Photography & Design APIs
Free photography and design APIs: stock photo libraries, placeholder images, museum and art collections, icons, colour palettes and image manipulation services.
22 tested APIs with full docs · 22 need no key · 63 more listed
Tested, with full documentation
We called each of these before publishing. Every page carries a working curl command, the real JSON response it returned, parameters and common errors.
Art Institute of Chicago
Free Art Institute of Chicago API with no key: 130,000+ artworks with IIIF images, colour data, artist info and rich metadata. Well documented. Tested example.
Verified 19 Aug 2026
Cleveland Museum of Art
Free Cleveland Museum of Art API with no key: 60,000+ artworks with open-access images, provenance, exhibition history and full metadata. Tested curl example.
Verified 19 Aug 2026
ColorMagic
Free colour palette API with no key: search thousands of named palettes by keyword and get five hex codes, descriptive tags and a like count. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
COLOURlovers
Free COLOURlovers API with no key: community-voted colour palettes, individual colours and patterns with hex values, view counts and popularity ranks. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
DiceBear Avatars
Free avatar generator API with no key: deterministic SVG or PNG avatars from any seed, in 30+ styles with customisable colours. Tested curl example.
Verified 19 Aug 2026
DummyImage
Free placeholder image API with no key: any size, custom background and text colours, custom caption, PNG, GIF or JPG — all from the URL. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Icon Horse
Free favicon API with no key: fetches the highest-quality icon for any domain and always returns something, generating a letter-mark fallback when a site has none. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Iconify
Free Iconify API with no key: fetch any icon from 200,000+ across 150 open-source sets as SVG, sized and recoloured from the URL. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Icons8 Image URLs
Free icon delivery by URL with no key: choose a style, size and icon name in the path and get a rendered PNG or SVG straight back. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
LoremFlickr
Free placeholder photo service with no key: put dimensions and a keyword in the URL and get a matching real photograph from Flickr. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Free Metropolitan Museum of Art API with no key: 470,000+ artworks with high-resolution public-domain images, artist data and full object metadata. Tested.
Verified 19 Aug 2026
Openverse
Free Openverse API: search 800M+ openly licensed images and audio from Flickr, Wikimedia and more, with licence and attribution data. WordPress-run. Tested.
Verified 20 Aug 2026
PHP-Noise
Free noise background API with no key: generate subtle tiling noise texture PNGs in any colour with adjustable grain and blur, straight from a URL. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Placehold.co
Free placeholder image API with no key: generate images at any size with custom colours, text and format straight from a URL. No JSON needed. Tested example.
Verified 19 Aug 2026
PlaceKeanu
Free novelty placeholder service with no key: dimensions in the path return a Keanu Reeves placeholder, with greyscale and young-Keanu variants. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Readme Typing SVG
Free animated SVG API with no key: generate a typing-and-deleting text animation from URL parameters, embeddable anywhere an image works. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
RoboHash
Free RoboHash API with no key: unique robot, monster, cat or human avatars generated deterministically from any text. Just a URL, no JSON. Tested example.
Verified 19 Aug 2026
SVGL
Free logo API with no key: hundreds of company and product logos as SVG, categorised, with separate wordmark variants and links to official brand kits. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Thum.io
Free website screenshot API with no key: put a page URL in the path and get a rendered PNG back, with width, viewport and full-page options. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
UI Avatars
Free initials avatar API with no key: generate clean letter avatars from any name, with custom colours, size, shape and font weight. URL-based. Tested.
Verified 20 Aug 2026
wsrv.nl (Images.weserv)
Free image proxy and resizing API with no key: fetch any public image through a URL, resize, crop, convert format and serve it from a CDN. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
xColors
Free colour API with no key: generate random colours returned simultaneously as hex, RGB and HSL, or convert between the three formats. Tested example included.
Verified 21 Aug 2026
Choosing between these Photography & Design APIs
Photography APIs split between stock libraries you can search programmatically and generative or placeholder services that produce images on demand. Museum and gallery APIs are a quieter third group with genuinely open, public-domain collections.
Licensing is the thing to check. 'Free API' and 'free to use the images commercially' are different claims, and most stock providers require visible attribution and a link back even on their free tier.
More Photography & Design APIs in the directory
63 further APIs in this category, of which 12 need no API key. These are catalogued from the public-API lists and link straight to each provider's own documentation — we have not tested them yet, so treat the auth and CORS flags as the upstream list's claim rather than ours. They are promoted to a full tested page as we work through them.
| API | What it does | Auth |
|---|---|---|
| Améthyste | Generate images for Discord users | Key |
| APITemplate.io | Dynamically generate images and PDFs from templates with a simple API | KeyCORS |
| Art Search | Search and discover art with semantic AI search | KeyCORS |
| Bruzu | Image generation with query string | KeyCORS |
| Change Image Background API | This API helps you change the background of any image | KeyCORS |
| CheetahO | Photo optimization and resize | Key |
| Colormind | Color scheme generator | None |
| Convert Images to PDF API | Convert any image to a PDF without losing quality with one API call | KeyCORS |
| Cooper Hewitt | Smithsonian Design Museum | Key |
| Dagpi | Image manipulation and processing | Key |
| DiceBear | Free avatar generation library with multiple styles | NoneCORS |
| Dribbble | Discover the world’s top designers & creatives | OAuth |
| Duply | Generate, Edit, Scale and Manage Images and Videos Smarter & Faster | KeyCORS |
| Duply | Generate, Edit, Scale and Manage Images and Videos Smarter & Faster | KeyCORS |
| DynaPictures | Generate Hundreds of Personalized Images in Minutes | KeyCORS |
| EmojiHub | Get emojis by categories and groups | NoneCORS |
| Europeana | European Museum and Galleries content | Key |
| Flickr | Flickr Services | OAuth |
| Generate Image Thumbnails API | Generate and optimise Image Thumbnails from any image with this API and save hours of image editing | KeyCORS |
| GetGenAI (Packaging Compliance Review) | Compliance review API for product labels and marketing assets — automated checks against regulations, retailer specs, and brand guidelines, always up to date | Key |
| Getty Images | Build applications using the world's most powerful imagery | OAuth |
| Gfycat | Jiffier GIFs | OAuth |
| Giphy | Get all your gifs | Key |
| Google Photos | Integrate Google Photos with your apps or devices | OAuth |
| Harvard Art Museums | Art | Key |
| Iconfinder | Icons | Key |
| Icons8 | Icons (find "search icon" hyperlink in page) | None |
| Image Upload | Image Optimization | Key |
| Imgur | Images | OAuth |
| Imsea | Free image search | None |
| Logotypes | Logotypes of the world in multiples format | NoneCORS |
| Lordicon | Icons with predone Animations | NoneCORS |
| Lorem Picsum | Images from Unsplash | None |
| Noun Project | Icons | OAuth |
| ObjectCut | Image Background removal | KeyCORS |
| Pexafy | Semantic image search across 9+ free stock photo sources (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay & more), one unified JSON schema, plain-language and reverse image search | KeyCORS |
| Pexels | Free Stock Photos and Videos | KeyCORS |
| PhotoRoom | Remove background from images | Key |
| Picsart | Image & video editing, generative AI, 100+ AI models via unified API | KeyCORS |
| Pika | Image Generation API | KeyCORS |
| Pixabay | Photography | Key |
| Pixel Encounter | SVG Icon Generator | None |
| PixelVault | Agent-first image hosting with instant CDN URLs | Key |
| Poof | Image & video background removal API | KeyCORS |
| Remove Background from Images API | This API helps you remove background from any image | KeyCORS |
| Remove.bg | Image Background removal | Key |
| ReSmush.it | Photo optimization | None |
| Rijksmuseum | RijksMuseum Data | Key |
| Screenshotlayer | URL to screenshot | None |
| ShotOG | Open-source OG image generation with 8 templates, custom fonts, and batch generation | KeyCORS |
| shutterstock | Stock Photos and Videos | OAuth |
| Sirv | Image management solutions like optimization, manipulation, hosting | Key |
| Smart Adaptive Ultra-Fast Image Compressor & Converter | Compress, convert, and optimize images automatically with adaptive AI tuning | KeyCORS |
| Templated | Generate images and PDFs with a simple API. Design in a Canva-like editor and render images with code | KeyCORS |
| Text-till-Kladdesign | AI fashion design generator — transform Swedish text into clothing concepts | KeyCORS |
| The Color | Swiss army knife for color | None |
| Thisispaper | Curated architecture, design, photography and art projects with visual-similarity and taste metadata | KeyCORS |
| Tinify.dev | Image compression, resize and crop API with usage metadata | Key |
| Unsplash | Photography | OAuth |
| UpRes | AI image upscaling to 8K with 18 models (Real-ESRGAN, SeedVR2, AuraSR) | KeyCORS |
| Wallhaven | Wallpapers | Key |
| Webdam | Images | OAuth |
| Word Cloud | Easily create word clouds | Key |
Turn API responses into results
Once the request works you still have to do something with what comes back. These run in your browser, free, with nothing uploaded.
JSON Formatter
Paste a raw response and read it indented, folded and colour-coded.
JSON Path Finder
Click any value to get the path that reaches it in your own code.
JSON to TypeScript
Turn a captured response into typed interfaces before you write the fetch.
CSV to JSON Converter
Turn a spreadsheet into the request body a POST endpoint expects.
Unix Timestamp Converter
Decode the epoch fields almost every API returns.
JWT Decoder
Read the claims and expiry inside a bearer token without pasting it anywhere.
PDF Table to CSV
Pull a table out of a PDF so it can be posted to an API as data.
Event Schema Generator
Publish what an API returns as structured data search engines can read.