# How to apply an image overlay using an externally-stored image?

**URL:** <https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141>\
**Category:** Image API\
**Created:** [May 30, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141 "2025-05-30T15:37:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![HowardCordray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9dc877/32.png) [@HowardCordray](https://community.imagekit.io/u/HowardCordray)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141/1 "2025-05-30T15:37:49Z")

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I’m following [this guide](https://imagekit.io/blog/how-to-create-a-photo-collage/) to create a photo collage, and it works great when the images I am adding as overlays are stored within my Media Library in ImageKit.

However, it does not seem to work when I want to use an external image URL. Instead, I get a generic “Invalid Transformation” error. I’ve tried URL-encoding and a variety of other things to get it to work, to no avail.

Are image overlay transformations supported for images not stored directly in my ImageKit Media Library, and if so, how can I get it working?

Thank you!

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**Author:** ![rahul\_nanwani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@rahul\_nanwani](https://community.imagekit.io/u/rahul_nanwani)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 6:00am UTC](https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141/2 "2025-06-02T06:00:27Z")

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1. The image needs to be accessible via ImageKit for it to work. So, it can either be in the media library, or it can be on one of the connected origins (like an external AWS S3 storage that is accessible via a URL endpoint in ImageKit)

2. Currently we do not support absolute URLs for image overlays. We are working on rolling out this feature in the future. You will have to use a relative URL (with the ImageKit URL endpoint)

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**Author:** ![HowardCordray](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9dc877/32.png) [@HowardCordray](https://community.imagekit.io/u/HowardCordray)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2025, 8:27pm UTC](https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141/3 "2025-06-02T20:27:32Z")

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Ah, (2) was the core issue it seems! I already had the external image set up to use the URL endpoint via ImageKit, but was using the absolute URL. Using the relative path fixed it. Thank you!

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**Author:** ![Ryan](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex032/user_avatar/community.imagekit.io/ryan/32/48_2.png) [@Ryan](https://community.imagekit.io/u/Ryan)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 11:02pm UTC](https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141/4 "2025-07-17T23:02:06Z")

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Is there any image software that can export a layered image file into an image kit url (placeholders for the image urls)?

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**Author:** ![imagekit\_admin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/76d3ee/32.png) [@imagekit\_admin](https://community.imagekit.io/u/imagekit_admin)\
**Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://community.imagekit.io/t/how-to-apply-an-image-overlay-using-an-externally-stored-image/141/5 "2025-07-22T16:02:44Z")

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Hi Ryan

Can you elaborate on your question with some examples?