Frequently Asked Questions
Direct answers about Positive Inking, the provenance principle, and the Tattoo Blueprint.
What is Positive Inking?
Positive Inking is a guided tool that turns a personal story, or an image you've been drawn to, into a structured, artist-usable Tattoo Blueprint — a written brief a tattoo artist can work from, rather than a vague description or a folder of Pinterest saves.
What is the "provenance principle"?
It's the rule Positive Inking follows when handling why something matters to you: origin almost always exists (where an idea or image came from can usually be stated as fact), but significance often does not — you may not know or be able to articulate why it matters. Positive Inking records the origin honestly and never invents a meaning you didn't state yourself.
What if I don't know why I'm drawn to an image, only that I am?
That's an explicit, supported path, not a problem to be solved. Positive Inking records where the attraction came from — a memory, a place you saw it, a period of your life — as fact, and stops there. It won't manufacture a psychological explanation for you.
What is a Tattoo Blueprint?
A structured document generated at the end of the process, covering your story or the image's provenance, your stated intention, the visual direction, confirmed visual subjects, composition, artistic treatment, placement, reference material, an artist brief, and a readiness assessment — built to be handed to a tattoo artist, not just read by you.
Does a "ready" Blueprint mean the tattoo is ready to be done?
No. Blueprint readiness describes how complete the creative brief is — not medical suitability, legal eligibility, technical tattooability, or final approval. Those decisions remain with you and your tattoo artist.
How is this different from a mood board or a Pinterest folder?
A mood board shows what something might look like. A Blueprint states why it matters (as far as that's actually known), which visual elements are confirmed versus still open, what references exist and their status, and how much creative control you're handing to the artist — information a mood board doesn't structure or capture at all.
Does Positive Inking design the tattoo for me?
No. It doesn't produce a finished artwork or a print-ready image. It produces a brief for a human tattoo artist to design from, with every unresolved decision explicitly marked as open rather than silently decided.
Who decides what question I'm asked next?
Deterministic code, not the AI model. Which question appears next, in what order, and under what conditions is decided by plain, testable logic. The model's role is narrower: interpreting your story, recovering provenance, proposing visual ideas, and writing the final prose — never deciding the sequence itself.
Does using voice input send my recording anywhere?
If you use the microphone/dictation feature, your browser's built-in speech recognition is used to convert speech to text. By default, most browsers (including Chrome) send this audio to their own servers (e.g. Google's, for Chrome) to perform the conversion — this is a function of your browser, not something Positive Inking controls or has access to. We do not receive, store, or have access to any audio ourselves — only the resulting text reaches us, exactly as if you had typed it. If you'd prefer not to use voice input, you can type your story at any time.
Is my story or my images used to train AI models?
No. Anthropic's terms state that content submitted through their commercial API is not used to train their models, and Anthropic's standard retention period for that content is up to 30 days before automatic deletion. See our Privacy Notice for full detail.
Does Positive Inking store my data?
Not on our own servers. Your progress is held in your browser's local storage so you don't lose it if the app closes or crashes, and it stays there until you clear it or start a new session. Nothing is written to a database on our side.
Is Positive Inking only for tattoos with a "deep meaning"?
No. If your honest answer is "I just like it," that's treated as a complete answer, not something to be interrogated further. The provenance principle exists specifically so that not-knowing-why is never treated as a gap that needs filling.
Who is Positive Inking for?
Positive Inking is intended for adults aged 18 or over who are developing a tattoo idea — whether it begins with a personal story or an image they can't fully explain.