Image Clip Adapter

A still image is just a one-frame video clip, and that's the whole mental model for Montagen's Image Clip Adapter. ComfyUI-Montagen is a video-studio-within-ComfyUI: a project system, a timeline, an embedded editor, a renderer. The adapters are how media from your node graph gets onto that timeline, and this one takes a single IMAGE, writes it into the project as a PNG, and registers it as a clip.

The image adapter is the building block of the pack. Slide shows, background plates, poster frames between video segments, an avatar's talking head - any still that needs to sit on the timeline for a few seconds goes through it. Montagen gives image clips a default duration (about three seconds), which you then adjust in the timeline editor or the Properties panel. Run the workflow, and the clip appears in the timeline with your image, ready to trim, layer, or crossfade with whatever's adjacent.

How it works

When the node executes it grabs the image tensor and saves it out as a PNG asset in the project, then registers it under the clip name you gave it. The interesting bit is the optional alpha input: feed it a MASK and the node composites it into an RGBA PNG (transparency = 1 − mask), which is how you get a clip with a real alpha channel instead of a flat rectangle. An image with alpha composite is exactly what you want for overlays, logos, and any transparent element sitting above your footage.

It's an output node, so it runs even with nothing wired downstream - the clip on the timeline is the point - but it also passes both the IMAGE and the MASK back out, so you can keep the chain alive if you want to post-process after.

The inputs you'll actually set

• image - the IMAGE tensor. The only required media.
• name - the clip's ID on the timeline. Defaults to "Untitled Clip"; rename it or you'll drown in untitled clips once you have a few.
• preview_fps - defaults to 6, and it's just the playback rate the timeline editor uses to preview the still. Leave it alone unless the preview feels janky.
• alpha (optional) - the MASK that becomes the clip's transparency.
• tag (optional) - a label for organizing clips.

Wiring it into a real workflow

Per the README: open a Montagen project, add a Create Timeline node (resolution + FPS), connect this adapter into it, then Execute Timeline to render. Generate your stills with KSampler, feed them through here, and you've got a rough-cut slideshow without leaving ComfyUI - which is exactly the niche the pack is chasing: keeping assembly in the graph rather than exporting every frame and reassembling in a separate NLE.

Install and gotchas

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/MontagenAI/ComfyUI-Montagen.git

Or find "ComfyUI-Montagen" in ComfyUI Manager. No model downloads for the adapters; Manager handles the pip deps (ffmpeg-binaries, edge_tts, and friends), and you must restart ComfyUI - not refresh - for the Montagen activity-bar extension to load.

Three things bite people here. First, the adapter does nothing outside a Montagen project with a Create Timeline node - run it bare and nothing visible happens. Second, the pack renamed this node: "Image Clip Adapter" (MontagenImageClipAdapter) became "Image Adapter" (MontagenImageAdapter) in the 0.3.x line, so old saved workflows can show up with a missing node. Third, it's a small, fast-moving pack with almost no community footprint - you're an early adopter, the README and CHANGELOG are your docs, and it's worth installing from the official repo given that ComfyUI Manager runs whatever it clones.