Create Blurred Image Placeholder (LQIP)

Low-Quality Image Placeholders (LQIP) are tiny, heavily blurred versions of images used as placeholders while the full image loads. They give users a visual preview of the incoming image, dramatically reducing perceived loading time and eliminating layout shift. Medium, Facebook, and Google Images all use this technique.

To create an LQIP: apply heavy blur (radius 15–20) and then compress the output aggressively to a very small file. The result is a small, blurry version of your image that can be embedded as a base64 data URL inline in your HTML — showing instantly while the full image loads lazily.

This tool handles the blur step. After downloading the blurred output, use the Image Compressor tool (also free, also 100% client-side) to reduce the file size to a few kilobytes for the final LQIP.