---
title: "OpenRouter Launches Image Generation API: A Code-First Tutorial"
source: "OpenRouter：Announcements（RSS）"
source_tier: "t1"
url: "https://openrouter.ai/blog/tutorials/image-generation/"
permalink: "https://feed.astralor.com/items/itm_3fc2ebf19def24a43741eaae"
published: "2026-08-17T00:00:00.000Z"
score: 68
channel: "tech"
tags: ["Image API","JavaScript","OpenRouter","Python","Image Generation"]
---

# OpenRouter Launches Image Generation API: A Code-First Tutorial

## AI commentary

> If you're a developer working on AI integrations, this tutorial is worth a quick look. OpenRouter turns image generation into a unified API, so you don't need to integrate separately with multiple vendors. That said, the tutorial is fairly basic; if you're already familiar with OpenAI's Images API, you'll pick it up quickly.

## At a glance

OpenRouter released a comprehensive tutorial for its dedicated Image API, enabling developers to generate images by sending a prompt to POST /api/v1/images, decoding the base64 response, saving it locally, and optionally passing a reference image for variations. Runnable Python and JavaScript examples are included, simplifying integration with multiple image generation models.

## Key points

- Generate images via OpenRouter's dedicated Image API at POST /api/v1/images
- Response is base64-encoded; decode and save locally
- Pass a reference image for variations
- Runnable Python and JavaScript examples included

## Full text

Generate images through OpenRouter's dedicated Image API: send a prompt to POST /api/v1/images, decode the base64 response, save it locally, and pass a reference image for variations. Runnable Python and JavaScript included.

---

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