OPEN

The words on the screen, and who is making the claim

Some of the shorthand around this process is a platform feature with a screen behind it. Some of it is a seller describing their own stock. Some of it is one stranger telling another what they think. They are not the same thing.

Platform terms below are quoted from OrientDig own pages with the date read. Community shorthand is labelled as such.

FACT

What the free photo set covers

Start with the one term that is genuinely a platform feature. After the goods reach the warehouse, somebody photographs them, and you can look at those pictures before you decide whether to ship them onward. The official wording for this is quality inspection photos. Everyone calls it QC.

Two official pages describe the set, and they describe it differently. The banner on the product page states a free set of between three and seven high definition photographs. The dedicated page on detailed photos describes three fixed angles. Both are current, both are theirs, and averaging them would produce a number that appears on neither page, so both are printed as found.

A price band showing a converted price, two rows describing the payment from seller to agent and from agent to buyer, and a highlighted line offering free high definition quality inspection photos — The band under a listing price on the official site. The converted amount is the platform operator sample value from their own guide.

What matters more than the count is what a photograph is for. It is evidence that a specific object is sitting in a warehouse and that it looks like this. It is the last checkpoint before the expensive leg of the journey, and it is the only point in the process where you see the actual item rather than a listing of it.

It is not an authentication, not a test, and not an opinion. Nobody at the warehouse is being asked whether the thing is good.

Photo set described on the official product banner and detailed photo page, both read on 2026-09-22. The detailed photo page sits in the OrientDig help centre under "Orientdig detailed photo".

FACT

QC, GL, RL, and who is making the claim

Here is the rest of the glossary, with the only column that matters: who is asserting the thing. Half the confusion in this market comes from treating a stranger opinion and a platform record as the same kind of fact.

Term	What it refers to	Who is asserting it
QC	The photographs taken at the warehouse after the goods arrive	The platform. It is a real feature with a real screen, and the photographs are of your actual item.
GL	Green light. Shorthand for someone looking at a photo set and saying go ahead	A person, usually in a chat or a forum. It is a verdict, not a status, and it appears nowhere in the account area.
RL	Red light. The same shorthand, used the other way	The same person. Worth exactly as much as their eye and their honesty, which may be quite a lot or nothing at all.
Batch	A name attached to a particular run of goods from a particular maker	The seller. Nothing in the order process records or checks a batch name, and the inspection does not look for one.
Version	A number distinguishing one production of an item from another	The seller again. Two shops can use the same number for different goods, because nobody issues the numbers.
Grade	A letter or word ranking quality	The seller, and it is the least standardised of the lot. There is no register of grades and no authority behind any of them.

The platform side of this table is quoted from official pages read on 2026-09-22. The community shorthand is described as it is used and is not a platform feature.

LOCKS

Ask for it here or not at all

Booking extra photos at order time

If the free set is not going to answer your question, the time to say so is before anything is bought. The request goes in the message box on the order panel, and the placeholder there tells you what it is for: a message only when this order has a special requirement. A photograph of a particular seam is exactly that.

It is also where a size check is requested. OrientDig states that the warehouse follows whatever you wrote there, which means an empty box gets you the standard set and nothing else.

A message box under the quantity control on the order panel, its placeholder asking for a message only when the order carries a special requirement — The message box on the official order panel, where a photo request has to be written before purchase.

Useful requests are specific and physical: the stitching along one seam, the inside of the collar, the sole from directly underneath, a tape measure across the chest. Useless requests are adjectives. Asking whether something is good gets you a photograph of something, which you already had.

One trade to know about: the published service standard says a remark can extend processing time, because the agent may have to wait for the seller to come online. A question worth asking is worth the wait; a decorative note is not. Before you pay has the rest of the order form.

LOCKS

How to read a QC photo set before you pay the second bill

Once the photographs land there are two decisions in front of you and only one of them is really about the pictures. Sorting what a photograph can settle from what it cannot is most of the skill.

What the photographs can settle

Whether it arrived at all, and whether it is the item you picked rather than a different colour or a different size. Whether anything is visibly broken, stained, scuffed or missing. Whether the accessories, dust bag, spare laces or box that the listing mentioned are in the frame.

Whether the shape and proportions match the listing pictures, which is more informative than it sounds, because listing photographs are often not of the goods being sold.

All four are answerable by looking. Ask about these.

What they cannot settle

Whether it is genuine. Whether it will last. Whether the materials are what the listing said. Whether the electronics inside work, since the disclaimers say the equipment is not switched on.

Whether the batch, version or grade in the listing title is accurate, because nobody in the chain is checking that and nobody has claimed to.

These are not failures of the photographs. They are questions a photograph of any object cannot answer, and no number of extra angles changes it.

LOCKED

The words that travel with a link

A batch name, a version number and a grade letter are the seller describing their own goods.

They travel with a link as though they were measurements. They look like measurements: they are short, they use numbers and letters, and different sellers use the same ones. But there is no issuing body, no register and no check. The agent does not verify them, does not contradict them, and has never said it would.

This matters most for exactly the part of the market this site is named after, which is why it is stated here rather than buried. It is not an accusation against any seller. It is a description of what kind of statement you are reading.

The practical response is to set the expectation before the money moves, ask for the photographs that would tell you something physical, and treat everything else as the seller point of view. The sellers page covers the signals that are worth reading, and the catalogue covers what a link list can and cannot tell you.