Where Your File Goes in RetouchPi: Measured Step by Step

The method, stated first: the bundled Chromium runs with a network log, each of the eight actions runs as its own segment with the log cleared between segments, so every request inside a segment belongs to that one action; the actions are triggered through the real UI (menu items, the drawer, the export buttons), not synthetic calls. Outgoing picture bytes means bytes of picture content inside request bodies; a status endpoint answering with an on/off bit does not count. The sample is a product photo already in the repo, not a synthetic gradient.

The segment easiest to misread is the cut-out: the one request in the network panel carries ai in its name, and a reader will assume the picture went off for inference. Opening it shows the request body for what it is: a switch query whose response holds only a status bit; the cut-out itself is done by the wasm inside the page, which writes the mask straight back into the current layer. The ID-photo segment behaves the same way, its extra entry being the model download; detection then runs locally, and the drawer's own line - no face found, this one frames by selection - is that local detector speaking.

Whether a picture left the machine answers only half the question; the other half is which bytes came into it. This run measured two kinds. One is models: the first open of the ID-photo drawer fetches yunet.plan, 233,012 bytes, cached afterwards so the drawer's second open in the same run fetches nothing; the repo's same directory also holds selfie.plan at 451,172 bytes, and because no action in this run triggered it, it was never fetched. The other kind is code: the first PDF export lazy-loads the two chunks pdf-*.js and flate-*.js, the first PSD save lazy-loads psd-*.js, all of it one-off code the first paint did not carry and that is fetched only when used.

The third kind is the exit, aimed at your disk: exporting PNG lands 794,399 bytes, exporting PDF lands 134,284 bytes, saving PSD lands 7,327,638 bytes. The PSD row carries a detail worth recording: the Chinese-interface run landed 7,327,638 and the English-interface run 7,327,662, twenty-four bytes apart - layer names follow the interface language, names of different length make containers of different size, and not one pixel changed. Those three files are the only copies the picture left behind in this run; the site keeps none.

AI generation and AI editing are the one step that goes through a server, and the source picture is uploaded; this page neither hides that fact nor folds it into the same sentence as ordinary retouching. Signed out, the probe measured GET /api/ai/credits?limit=1 answering 401 while /api/ai/status, /api/ai/models, /api/ai/gallery and /api/ai/templates all answered 200 - the switch and the price list are public, the credits are yours, so the credits call asks for a login. The send button reads sign in to generate and sits disabled; the probe clicked it anyway: 0 requests, 0 bytes out, and not a single /api/ai/image/jobs.

Signed in, this step is not a blind submit either: the panel quotes before you commit, and the quote cell sits empty while signed out. The raster sent caps at 1536 on the long side and the frame returned tops out at 2048; those two numbers say two different things, and the photo-by-photo table for them lives on the page about where results land among layers; the credit rate is 1 credit = 1 US cent, and the total is visible before you commit.

• Open the DevTools network panel before the editor, keep the log across navigations and filter to Fetch/XHR; the first paint lays down its 18 requests first, and those are switches, prices and the gallery, not your picture.
• Drop a picture in and watch the request list: nothing should be added. If something is, open it and look for picture bytes in the request body - that is the line this page would have to change.
• Open the ID-photo drawer and one yunet.plan entry appears: read its direction and its size column, it is a download, 233,012 bytes, inward not outward.
• Click the AI send button while signed out: the request list does not move. Signed in, it quotes first, and the quote cell holds a number before you decide whether to commit.
• Export PNG, export PDF and save PSD once each: read the three file sizes in your downloads folder against this page's 794,399, 134,284 and 7,327,638; the same order of magnitude means the same pipeline.

What would falsify this page: any segment above producing an outgoing request that carries picture bytes while signed out, or an action growing requests out of nothing. The readings belong to the bundled Chromium build of 2026-10-10; on another build the chunk names and byte counts move while the method does not, which is why the method is written here and not only the conclusion.

• No claim of being the only one running locally: ordinary retouching inside a browser is not a proprietary trick; this page measures the request list of our one implementation, and the readings belong to it, not to an exclusivity claim.
• No offline claim: the editor is a web page and there is no editor without a network; when this page says on your machine it means the picture bytes do not leave, not that no network is needed.
• No claim that the AI step stays on your machine: it is the one step that goes through a server and the source picture is uploaded; ordinary retouching stays on your machine the whole way, and AI generation plus AI editing is the one step that goes through a server.
• No claim of an alpha-carrying export: PNG export presses alpha flat, this version cannot hand you a transparent PNG with an alpha channel; for layers the exit is PSD.
• No claim of zero requests: the switch query, the model download and the lazy chunks are real requests; this page writes them into the table line by line instead of hiding them behind a zero.