Unsplash photos in website builder pages: a curated set, real alt text, your own instead
Pages from Anticode's design engine can show photos from a small, curated Unsplash library: each picture checked by eye for its subject and given written alt text. They're matched to your kind of business, loaded straight from images.unsplash.com at the right size for each screen, and allowed by the page's security policy. When you have photos of your own, there are routes for those too, depending on the kind of build.
A library, not a search box
Anticode doesn't search Unsplash at random for each build. It carries a fixed set of photos grouped by subject: barbers, tattoo studios, coffee, ceramics, homeware, yoga, fitness, clinics, restaurants, bakeries, fashion, weddings and photography, art, software, events and outdoor stays. The set is picked from words in your request, project name and subject, so a request for a sourdough bakery gets loaves and pastries, and a physiotherapy clinic gets a treatment room.
Two choices in that library are deliberate. Every photo carries alt text written for what's actually in the frame ("Rustic sourdough loaves dusted with flour", not "bakery image"), so the page passes its own alt-text checks and screen-reader users hear something useful. And team portraits are never stock faces: a smiling stranger next to a made-up name would misrepresent a real business's staff, so team sections show square tiles with each person's initials.
If nothing in your request matches a set, the page goes without stock photography, and item cards use colour-led artwork where a photo would sit. A wrong photo is worse than none.
How the photos are served
Images load directly from images.unsplash.com. Each one is requested at the size it's shown, with three widths in a srcset so a phone downloads a smaller file than a desktop, auto=format so supporting browsers get a modern format, and a quality setting tuned for photos. The hero image loads first with high priority; everything below it loads lazily as the visitor scrolls. When a layout shows the same photo twice, the second copy is cropped tighter around a different focal point, so a grid never repeats the identical frame.
Loading from Unsplash's servers rather than copying the files is also how Unsplash asks to be used: its hotlinking guideline requires API users to use its image URLs, with sizing done through URL parameters.
The licence
The Unsplash License allows free use, commercial use included, without asking permission, and attribution isn't required, though photographers appreciate it. What it doesn't allow is selling the photos unaltered or compiling them into a competing image service. For a small business website showing a photo of coffee beans above its opening hours, that's comfortably inside the terms. It does mean other sites may use the same picture, which is the main reason to replace stock with your own once you can.
Security policy and privacy
The page's built-in Content-Security-Policy meta tag lists https://images.unsplash.com under img-src, next to the site itself and inline data: images (the published site's own policy allows images from any https address, for CMS image fields), so the photos load while scripts and frames stay blocked. Because each photo is fetched from Unsplash, the visitor's browser connects to Unsplash, and the Privacy Policy Anticode writes for each site detects that and says so in plain words.
Using your own photos instead
Your own pictures beat any library: your actual shopfront, dishes or workshop. How you get them onto a page depends on the kind of build. Photos you upload with a request (JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, up to 5 MB each and eight per build, once your email is confirmed) are checked by their first bytes, stored under your account and used by app builds, the ones the model writes: it looks at them and places them where they fit. Design-engine pages don't use uploads. On those, a CMS collection can hold an image field with the https address of a photo you host, which shows in that collection's section and on its collection pages; the hero, gallery, About and Team pictures stay library photos or initials tiles. The exported code is the other route: swap the image addresses there. See photo and video uploads for the details, and using your own photos in an AI website for how to prepare them.
Limits
- No photo picker. You can't browse Unsplash from Anticode and choose a specific picture; the set comes from the subject.
- Limited subjects. Businesses outside the sets get artwork rather than photos.
- Not exclusive. Other websites can use the same Unsplash photos.
- Apps don't use the library. Model-written apps can't load outside images at all; they draw their visuals in code or use photos you upload.
- Uploaded files are public by address, like any image on a website, so only upload what you'd publish.
For the wider question of where to find pictures you're allowed to use, read finding free images legally, and for the text that goes with them, writing alt text.
Questions people ask
Do I have to credit the photographer?
The Unsplash License doesn't require it. You can add a credit in your page's text if you'd like to.
Why does my team section show initials, not photos?
Anticode never puts stock faces next to staff names, because that would misrepresent who works there. On design-engine pages the Team section always uses initials tiles; for real portraits, use an app build or edit the exported code.
Will the photos break if Unsplash removes one?
They load from Unsplash's servers, so they depend on Unsplash keeping them online. Your own uploaded photos are stored with your account instead.
Do the photos come with the HTML export?
The exported page still points at images.unsplash.com, so the photos keep loading wherever you host it.
Sources
- Unsplash License, checked
- Unsplash Help: Guideline on hotlinking images, checked