First thing I see is most likely a mistake is

 last if $count = $total_images;
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That should be

 last if $count == $total_images;
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Now as for the real question. One perlish way to do it would be to query the database in whatever fashion you want and store the unique id's into an array. Since you already have a $count variable, it's easy to index when you need it.

I'm sure there's a much more efficient way to do this as this method would require you to query the database for each and every image. But it's an idea.

sub display_pictures
{
my $rowcnt = 5; 
my $colcnt = 5; 
my $total_images = $rowcnt * $colcnt; 
my $count = 0; 
my $tags_to_close = 0; # ensure all html tags are good
my $stop; 
my $counted_in_row = 0;
my @saved_results;


print qq(<table>);

my $data = qq(SELECT id, filename, title FROM pictures ORDER BY ID DES
+C);
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($data);
$sth->execute() or die $dbh->errstr;

my ($id, $filename, $title);
$sth->bind_columns(\$id, \$filename, \$title);

while ($sth->fetch)
{
   push(@saved_results, $id);
}
print @saved_results;

for( my $i=0;$i<$rowcnt;$i++) # for 1 .. 5 for rows
{ 
   print "<tr>"; 
   for(my $j=0;$j<$colcnt;$j++) # for 1 .. 5 for pictures
   { 
      $counted_in_row++;
      if ($count == $total_images)
      {
         my $tags_to_close;
         $tags_to_close = $colcnt - $j;
         $tags_to_close = 0 if $tags_to_close == $colcnt;
         
         for (1 .. $tags_to_close)
         {
            print qq(<td> . </td> );
         }    
         $stop = 1;
         last if $stop;
      }

      #Retrieve your image from server here and 
      #put the corresponding tags 

      print qq(<td> $saved_results[$count++] </td>\n); # query the dat
+abase via id here
      $count++; 
      last if $count == $total_images;
   } 
   print "</tr>\n"; 

   last if $stop;

}

print qq(</table>);
}
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