
Lorem Pixel - marshray
http://lorempixel.com/
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akvlad
I like <http://placekitten.com/>

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xaro
What I don't like about it is that it always returns the same image (not a
random one) for a given size.

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enraged_camel
Yeah, they seem to be static images stored on the server, rather than
generated dynamically via, say, Google Search. Personally I would have gone
via that route. Have the word "kitten" and the pixel size as parameters, and
serve a random photo out of the first 50 results.

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shousper
This would mean no caching, so your computer would have to download the image
every time, even if it was the same as one you'd already seen.

Unless you're only using these images for client demos, it can be very slow
and frustrating waiting for them to load every time you refresh while trying
to do html, css or js tweaks.

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alxndr
Also, licensing.

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CanSpice
I fail to see any problems with hotlinking to random images hosted at a site
that you don't control from a webpage that you're probably going to demo to
your boss or client.

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woah
Good god, you've uncovered the prank of the century.

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ggordan
I use this quite often when I'm mocking up a design and I want it to have kind
of realism. I've recently discovered <http://placehold.it/> which is pretty
cool as well

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michaelbuckbee
You might want to checkout Holder.js, it is much like placehold.it but client-
side.

<http://imsky.github.com/holder/>

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andrewkkirk
Twitter Bootstrap recently Replaced Placehold.it with Holder.js, a client-side
and retina-ready placeholder image tool.

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joejohnson
How do services like this make money (or at least cover their costs)?

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the1
if those images were ads, how would advertisers track impressions?

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jheriko
no, there are actual ads on the page too. you using an ad blocker?

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BasDirks
This image is lovely, but I could not use it in staging environments for
certain clients: <http://i.imgur.com/ZAD2Z.png>

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GigabyteCoin
I am continually amazed at what some of my customers find to be objectionable.
The internet is a big place.

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rijoja
It would be nice if it was possible to supply a seed for the randomization
algorithm. Then the image wouldn't change at every reload and it's still
possible to get another one if it's desired.

I imagine it would be a bit annoying if the image changed every time I
reloaded the page which I do quite a lot while developing a web page. If I
were to show a page I've developed to a customer I would not like to have to
explain why the images are changing all the time.

Apart from that I find this really nice.

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morpher
They have links for specifying image categories and even specific images.

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rijoja
I didn't notice that. This is what happens when you post comments when you are
supposed to sleep.

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etfb
I don't think I've bookmarked anything in ages. I'd almost forgotten how! But
that's seriously useful. Thanks to whoever is responsible.

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culshaw
The best of the best has to be: <http://www.placecage.com/>

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the1
no retina image <http://lorempixel.com/4000/2000/>

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nacs
Based on the generator on their front page, it looks like the maximum size is
1920x1920.

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jeremiep
This is a great idea! Although I'd prefer if the generation form was the
center of attention in that page. On my 14" MacBook display I had to scroll
down to see it.

Reminds me of an unicode lorem ipsum I came across some time ago which I
forgot the name of. Anyone know it?

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dbaupp
Maybe: <http://www.geertvanderploeg.com/unicode-gen/>

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flyinRyan
Great idea. Could you please put a button that will cause the size sliders to
obey common sizes? I tried to do 1280x1024 and I basically had to use the
up/down arrows to zoom in on each one.

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jennmalm
Brilliant, just brilliant. It's so simple it's one of those products that
makes you wonder how it hasn't been invented until now. nice work.

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DHowett
_(...) it hasn't been invented until now._

<http://placehold.it>

<http://placekitten.com>

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thomasrambaud
Yes, there's ages similar services exist : <http://www.dummyimages.com/>

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thejosh
Big fan of placehold.js for web placeholder images.

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jheriko
pick colour, pick people, observe random chance of getting a greyscale
photo...

if you reset and repeat it happens very often, but once it rights itself its
fine.

dodgy logic?

nice otherwise, but this is a problem i have to say i've never had. generally
google has something for me or i need to make it. :I

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jheriko
debugged it - some of the sources are already grayscale or close enough. you
should filter these out... it feels like a bug.

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jncraton
A charts and graphs category would be useful on top of the categories that
this already has.

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shurane
But what if I want non-rectangular images! I kid, this is useful stuff for
prototyping.

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sdoering
Did you look at the service at all?

Just curious...

I used it a lot for prototyping and it is totally possible to generate images
in (nearly) every aspect ratio.

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Zecc
I think you missed the part where they said "rectangular".

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sdoering
Uups. OK, yes, my mistake. I read quadratic... _shameonme_

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jason_adleberg
can anyone take a guess as to how this works? i have not a clue.

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Tipzntrix
I would guess they pull from the wiki commons and then use typical JPG or PNG
algorithm libraries to stretch or compress the image. There's probably some AI
to retrieve images that don't need to be stretched much so that it looks
natural.

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jlogsdon
From their images list:

> The provided images are for layout purposes and each image we use for this
> project is released under the creative commons license (CC BY-SA). For more
> information visit <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/> So, if you want to
> use the images for more than just layouts, you have to double check the
> license and ask the author. For this we will link to each photographer's
> flickr page. Furthermore, we assume no liability.

