Placeholder Image Generator
Generate placeholder images with custom size, color, and text — entirely in your browser
About this tool
The Placeholder Image Generator creates a placeholder PNG at any size you choose, with a custom background color, text color, and label — rendered entirely with the browser's <canvas> API, downloadable instantly or copyable as a data URI to embed directly in HTML or CSS. It's a drop-in replacement for services like placeholder.com or Lorem Picsum for the common case where you just need a correctly-sized, on-brand-colored rectangle to stand in for a real image during layout work — without a network request to a third party, without that third party's uptime becoming your build's problem, and without your placeholder images living on someone else's server.
When to use it
- →Filling image slots in a mockup or prototype before real assets are ready
- →Generating correctly-sized test images for responsive image / srcset testing
- →Creating a quick branded placeholder that matches your design system's colors, instead of a generic gray box
- →Getting a data URI to hardcode directly into a component's default/fallback image prop
Tips
- ◆Leave the custom text field blank to get an automatic "width × height" label — handy for quickly checking which breakpoint or image slot you're looking at.
- ◆Font size defaults to a size proportional to the smaller of width/height (about 1/8th) so text stays readable at both small avatar sizes and large banner sizes — override it manually if you need an exact size.
- ◆The data URI copy button gives you a string you can paste directly as a CSS background-image or an <img src> without hosting a file at all.
Frequently asked questions
Does this upload anything or make a network request?
No — the image is drawn and encoded entirely in your browser using the Canvas API. Nothing is sent to a server, and the download and "copy as data URI" options both work from the canvas already in your browser.
What image format does the download use?
PNG. It's lossless, universally supported, and appropriate for the flat-color, text-on-background placeholder images this tool generates — there's no photographic detail here that would benefit from JPEG's lossy compression.
Can I generate a very large placeholder image, like for a hero banner?
Yes, up to 4000×4000 pixels. Very large canvases take a moment longer to render and download, but there's no server-side size limit to worry about since everything happens locally.