOM AND AUTO BLOOM

Glow

0–3. The soft halo around every lit dot. 0 gives hard printed digits; higher values simulate light spreading into the emulsion.

Flare bloom

0–2, Flare font only. Strength of the layered white-core-to-orange-halo bleed. Around 0.6 is subtle; above 1.5 the digits burn out into the frame.

Auto bloom

On by default with Flare. Each photo's average brightness is measured on load and its bloom is derived from it — roughly 0.6 on dark frames up to 1.8 on bright ones. Every photo gets its own value on export, so a mixed batch stays consistent.

• ·Turn Auto bloom off to take manual control of the slider for the whole batch.

COLON STYLE AND SPACING

Only shown for formats that include a clock time.

Standard

Uses the font's own colon glyph — a tight, narrow pair of dots.

2x2 Block

Draws each mark as four round dots in a 2x2 grid, sized to the font's own dot weight. Chunkier and more legible at small sizes, and it picks up the same glow and Flare bloom as the digits.

Colon spacing

0–0.5 of the font size, default 0.2. Pads either side of the colon only — the digits keep their tight tracking.

OPACITY AND SIZE

Opacity

10–100%. Lower values let the photo show through the stamp, reading as a lighter exposure of the LED burn.

Size

1.5–12, measured as a percentage of the image's long edge. Because it is relative, the stamp looks identical whether you export a 2MP scan or a 60MP RAW.

POSITION MODE AND MARGINS

Standard corner

Anchors the stamp in the lower-right with the classic data-back inset. The margin sliders are locked.

Offset view

Unlocks the margin sliders so you can place the stamp anywhere along the bottom-right region.

Right margin

1–40% of image width between the stamp and the right edge.

Bottom margin

1–40% of image height between the stamp and the bottom edge.

BLEND MODE

lighten

Only brightens pixels underneath. Safe default — never darkens the photo.

screen

Softer, more diffuse light. Good over busy or mid-tone backgrounds.

source-over

Paints the stamp opaquely on top. The most legible option over bright skies.

color-dodge

Aggressively blows out highlights behind the stamp. Very hot — pair with a lower opacity.

Pronto 1200

A custom bleed derived from the reference scans: the stamp lights the frame the way the original data-back does, with warm spill into the surrounding pixels.

• ·Bright frames: source-over or Pronto 1200 keep the stamp readable.
• ·Dark frames: lighten or screen preserve the glow without a hard edge.

STAMP ORIENTATION

Digital level

The stamp always sits level with the frame, horizontally in the lower-right. Default.

Rotate 90°

Manually rotates the stamp on any photo, whatever its aspect ratio.

Camera back

Prints the stamp the way a physical data-back would if you turned the camera: running bottom-to-top down the right edge, on any photo orientation.

METADATA

Keep date & time

Default. Writes each photo's date/time into the exported JPEG's EXIF, so your library sorts the stamped copies alongside the originals.

No metadata

Exports a clean JPEG with no date written into the file.

PRESETS

Pronto 1200 preset

Loads the settings measured from 56 reference scans: amber colour, size 4.7, 17% right and 11.5% bottom margins, and the Pronto 1200 blend. It does not force rotation.

Reset defaults

Returns every control to its starting value.

EXPORT

Export ZIP

Renders every photo in the queue at full resolution with the current settings and downloads them as one archive.

Archive name

QuartzLab99_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.zip, stamped at the moment you export.

File names

Each file keeps its original name with _QuartzLab99 appended.