Retouch 200 product photos: Image API, Agent Completion or Format?

For 200 photos that all need the same retouch, call POST /v1/images 200 times. You choose the model, the prompt and the quality, the price is per image, and the queue limits for your plan are documented. An Agent Completion or a Format run earns its extra cost only when each photo needs a decision, such as "fix the dust but keep the scratches that are part of the product."

The three routes side by side

All three accept images, and all three are on the same Sume key. The differences are in who decides and how you pay.

Throughput is a plan limit, not a route choice

Generation admission applies by plan: Free processes 1 job and accepts 6, Pro processes 4 and accepts 24, Startup 8 and 48, Scale 20 and 120 (Generation admission). So 200 photos are always a feed-the-queue problem. Use a worker pool the size of the processing number and retry on 429.

Price check on the cheap route

Ideogram 4.5 at quality: low is $0.0375 billed per image on Sume (fal list $0.03 x 1.25, read 2026-10-05), so 200 low-quality passes are $7.50 and 200 at the default medium are $15.00. Use low to proof a sample of ten before you spend the other 190 at the quality you want to ship.

Pick by the job

• Same fix on every photo, same shape out: Image API, no aspect ratio, so every output keeps its source shape.
• A written brief per photo that changes: Agent Completion with attachments and a spend cap per run.
• A repeated workflow someone else will run again, with its own rules: a Format run.
• Fewer than 20 photos once: whichever you can already call. The difference is minutes, not money.

Limits

A cheap route is only cheap if the first pass is right. Retouch is the case where a model can change a logo, so sample, diff against the source, and keep a person in the loop for products with printed text. An agent will not make that less true, and it makes the cost per photo harder to predict.