Skills transform-build-polaroid-collage-with-transloadit

Name: transform-build-polaroid-collage-with-transloadit
Author: transloadit

One-off polaroid-stack photo collage (N local images -> single image) using the official `@transloadit/node` CLI. Uses the `/image/merge` Robot's `polaroid-stack` effect and downloads the result to an explicit output path via `--output`.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/transloadit/skills

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/transloadit/skills "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/skills/transform-build-polaroid-collage-with-transloadit" ~/.claude/skills/transloadit-skills-transform-build-polaroid-collage-with-transloadit && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: skills/transform-build-polaroid-collage-with-transloadit/SKILL.md

source content

Inputs

Two or more absolute paths to local input images
Optional output path; default to an explicit
```
collage.png
```
in the current working directory
Optional canvas size (
```
--width
```
,
```
--height
```
), default
```
1920×1200
```
Optional
```
--seed
```
for deterministic layout

Prepare Instructions

Resolve credentials in this order:

Shell environment variables
The current working directory
```
.env
```
only
```
~/.transloadit/credentials
```

If your

.env

lives in a parent directory, export the variables into the shell first.

Run

npx -y @transloadit/node image merge \
  --input ./photo-a.jpg \
  --input ./photo-b.jpg \
  --input ./photo-c.jpg \
  --input ./photo-d.jpg \
  --input ./photo-e.jpg \
  --input ./photo-f.jpg \
  --effect polaroid-stack \
  --width 1920 \
  --height 1200 \
  --format png \
  --output ./collage.png

After the command finishes, confirm the image exists at the expected output path.

Tuning

```
--background '#eee5d3'
```
picks a warm beige canvas (default). Hex codes or named colors both work.

--background none

(with

--format png

--format webp

) produces a transparent canvas.

```
--coverage 1.5
```
is the default. Use
```
2.0
```
–
```
2.5
```
for bigger, more overlapping photos;
```
1.0
```
or below for smaller, more widely spaced polaroids.
```
--seed 42
```
makes the layout deterministic — rerun with the same inputs to reproduce the same output.
```
--shuffle
```
lets the Robot reorder inputs before laying them out.

Debug If It Fails

npx -y @transloadit/node assemblies get <assemblyIdOrUrl> -j

Notes:

Repeated
```
--input
```
values are bundled into a single
```
/image/merge
```
assembly.
The polaroid-stack effect works best with 4–12 inputs. Fewer than four tends to look sparse; more than a dozen starts to occlude heavily.
Each input is cropped to a square inside its polaroid frame — portrait or landscape originals both work.
Prefer an explicit output filename (e.g.
```
./collage.png
```
or
```
./collage.jpg
```
) over a directory output so the extension is deterministic.