**Cost**: 13 credits per successful call.

Image Layering supports two input modes:

1. **JSON URL mode**: send `application/json` with the existing URL field.
2. **Direct upload mode**: send `multipart/form-data` with a local image file in the `image` field. The compatible field name `file` is also accepted for the primary image. Codia checks credits before reading and uploading the file, so insufficient-credit requests return `402` without uploading anything.

Direct upload example:

```bash
curl 'https://openapi.codia.ai/v2/open/image/layering' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer {codia_api_key}' \
  -F 'image=@./image.png'
```

Decompose a single image into an **ordered stack of editable layers** — background, subject(s), and overlays — each rendered separately. The output is a JSON DSL describing the layer tree plus the per-layer image data. Use this when you want a designer-style PSD-equivalent, not a single flat composition.

## What this API is for

Turning a flat marketing image back into editable components; pre-processing for downstream compositing; setting up animated reveals where each layer animates separately; segmenting photo content for fine-grained editing.

Different from `image_to_design`: that one returns a structural design-tree (Body / Layer / Text / Image nodes with positions and styles). `image_layering` returns visual layers (independent rendered images that you can stack). They complement each other.

## Request

| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| `image_url` | yes | Public URL of the image to decompose. |

No `model` parameter — uses Codia's layering pipeline.

## Response

Unique to this endpoint:

| Field | Type | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| `data.type` | integer | Result-type code. Identifies the schema variant of `dsl`. |
| `data.dsl` | string | **JSON-encoded** layer tree. Parse client-side. Contains layer metadata + URLs to the rendered layer images. |

```json
{ "code": 0, "message": "ok", "data": { "type": 1, "dsl": "{\"layers\":[…]}" } }
```

The `dsl` field is intentionally a string (not a nested object) so you can store it verbatim or stream it without re-encoding.

## Billing & limits

- 13 credits per request from the unified Codia Open API balance.
- Synchronous.

## Errors

Standard set.

> **Sync vs. async**
> This synchronous endpoint returns the result inline — the simplest path. For production pipelines that need webhook delivery, automatic retry with idempotency, or explicit task cancellation, call `POST /v2/open/tasks` with `operation=image_layering` instead. Inputs and credit cost are identical.

Optional user-supplied key (up to 255 chars). When set, a successful (2xx) response is cached for 7 days. A retry with the same key + identical request body returns the cached response (no extra credit charged); a retry with the same key but a different body returns 409. Use to make POST safe to retry on network failures. For multipart/form-data uploads, requests are compared by form fields and file contents, so a retried upload is replayed even though the client picks a new multipart boundary.

Idempotency-Key

Public URL of the image to decompose into layers

image_url

image

Compatible source image file field (deprecated: use `image` instead).

file

Source image URL when not uploading image

code

message

type

data

The request body is malformed or missing required parameters

The API key is missing, invalid, or revoked

Account balance is insufficient or subscription has expired

Account does not have access to this endpoint

Idempotency-Key reused with a different request body.

Rate limited. Wait for the number of seconds in the `Retry-After` header before retrying.

An unexpected error occurred on the server

Image

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Splits a flat image into an ordered stack of layers (background, subjects, text and overlays) that can be edited separately.

Image Layering

Input

Output

Related APIs