About Lorem Picsum
Overview
Lorem Picsum is a free placeholder image service that generates random photos at any requested size. It is designed for designers and developers who need realistic, high-quality images for mockups, prototypes, and wireframes.
Unlike generic colored boxes or pattern-based placeholders, Lorem Picsum serves real Unsplash photographs. Users specify dimensions directly in the URL and receive a unique image instantly, with no sign-up or API key required.
Key Benefits
- No registration, API key, or rate limits — just append dimensions to the URL and get an image.
- Supports specific images by ID, seeded random images for consistency, and fully random images.
- Grayscale and blur filters can be applied via simple query parameters.
- Images are served in JPEG or WebP format by changing the file extension in the URL.
- An API endpoint returns paginated lists of available images with author and dimension metadata.
How It Works
You append the desired width and height to the base URL — for example, https://picsum.photos/200/300 — and the service returns a random photo at those dimensions. For a square image, you provide only the width. To get the same image every time, you add a seed value with /seed/{seed}. You can apply grayscale (?grayscale) or blur (?blur=2) filters as query parameters, and combine multiple options in a single URL.
Use Cases
- Front-end web developers who need realistic placeholder images while building layouts and responsive designs.
- UI/UX designers creating mockups and prototypes who want high-quality photos instead of colored boxes.
- Mobile app developers testing image loading and layout behavior across different screen sizes.
- Content creators and bloggers who need temporary featured images while sourcing final photography.
- Students and educators building demo projects or tutorials that require sample image content.
Why Choose This Product
Lorem Picsum is best suited for anyone who needs quick, free placeholder images without creating an account or managing API keys. It offers no image upload, no user accounts, and no customization of the image library itself — it is purely a consumption API for randomly serving Unsplash photos at requested dimensions.
Lorem Picsum Pros & Cons
- Completely free, no sign-up required
- Simple URL-based API with no authentication
- Supports grayscale, blur, and seed parameters
- Images served in JPEG and WebP formats
- Pagination and metadata available via API endpoints
Key Features
Random image by size
Append width and height to the URL to get a random photo at those exact dimensions.
Specific image by ID
Use /id/{image} in the URL to retrieve a particular photo from the Unsplash collection.
Seeded random images
Add /seed/{seed} to get the same random image every time for consistent placeholders.
Grayscale filter
Append ?grayscale to the URL to return the image in black and white.
Blur filter
Append ?blur with a value from 1 to 10 to apply a configurable blur effect.
Image list API
The /v2/list endpoint returns paginated image metadata including author, dimensions, and download URLs.
Image detail endpoint
The /id/{id}/info and /seed/{seed}/info endpoints return metadata for a single image.
WebP format support
Append .webp to the URL to receive the image in WebP format.
Lorem Picsum Pricing
Pricing extracted from the product website and may change. Check the source for current details.
How Lorem Picsum compares
L Lorem PicsumThis | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free | Free | free |
| Pricing model | Free | Free | Free |
| Platforms | Web | Web | Web |
| Top features |
|
|
|
| Rating | — | — | — |