This useful guide gives you the tools to choose the perfect image for your printed acrylic splashback & decorative wall panels.

Innovative Splashbacks® Printed acrylic allows you to add personality and individual style to your kitchen, bathroom, laundry and virtually any wall in your home or business.

Consideration is required when sourcing a high quality image. This ensures the end result is a stunning feature splashback and wall panel that you will enjoy for many years.

A number of our clients who contact us are in the early stages of design and unsure of what image they would like as their print. With a wonderful ever increasing selection of images available this caters for most requirements as well as being a great place to start when unsure of the image you want.

With this said however, there are some really important points to consider when choosing images.

Take a look at the room around you and take inspiration from the colours and what the room is used for to help your ideas for the splashback.

1) Theme

Whether you want a kitchen splashback, shower splashback, bathroom feature wall or outdoor entertaining area feature wall, you will need to decide on the image theme/style.

Do you want a night city skyline, beach scene, rainforest/waterfall scene, something in black and white or some funky graphics and patterns with vibrant colours for your wall panels?

You may have a couple of different themes/styles in mind and a search through a reputable image library would assist in deciding on the look you want for your splashback.

If you intend to have a photograph for your splash back, think about whether or not you want a photo taken specifically for your design or if you can use a generic image.

Using your own photograph gives you a lot more opportunity to play around with how the image will look and it may also be easier to print to the splashback size required.

When choosing an image or design for a splash back it is important to remember the room around it.

If you have a calm blue ocean bathroom it wouldn't make sense to have a heavy red splash back for your shower walls. Following the colour palette and overall style of your room when choosing a design for a splashback is very important and will be a major factor in how the room looks in the end.

The size of your image or design is something else to take into consideration. A printed splashback is always going to be a major feature to any room. Therefore deciding on whether you want something bold and heavy or something more dainty and divine is important.

Also consider whether you want the design to take up the whole wall or just a smaller section, or if you want to have a large, thick design or something thinner and lighter to compliment the overall style.

Make sure that you have done some research and have an idea of how you want your space to look, If you want your room to look a certain way make sure that you communicate that with the designer and anyone involved in helping you create your space, while still listening and taking advise from the professionals, don’t lose sight of your vision and how you want your splashback to look.

2) Image Resolution & Where to Find An Image

Image resolution is the quality deal breaker! High resolution images and graphics cannot be underestimated and that’s the difference between ordinary and the quality Innovative Splashbacks® are renown for.

Sourcing high resolution images/graphics/photographs for your printed splashback from a reputable online image library or a professional photographer is the quickest and easiest way to ensure image colours and details are reproduced clearly in the printing process.

Lower quality (lower resolution) images may look fine on screen or even when printed to A3 size, but when enlarged to your required splashback size, sometimes up to 3 meters in length, they may be prone to issues such as pixilation and a blurry appearance. This is not the look you want in your finished high gloss printed splashbacks

Photos from mobile phones and Google images are not high resolution enough to print to splashback and wall panel sizes – forget even contemplating these! Seriously, please don't entertain us by asking if they will be ok!

Below are a few of the online image libraries we recommend and use on a regular basis that have thousands of images including graphics and patterns to choose from. You can search these sites by theme.

The following is not the complete list of image libraries we use, not by a long shot! Contact us directly if you need to view more image sites.

You can also purchase images from professional landscape photographers.

The digital files created by professional photography equipment will produce a sharp and high resolution image suitable for our printing process.

There are a number of landscape photographers that sell their image printing rights.

If you are purchasing an image from an online image library, you must select the highest available resolution and file size available. Low resolution images offer less detail and can appear blurry and pixelated.

There are 2 ways to determine the difference between a high resolution and low resolution image;

By file size and pixel dimension.

To determine image resolution by file size, check the file size details on your computer. JPEG images above 1500KB are an indication of high resolution images. Low resolution images are a few hundred KB.

Pixel dimension relates to the length and width of an image. The more the pixels the bigger the image.

You of course do not need to necessarily know all this. If you are working with Innovative Splashbacks® for your printed splashback masterpiece,, BEFORE purchasing your chosen digital image or if contemplating using your own image, we can advise if the image quality will be sufficient for project.

3) Unique Image, Graphic and Patterns

Do you want a totally unique image, graphic or pattern?

Then our graphic designer and photographer can assist in creating a truly unique masterpiece for your splashback and wall panels.

Or you may have seen an image, graphic or pattern you like and would like something converted to black and white or highlighted or even changed in some way. Again our talented graphic designer can do pretty much anything you wish for your perfect splashback image.

This is a question we get a lot: “Can I use my own image for my kitchen/bathroom/laundry splashback?

In short, YES, but as outlined in the previous section the quality of the actual image and the splashback size required will ultimately determine if this is a definite YES.

4) Image Orientation

To ensure there is no loss of visual impact of your image, you must select an image with a similar height and width ratio to that of your splashback and wall panel size.

Using an image of the wrong orientation (see example below) will ultimately mean the picture depth is reduced and the resolution is cut down.

For example if you want a kitchen or laundry printed splashback and have seen an image online you like, you will need to ensure its orientation is landscape. Alternatively if you want a shower splashback you will need to choose an image in the portrait orientation.

5) File Submission

You have a couple of options here. Once you have chosen your desired digital image you can purchase the digital image/pattern and email or send it to us, or we can purchase the image for you.

If you have purchased your digital image file you may find that the image file is too large to email to us, you can send it to us on a USB drive or via a file sharing service.

Online file sharing services you can use include www.hightail.com and www.digitalpigeon.com. If you choose to use a file sharing service to send through your digital image please let us know so we can keep an eye out for it.

Printed Innovative Splashbacks® are the affordable way to add that touch of class to your home and business.

Contact us to discuss your project requirements on P: 0418 548 743.

e: help@innovativesplashbacks.com.au

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Find out why Innovative Splashbacks are Australia's Favourite Splashbacks visit:
www.innovativesplashbacks.com.au