The following papers describe the PTF survey, data processing, and archve.
Rau, A. et al. 2009, PASP, 121, 1334 - Description of PTF Camera and survey goals
Law, N. et al. 2009, PASP, 121, 1395 - Description of the PTF Project and first-light performance
Ofek, E. et al. 2012, PASP, 124, 854 - Description of the Photometric Calibration
Ofek, E. et al. 2012, PASP, 124, 64 - A PTF Standard Star Catalog
Levitan, D. 2013, PhD Thesis (Caltech) - Primarily Chapter 3 describing lightcurve generation and relative photometric calibration method used for constructing the Lightcurve Database
Laher, R. et al. 2014, PASP, 126, 74 - Pipeline Description Document
Surace, J. et al. 2015, ADASS 2014 - Pipeline and Archive Architecture Document
Masci, F. et al. 2016, PASP (in press) - The IPAC Image Subtraction and Discovery Pipeline for the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory