Quickstart

First Photta image in under five minutes.

A single account, a single API key, five shell commands. The steps below match exactly what the official Photta docs recommend — no wrappers, no SDKs, no framework assumptions.

In one sentence

Sign up at ai.photta.app, click Generate API key, export it as PHOTTA_API_KEY, POST to /api/v1/tryon/apparel and poll the returned generation ID every 3 seconds until status flips to completed — typically within 1.5 to 4 minutes.

Get an API key→Read the docs

How it works

Five commands from zero to first image

Paste them into a terminal in order. Every snippet is self-contained and uses only curl + jq.

01
Step 1
Generate an API key
Sign up at ai.photta.app and open the Developers dashboard. Click Generate API key — live keys start with photta_live_. Export it so the rest of the walkthrough can read it from your shell.
```
# Sign up at ai.photta.app, open the Developers dashboard,
# click "Generate API key" and copy it into your env.
export PHOTTA_API_KEY="photta_live_xxxxx"
export PHOTTA_BASE_URL="https://ai.photta.app/api/v1"
```

Step 2

POST your first try-on

Hit /api/v1/tryon/apparel with a product image URL, a mannequin ID and a pose ID. The API answers 202 Accepted immediately and returns a generation ID in data.id.

curl -X POST "$PHOTTA_BASE_URL/tryon/apparel" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $PHOTTA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "product_type": "dress",
    "product_images": ["https://example.com/dress.jpg"],
    "mannequin_id": "mnq_athena_ts",
    "pose_id": "pose_standing_front",
    "resolution": "2K",
    "aspect_ratio": "3:4"
  }'
# Response: 202 Accepted + data.id (generation ID)

Step 3

Poll until it completes

GET /api/v1/tryon/apparel/:id every 3 seconds. Typical completion is 1.5–4 minutes. Put an upper bound on attempts so a stuck job can't hang your script forever.

# Loop every 3 seconds until status flips to "completed".
# Typical completion: 1.5–4 minutes. Max 120 attempts = 6 min.
for i in $(seq 1 120); do
  RESULT=$(curl -s "$PHOTTA_BASE_URL/tryon/apparel/$ID" \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $PHOTTA_API_KEY")
  STATUS=$(echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.data.status')
  [ "$STATUS" = "completed" ] && break
  [ "$STATUS" = "failed" ] && echo "Job failed" && exit 1
  sleep 3
done

04
Step 4
Persist the output
When status flips to completed, data.output_url holds the rendered image. Download the bytes into your own storage so your product doesn't depend on Photta's CDN for rendering.
```
# Pull the final URL out of the response and save the bytes.
OUTPUT_URL=$(echo "$RESULT" | jq -r '.data.output_url')
curl -sO "$OUTPUT_URL"
echo "Saved $(basename "$OUTPUT_URL")"
```

Step 5

Handle the failure modes honestly

Branch on the HTTP status code: 402 for insufficient credits, 429 for rate limits (honour Retry-After), 5xx for transient server errors. Every error body carries a machine-readable error.code you can act on.

# Surface the common failure modes honestly.
case "$STATUS_CODE" in
  402) echo "Out of credits — top up at ai.photta.app" ;;
  429) echo "Rate limited — honour Retry-After header" ;;
  4??) echo "Client error: $(echo "$BODY" | jq '.error.message')" ;;
  5??) echo "Server error — retry with backoff" ;;
esac

Questions other developers ask

Questions about getting started

How long does the quickstart take?+

Five minutes for the signup + key generation + first cURL. The generation itself takes 1.5 to 4 minutes, so plan on ten minutes wall-clock before you see your first on-model image.

Do I need a credit card to try it?+

New accounts ship with trial credits you can spend before paying. When you're ready to go to production, subscribe to a plan for a higher monthly credit balance and faster rate limits.

Which endpoint should I try first?+

Apparel try-on (/api/v1/tryon/apparel) — it's the most widely used, the documentation is the most complete, and it covers the async + polling pattern every other Photta endpoint reuses. Once you're comfortable there, jewelry and ghost mannequin work the same way.

Can I run it from the browser?+

No. Your API key must stay server-side — shipping it to a browser leaks it to every visitor. Route calls through a thin proxy on your own backend (Next.js route handler, Express, Flask, Lambda) and let the browser talk to your proxy instead.

Quickstart

You're five minutes away from your first image

Get an API key →Explore the API