Lorem Picsum URL Builder

picsum.photos returns a random photo from Unsplash at the dimensions you ask for. This builder produces the URL you actually want: width × height, optional grayscale and blur, and either a random photo per request, a stable photo per seed string (great for storybook fixtures), or a specific image ID. Outputs the URL plus ready-to-paste Markdown and HTML snippets, with a live preview.

The seed is the setting that decides whether your layout is reproducible. Without one, every request returns a different photo, so a screenshot test or a visual diff fails on content that was never meant to be under test. A seed maps deterministically to one image, which is what you want in fixtures and design mockups. An explicit image ID goes further and pins the exact photograph, at the cost of breaking if that image is ever withdrawn from the set.

Requested dimensions crop rather than distort. Asking for a wide banner from a portrait original gives you a centre crop, so faces and horizons land wherever the source happened to put them. A square request is the safest default when the subject matters. Grayscale and blur are applied server-side, and blur takes an integer strength up to 10, above which the parameter is clamped rather than rejected.

The important caveat is that this is somebody else's service. Every image is fetched from picsum.photos at page load, which means an external request, a dependency on that host staying up, and a referrer leaving your page. It is a placeholder service intended for development, with no uptime commitment and no guarantee that a given ID keeps resolving, so shipping these URLs to production puts your rendering in the hands of a free third party. Download what you need and self-host it instead. The photos come from Unsplash and carry the Unsplash licence, which is permissive but not public domain.