diff --git a/screens/picture.py b/screens/picture.py
index 17826a4..a530884 100644
--- a/screens/picture.py
+++ b/screens/picture.py
@@ -1,13 +1,17 @@
-"""Shows a picture -- either uploaded through the web UI or fetched from a
-URL on a timer. Same contrast-boost/grayscale treatment as the Navidrome
-cover art, since the same e-ink legibility concerns apply.
+"""Shows a picture -- either uploaded through the web UI or downloaded from a
+URL. Either way it ends up as a local file in UPLOAD_DIR and check() just
+reads that file; a URL is downloaded once, at settings-save time (in
+web/app.py), not re-fetched on every poll -- this screen has no partial
+refresh any more than the rest of the panel does, so re-fetching on a timer
+would risk a pointless flash every poll_interval if the remote image ever
+came back byte-different despite looking the same. Same contrast-boost/
+grayscale treatment as the Navidrome cover art, since the same e-ink
+legibility concerns apply.
 """
 
 import logging
-from io import BytesIO
 from pathlib import Path
 
-import requests
 from PIL import Image, ImageDraw, ImageEnhance
 
 from screens.base import Screen
@@ -15,18 +19,17 @@ from screens.render_utils import fit_contain, fit_cover, load_font, text_width
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
-HTTP_TIMEOUT = 15
 UPLOAD_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent / "web" / "static" / "uploads"
 
 
 class PictureScreen(Screen):
     id = "picture"
     display_name = "Picture"
-    poll_interval = 1800  # 30 minutes -- only matters for url mode
+    poll_interval = 1800  # just a cheap local file re-read, doesn't need to be frequent
 
     def default_settings(self) -> dict:
         return {
-            "mode": "url",  # "url" or "upload"
+            "mode": "url",  # "url" or "upload" -- purely informational (which source the current cached file came from), check() treats both the same
             "image_url": "",
             "uploaded_filename": "",
             "fit": "cover",  # "cover" or "contain"
@@ -35,30 +38,17 @@ class PictureScreen(Screen):
         }
 
     def check(self, settings: dict):
-        mode = settings.get("mode", "url")
-        if mode == "upload":
-            filename = settings.get("uploaded_filename")
-            if not filename:
-                return None
-            path = UPLOAD_DIR / filename
-            if not path.exists():
-                logger.warning("Uploaded picture %s is missing", path)
-                return None
-            try:
-                return Image.open(path).convert("RGB")
-            except OSError as exc:
-                logger.warning("Could not open uploaded picture %s: %s", path, exc)
-                return None
-
-        url = (settings.get("image_url") or "").strip()
-        if not url:
+        filename = settings.get("uploaded_filename")
+        if not filename:
+            return None
+        path = UPLOAD_DIR / filename
+        if not path.exists():
+            logger.warning("Picture %s is missing", path)
             return None
         try:
-            response = requests.get(url, timeout=HTTP_TIMEOUT)
-            response.raise_for_status()
-            return Image.open(BytesIO(response.content)).convert("RGB")
-        except (requests.exceptions.RequestException, OSError) as exc:
-            logger.warning("Could not load picture from %s: %s", url, exc)
+            return Image.open(path).convert("RGB")
+        except OSError as exc:
+            logger.warning("Could not open picture %s: %s", path, exc)
             return None
 
     def render(self, state, settings: dict, resolution: tuple[int, int]) -> Image.Image:
diff --git a/web/app.py b/web/app.py
index e8fdf42..6fe0f83 100644
--- a/web/app.py
+++ b/web/app.py
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 """Flask app: status/preview page + one settings form per screen + rotation settings."""
 
+from io import BytesIO
+
 import requests
 from flask import Flask, redirect, render_template, request, url_for
 from PIL import Image
@@ -8,6 +10,11 @@ from werkzeug.utils import secure_filename
 from screens.picture import UPLOAD_DIR
 
 ALLOWED_IMAGE_EXTENSIONS = {"png", "jpg", "jpeg", "gif", "bmp", "webp"}
+PIL_FORMAT_TO_EXT = {"JPEG": "jpg", "PNG": "png", "GIF": "gif", "BMP": "bmp", "WEBP": "webp"}
+PICTURE_URL_TIMEOUT = 15
+PICTURE_URL_HEADERS = {
+    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/125.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
+}
 
 
 def create_app(config, screens: dict, scheduler) -> Flask:
@@ -257,9 +264,48 @@ def create_app(config, screens: dict, scheduler) -> Flask:
                         scheduler.invalidate_screen("picture")
                         return redirect(url_for("settings_picture", saved=1))
             elif url:
-                config.update_screen_settings("picture", {"mode": "url", "image_url": url, **common_updates})
-                scheduler.invalidate_screen("picture")
-                return redirect(url_for("settings_picture", saved=1))
+                # Downloaded once, here, rather than re-fetched by the
+                # screen's own check() on every poll -- otherwise a remote
+                # image that comes back even slightly byte-different between
+                # polls (common with dynamically-generated images) would
+                # force a real e-ink flash every poll_interval for no
+                # visible reason.
+                try:
+                    # Some image hosts (Wikimedia confirmed live -- 403s with
+                    # "set a user-agent") reject the default requests/python
+                    # User-Agent as bot traffic.
+                    response = requests.get(url, timeout=PICTURE_URL_TIMEOUT, headers=PICTURE_URL_HEADERS)
+                    response.raise_for_status()
+                    content = response.content
+                    fmt = Image.open(BytesIO(content)).format
+                except (requests.exceptions.RequestException, OSError):
+                    fmt = None
+                ext = PIL_FORMAT_TO_EXT.get(fmt or "")
+                if not ext:
+                    error = "Could not download a valid image from that URL -- try a different link, or upload a file instead."
+                else:
+                    UPLOAD_DIR.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+                    # Only one picture is ever active -- clear any previous
+                    # upload/download first so a different extension doesn't
+                    # leave an orphaned file behind.
+                    for old in UPLOAD_DIR.glob("current.*"):
+                        old.unlink()
+                    dest = UPLOAD_DIR / f"current.{ext}"
+                    dest.write_bytes(content)
+                    try:
+                        Image.open(dest).verify()
+                    except Exception:
+                        dest.unlink(missing_ok=True)
+                        error = "That URL doesn't look like a valid image."
+                    else:
+                        config.update_screen_settings("picture", {
+                            "mode": "url",
+                            "image_url": url,
+                            "uploaded_filename": dest.name,
+                            **common_updates,
+                        })
+                        scheduler.invalidate_screen("picture")
+                        return redirect(url_for("settings_picture", saved=1))
             else:
                 # Neither a new upload nor a URL change -- just update fit/boost/grayscale.
                 config.update_screen_settings("picture", common_updates)
diff --git a/web/templates/settings_picture.html b/web/templates/settings_picture.html
index d4db8cb..0187efc 100644
--- a/web/templates/settings_picture.html
+++ b/web/templates/settings_picture.html
@@ -6,17 +6,15 @@
 <div class="toast error">{{ error }}</div>
 {% endif %}
 
-{% if settings.mode == "upload" and settings.uploaded_filename %}
+{% if settings.uploaded_filename %}
 <div class="card">
   <div class="section-label">Current picture</div>
   <div class="preview-wrap">
     <img class="preview" src="{{ url_for('static', filename='uploads/' + settings.uploaded_filename) }}" alt="current picture">
   </div>
-</div>
-{% elif settings.mode == "url" and settings.image_url %}
-<div class="card">
-  <div class="section-label">Current picture</div>
-  <p class="hint">Fetched from a URL: {{ settings.image_url }}</p>
+  {% if settings.mode == "url" and settings.image_url %}
+  <p class="hint">Downloaded from: {{ settings.image_url }}</p>
+  {% endif %}
 </div>
 {% endif %}
 
@@ -35,7 +33,7 @@
     <div class="field">
       <label for="image_url">Image URL</label>
       <input type="text" id="image_url" name="image_url" placeholder="https://example.com/photo.jpg">
-      <p class="hint">Re-fetched every 30 minutes. Leave both this and the upload above alone to just change the options below.</p>
+      <p class="hint">Downloaded once and cached -- won't keep re-fetching, so this can't cause the panel to flash on its own. Enter a new URL any time to replace it. Leave both this and the upload above alone to just change the options below.</p>
     </div>
   </div>