Tips for choosing your custom wallpaper

It's all well and good us telling you to brighten up your home with a new custom wallpaper, or add some depth to your living room with a feature design, but how on earth do you actually choose which image you want? We have a huge range of designs on our website. You're more than welcome to browse through these and choose any that you like, and most of our customers tend to find exactly what they're looking for.

But sometimes it's nice to have something a little more personal, something that means a lot to you or your family, something that is unique to your design. Here are a few tips on how to go about getting your own images for your new wallpaper.

Before we start: Copyright

Copyright laws are quite strict, and many people have found their design ambitions become unstuck because of image rights. Here's a handy tip to avoid any problems further down the line:

IF IT'S NOT YOURS, DON'T USE IT!

Simply saving an image from a Google search and using it as a custom wallpaper design is not allowed. Those images belong to someone else, and if they find out you have used an image without their permission, you can be fined. With the designs on our website, they are either original images made by our graphic design team, or we have asked permission from the owner of the images beforehand. Many of the images you find online are owned by nice people who don't mind you using their design at all. All you need to do is contact them (most websites will have a contact email on them somewhere) and if they say yes, you're free to go ahead with your wallpaper.

1. Photo editing software

You've searched through our site, you've found a great custom wallpaper, but it's not quite what you're looking for, or it just needs a few tweaks here and there. What do you do? You change it of course! There are plenty of photo editing programmes available on the market. Adobe Photoshop is most definitely the market leader, and if you have the money I would highly recommend it. It allows you to completely change an image, and there are helpful guides and tutorials all over the internet to teach you. If you're strapped for cash, however, there are a number of cheaper programmes available, such as Paintshop Pro, and some free ones you can download too, that allow you to edit and manipulate your image. Most of them are pretty simple to use once you get the hang of them, and this way you can take one of our designs, change it, shape it, and truly make it your own.

2. Stock Images

Now if words like 'cropping' and 'airbrushing' are completely alien to you, and contacting strangers for permission to use their designs sounds a little scary, then there are plenty of alternatives, one of which is using stock image websites like Shutterstock. These sites have huge collections of royalty-free images (that's images you can use for whatever design you want). Some sites, such as Shutterstock and iStock Photo, charge a small fee for their services. For this, however, you have access to a huge range of high-quality images that you can download, edit, and use wherever and whenever you like. There are some completely free image sites too, such as Morguefile and Flikr, but please double check these images. Some of them are free to use, but others have different terms and conditions that need to be met before you can download them.

This design could come up in a search for 'trees' or even 'winter' or 'snow'.

Also, when you're searching and you can't seem to find the image you want, try using slightly different search terms. If you're looking for a tree design, for example, and your search for 'trees' hasn't come up with a lot, try looking for 'forest' or 'woodland' to see what else comes up. The wider your search, the more likely you are to find that perfect design.

The best way to get the perfect design is to do it yourself.

3. Use a camera!

It sounds really obvious, but you'd be surprised at the amount of people who don't think of taking the photo themselves. It's the best way of getting the exact image you want. It saves you having to search the internet for hours for the design you want, or spending time and effort tweaking every last detail in Photoshop to get it just right. And quality isn't an issue either. Most cameras nowadays can take high resolution pictures with no fuss, lots of them are really easy to use, and there are some great bargains you can pick up.

Even phone cameras these days are highly sophisticated and can take brilliant photos. We ran a piece on the new Nokia Lumia a while back, looking at its 41 megapixel camera, and how easy it is to take a great photo on the move.

So there you have it. Don't sulk and argue about which shade of magnolia will look best with the beige carpet, or whether the grey of the sofa clashes with the mauve on the rug. Break away from the boring old design habits and choose something exciting.

You never know, you might like it!

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A How-to Guide on WallpaperInk

Firstly, I want to start with a thank you to all the fans of custom wallpaper online. We hit 1000 likes on Facebook recently, and our Twitter following is growing by the day, so I just want to say thank you to everyone. We really do appreciate your support.

Further to that, we've decided to do something for you.

We've had a few requests online about our wallpaper - how much is a certain design, how do I make a wallpaper out of my photos, that sort of thing - and we do try and respond to each and every one of you, but obviously with so many of you and not many of us we can't always get around to everyone.

And so we've come up with this. A one-stop FAQ guide to WallpaperInk! Hopefully this guide will answer most if not all of your questions, and help you through the ordering process, so we can make getting your brand new wallpaper as easy as possible.

WALLPAPERINK: A HOW-TO GUIDE

Step one: choosing your design

You can't make a custom wallpaper if you don't know what you want it to look like. Luckily we have a huge range of designs on our website that you can choose from. When you visit the homepage, scroll down slightly and you'll see a list of design categories running down the side, ranging from abstract & street art to music wallpapers. These will show you all the designs we have in that category. Whether you're looking for food and drink wallpapers for the kitchen, cityscapes for your living room, or a romantic sunset for the bedroom, we have a huge selection of designs for you to choose from. Just click the 'select image' button and you'll be taken to the next screen.

You can also upload your own design to the website. If you have an image on your camera or computer, maybe from a memorable holiday or a special occasion you want to remember forever, you can upload it straight to the website and carry on the process as normal. Just click the 'upload photo' button on the homepage, select the image from your files, and hey presto!

Hint: choose the right size! Your photo may look beautiful on your desktop, but remember you're putting it on your wall, which means we have to make it quite a lot bigger. If you upload a tiny image and we stretch it out to fit your wall...well, you could end up thinking you need glasses!

Most digital cameras nowadays take very good quality photos, so most of your uploads will be fine, but it's always good to double check. Try viewing the photo in full screen on your computer. If the detail is crisp and the quality is good, then you should be okay.

Make sure you upload a good quality photo. If it's too small it comes out looking stretched and blurry.

Once you have your measurements, crop the image to fit.

Step two: customise your image

Next we need to know your measurements...of your wall, that is! Once you've chosen your design you need to enter the dimensions of your design. Remember to put in the dimensions of only the area you want the wallpaper to go. There's no use measuring your entire room if all you want is a feature design above the fireplace. The form on the right hand side lets you choose between millimetres, centimetres, metres, or inches, to make things easier for you.

Once you're happy, click 'apply' and a box should appear on the image relative to your measurements. You can move it around and resize it until your happy with the design, then once you're done, click 'add to basket'.

Hint: When we print our wallpaper we do leave a slight overlap on each roll, but please make sure your measurements are correct. We cannot offer a refund if you put in the wrong measurements so take your time, double check, and make sure you have it spot on.

Step three: add to basket

You're done. It's really that simple. You can review your basket before you proceed to make sure everything is okay, then just click 'checkout'. If you've registered before, simply log in to confirm your order. If you're new to the site, hi! Welcome aboard! Just enter your name and email address and create a password for yourself to keep your order private, then proceed with the order as normal. All payments are made through PayPal so you can guarantee your details are safe and that you'll receive a full refund if you're not happy with your order.

Hint: make sure you read through the terms & conditions before you go ahead with your purchase, just to make sure everything is crystal clear.

Step four: enjoy!

That's it. You now have a brand new wallpaper design, courtesy of WallpaperInk. Looks good, doesn't it?

If you have any other issues while browsing the site, we have a built-in chat function you can use. Simply type your message in, and one of the team will be on the other end to help you out. If you need any more information about what we can do with your design, you can always give us a call, or even pop in for a chat and meet the team...

...just make sure you bring biscuits.

Hint: jammy dodgers always go down well!

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21st Century Wallpaper

We love custom wallpaper here at WallpaperInk, and we love finding new and innovative wallpaper ideas. Yesterday in our blog we showed you 5 crazy wallpaper ideas that are actually real. We found out that the lickable wallpaper from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory really exists, and that you can also get heat-sensitive wallpaper that changes and fades depending on the temperature in the room, not to mention the Pixelnote wallpaper for offices that's made entirely of different coloured post-it notes.

We found so many great ideas and got so worked up by some of the designs that we spent all day trying to come up with our own innovative wallpaper...until we were told off for not doing our work.

Well having calmed down after a hot chocolate and a good night's sleep, I started researching what to write for today's blog post. What I found made me squeal with joy.

You know how excited we got about the designs we mentioned yesterday? Well, what if I told you there's more?

More? MORE! How can there be more? How many more things can you do with wallpaper?

I'm glad you asked...

1. Strømmer: Streams and Flows

In Sandnes in Norway, anyone walking through the pedestrian tunnel under the railway at night has to do so with no street lamps or security lights.

Don't worry, though. The walls light up instead.

That's right, the wall panels actually light up as people walk past.

Strømmer, which translates to 'streams and flows' in English, was made as an art installation in Sandnes as part of a European City of Culture bid in 2008, and is made up of a series of wall panels that light up when a shadow is cast on them.

The "light on demand" system has a series of LEDs imbedded into the wall panels that react to movement and shadow, much like security lights. When they detect someone walking past the wall lights up in the same shape that a shadow would cast, then once they're gone the lights turn off. You can cast your shadow onto the wall and watch it light up. Not only is the wall incredibly energy efficient, it's also a great safety feature that keeps the underpass lit when it needs to be. It reacts instantly to pedestrians walking past, keeping the tunnel lit for them, and then turns off when it's not needed. It's also a lot of fun to play with as this video shows!

2. Phosphowall and the Ecco Luce project

I've always thought great way to use your walls to light your way would be some sort of glow in the dark wallpaper.

Glow in the dark wallpaper? That's impossible!

Try telling that to Ich & Kar, the French designers behind Phosphowall. This wallpaper uses a special phosphorescent ink in its designs which looks perfectly normal in the light, but glows in the dark. This allows for some amazingly creative designs, much like the 'cats eyes' design above, and it also means you can walk around at night without having to trip over your shoes, stub your toe on the door frame, and spend ten minutes fumbling for the light switch!

Deisgner Jonas Samson had a similar idea, only using LEDs instead of glow in the dark ink, which developed into the 'Ecco Luce' project. He created light-emitting wallpaper that looks like normal wallpaper during the day. Switch off the light, however, and the light-sensitive LEDs light up. Some of his designs are simply beautiful, and there's even scope for active designs that move as you do. Take a look at the installation at the Twente University in the Netherlands here.

3. Living wallpaper

In our last post I mentioned Shi Yuan's heat-sensitive wallpaper designs that appear and fade depending on the temperature of the room, and I said that it was probably as close to “living” wallpaper as you can get.

Readers, I have never been so wrong.

This living wall in the Anthropologie Store in Regent Street spans three floors and is one of hundreds of living wallpaper designs. It features an array of real plants and grasses and is held by a soil backing. Rainwater collected from the roof is trickled down through the backing, letting the plants thrive. In turn they help keep the ambient temperature of the building cooler and keep the air quality cleaner, not to mention the fact that the wall is alive!

4. Scratch wallpaper

I don't know about you, but I've always loved scratching lottery tickets, and I'm more than confident I'm not alone in saying that. Well what if your wallpaper pattern was made entirely of the same stuff? London-based designer Linda Florence has done just that. Linda created a series of intricate floral wallpaper designs, which were then coated in a thin layer of silver foil. The foil then has to be scratched away with a coin or some other tool in order to reveal the pattern underneath. Created for the London Printworks gallery in 2006, this innovative design will give you hours of fun!

5. Wallpaper TV

Okay, so this isn't strictly wallpaper as such, but it is most definitely worth mentioning. UK electronics manufacturer NDS have been working on a new project called Surfaces, which is looking into the next generation of television displays: transparent screens.

Transparent HDTVs are currently available, but the technology is still in its infancy at the moment and they are incredibly expensive. However this development could revolutionise the way we watch television. Tiled panels will allow for a wall-to-wall display, which can either be used as a cinema-style screen, or as more of a 'desktop' allowing you to browse sites and watch video simultaneously. Then when you're done, you can turn off the screens to be left with a clear pane of glass, so the wallpaper behind will show through.

Very exciting...but it all sounds a bit Minority Report to me!