How GlazeSnap works
You sign in with an email link, upload one to five photos of a fired surface, and optionally add cone, atmosphere, clay-body color, and what matters most to you visually. GlazeSnap returns three to five catalog candidates — each with why it is similar, how it may differ, and what it may require in clay body, thickness, or layering — plus a suggested testing order. Results are saved to your history.
Under the hood there are five stages. Most of them are deterministic on purpose.
The five stages
1 · Describe
A vision model looks at your photographs and describes the surface in a controlled vocabulary: finish, opacity, color families, and effects. It produces a description — nothing else.
2 · Filter
Deterministic filtering removes every catalog glaze that is incompatible with the cone and atmosphere you stated. No judgment involved — just rules.
3 · Retrieve
Deterministic retrieval ranks the remaining catalog records by how closely their visual tags match the description. Still no model involved.
4 · Rank and explain
The model ranks and explains only those retrieved records. It structurally cannot invent products, because it never sees product names — only attribute records.
5 · Join the verified facts
Product names, manufacturers, cone ranges, and links are joined from the verified catalog. They are never generated.
When nothing in the catalog is similar, GlazeSnap says no strong match instead of forcing one — and a match that returns zero candidate glazes does not use a credit.
What GlazeSnap will not tell you
The exact original glaze
A photograph cannot confirm which product made a surface, and GlazeSnap never claims it can. Candidates are starting points for test tiles.
Food safety
GlazeSnap never assesses food safety, toxicity, leaching, or functional suitability from photographs. Follow the manufacturer's guidance and your own testing.
A guaranteed result
Outcomes depend on photography, clay body, glaze thickness, firing, and layering. The same glaze can look very different across those variables.
Getting good photographs
The description stage can only work with what the photo shows.
- Fill the frame with the glazed surface — overall shots and close-ups both help.
- Use natural, diffuse light rather than harsh direct light.
- Include a rim or a texture transition if you can; how a glaze breaks over an edge says a lot.
- Avoid color filters or edited photos — they shift what the description stage sees.
How credits work
- Your first completed analysis is free — one credit comes with signup.
- 10 more credits cost $9, a one-time Stripe purchase. No subscription.
- A credit is used only when a match completes successfully and returns candidate glazes.
- Failed runs, cached or reopened results, and zero-candidate results never use a credit.