October 11, 2026
How to Send Work Samples to a New Client Without Losing Credit
A prospective client wants to see your work first. Four steps in one browser tab: shrink it, mark it, lighten it and get a dated proof of what you sent.
A prospective client wants to see six pieces before they commit. You have the files: full-resolution PNGs straight out of your design app, 4000 pixels wide and 9 MB each. Sending them as they are means handing over print-ready originals to someone who has not paid you yet, and the email bounces anyway, because six of them come to more than 50 MB.
So the job is really four jobs. The samples need to be small enough to look at but not to use, marked as yours, light enough to attach, and backed by something that shows what you sent and when, in case the work turns up later without your name on it. Here is how to send work samples to a client safely, in one browser tab, without re-uploading anything between steps.
The chain at a glance
- Shrink the images to a preview size that is fine on screen and useless in print
- Mark them as yours with a tiled text watermark
- Lighten them for email and strip the metadata
- Get a dated proof of the exact files you are about to send
Step 1: Make them big enough to judge, too small to use
A client deciding whether to hire you needs to see composition, colour and craft. They do not need 4000 pixels. At 1600 pixels wide, a design fills a laptop screen and looks sharp; printed at a decent quality, it barely covers a postcard.
Drop all six files into the resizer and stay in Dimensions mode. Set Width (px) to 1600, leave Lock aspect ratio on so tall and wide pieces keep their shapes, and tick Don't upscale so any smaller file you included is left alone rather than blown up. Click Resize Images.
Don't download anything yet. The watermark tool isn't in the shortlist under Send to another tool, so open Other compatible tools and choose Watermark Image. The six resized files go straight across.
Step 2: Put your name across the work, not in a corner
A small signature in the bottom-right corner looks professional and takes about four seconds to crop out. For samples that someone might be tempted to reuse, a tiled watermark is the honest choice: it repeats across the whole image, so there is no clean region to cut away.
Set Watermark type to Text and type your name or studio, for example © Studio Name · Sample. Turn on Tile, give it a slight Rotation so it reads as a deliberate mark rather than a pattern in the design, and bring Opacity down until the work is clearly visible through it. The client should be able to judge the piece; they should not be able to present it as theirs.
For size, % of width keeps the mark proportional on every file in the batch. Because the images are now 1600 pixels wide, you are choosing a size you can actually read on the preview, rather than guessing at how it will look after a later shrink. Click Apply watermark.
Compress Image is right there under Send to another tool. Pick it and the watermarked set moves on.
Step 3: Get the whole set under the attachment limit
Even at 1600 pixels, PNG exports of detailed work can land at several megabytes each. Most mail providers cap a message somewhere around 20 to 25 MB, and a client's inbox may be stricter than yours.
Choose Balanced as the compression mode. Under Output format, Keep original is the safe default for flat graphic work; if your samples are photographic, JPEG will usually make them far smaller. Then tick Strip metadata (EXIF). Exports often carry software names, dates and sometimes location data that you have no reason to send to someone you have not met. Click Compress 6 images, and the result screen tells you how much you saved.
This is the one moment in the chain where you download. Click Download all (or Download as ZIP) and put these files in a folder called something like sent-to-client. These are exactly the files you will attach.
Then, on the same screen, open Other compatible tools and choose Timestamp File. The tool receives the same bytes you just saved, not a new copy.
Step 4: Record what you sent, and when
If one of these designs later shows up in someone else's materials, "I sent it to them in October" is your word against theirs. A timestamp turns it into something anyone can check.
There are no settings. The page calculates a fingerprint of each file in your browser and sends only that fingerprint, never the image, to OpenTimestamps, which anchors it in the Bitcoin blockchain. You get one small .ots proof per image. Download them and keep them in the sent-to-client folder beside the images they belong to. The proofs start as pending and are fully confirmed within a few hours.
Be clear about what this gives you. A timestamp proves that these exact files existed no later than that date. It does not prove you made them; your source files and drafts do that. What it adds is a date nobody can backdate, attached to precisely what left your hands.
Now write the email and attach the files from sent-to-client.
Why this order
Resize before you watermark. Shrinking an image after it has been watermarked shrinks the mark with it: thin text that looked fine at 4000 pixels turns soft and faint at 1600, and you only discover it on the client's screen. Watermark at the size the client will see, and what you check in the preview is what they get.
Watermark before you compress. Applying the watermark means re-encoding the image anyway. Compress first and you pay that cost twice, once on the design and again on the design with text on it. Compressing last also lets you see the final file sizes before you commit to the email.
Timestamp last, with nothing in between. A timestamp belongs to one exact sequence of bytes. Resize, re-export, or even let an app quietly recompress the file after stamping, and the proof stops matching. That is why the files you attach must be the ones you downloaded at step 3, and why the stamp is the last thing that touches them. If you go back and change a sample, stamp the new version as well.
Keep the folder untouched. The proof is only as good as the copy you keep. Attach copies, edit copies, but leave the files in sent-to-client exactly as they are.
What you end up with
Six samples at 1600 pixels, each carrying your name across the whole image, light enough to attach to a single email, with no metadata riding along. Next to them sit six .ots proofs that tie those exact files to a date. The whole thing takes about as long as writing the email that goes with it, and none of your full-resolution originals ever leaves your computer.
Ready to start? Open Resize Image →