---
title: KOLLA
created: 2026-08-14 12:32
updated: 2026-08-14 13:26
revision: 2
author: Auriea
summary: "freeform rewrite: boundless mat, frame + per-piece crops, fill tool, autosave + .kolla files"
---

[[TROY]]

KOLLA (κόλλα, "glue" — the word *collage* starts here) — the paste-up table beside [[TOME]]'s cutting bench. A layer stack with blend modes for freeform collage: the mat is a boundless plane with no sheet and no rectangle — drop images anywhere, slide them around, pinch to scale and turn, connect them however you wish. One HTML file, no dependencies, no server, in the same cutting-mat design as TOMÉ.

[[thumb:kolla-icon]]

![the boundless mat: pieces scattered freely, a frame squaring part of the collage off (outside it only dimmed, not lost), one piece cropped with its hidden margin ghosted, the disc washed with a gradient](https://auriea.art/shots/kolla-1.jpg)

## What it does

- **Pieces, anywhere** — drop, paste, or open any number of images; each lands on the mat as its own piece. There is no boundary to stay inside.
- **The stack** — layer cards along the right edge, top of the list = top of the pile. Tap to select, eye to hide, a gold badge names any non-normal blend.
- **Blend modes** — all sixteen as a chip row, plus per-piece opacity. Blending happens against the pieces beneath only, never against the mat.
- **Moving** — drag a piece to slide it; a second finger scales *and* turns it around the pinch. Drag the bare mat to pan, pinch to zoom. Desktop: arrows nudge, `[` `]` turn, `-` `=` scale, space pans, ⌘Z undoes.
- **The frame** — square things off when you want to: drag out a frame, adjust or move it, clear it with a tap on the bare mat. Everything outside is only dimmed, never lost — until **flatten**, when the cut becomes permanent. Export honours it too.
- **Crop into a piece** — double-tap any piece (iOS-style) and crop handles appear on it; the hidden margins stay as a ghost and survive every save and reload. Non-destructive until a flatten or merge bakes it. `uncrop` brings the whole piece back.
- **Fill** — tap a piece for a solid, drag across it for a gradient along the drag: *wash* (fills its own pixels, shape and soft edges kept), *behind* (a ground behind a cutout), or *sheet* (drag out a brand-new fill piece).
- **Stack ops** — bring forward / send back, duplicate, merge ↓, flatten, png ↓.
- **✂ cutout** — AI background removal per piece (fal.ai).
- **Tap-to-lift** — the ai tool's pointer: tap anything and SAM segmentation lifts just that object onto its own layer, in place. Scissors that know where the edges are.
- **Fuse** — re-dream the collage (the frame, or everything) as *one* image at low drift, so the pieces share light and grain; lands on top as a new layer.
- **Expand** — flatten and outpaint past the edges on all four sides.

## A collage is rarely finished in one sitting

The whole table — pieces, transforms, blends, crops, the frame — **autosaves in the browser after every change** and is waiting when the app reopens. **save ⇩** writes the same thing as a `.kolla` file: open or drop it later, on any machine, to continue exactly where you left off. **clear** starts a fresh table (undo brings the old one back).

## The bench next door

TOMÉ and KOLLA are two benches in one workshop, one click apart. TOMÉ's **kolla →** sends the current cut over as a new piece; KOLLA's **← tomé** sends the collage (framed or whole) back to be cut. The handoff is a cross-window message with the pixels riding along.

Lives in TROY/KOLLA (kolla.html, port 8783), deployed at https://auriea.art/kolla.html — born 2026-08-14 with the iOS full-screen fix built in, rebuilt freeform the same day.

[[tag:ai]]