Tile mural - starting the grout lines
I did a little prep work and sampling before forging ahead with the tile mural. First, I photographed my original hummingbird and flower drawing and then manipulated it in PhotoShop to lighten and sharpen since some color loss and blurring occurs in printing.
There are a few ways I figured I could make the tiles. I could cut out individual tiles and paste them to a board with "grout lines" in between. The problem I foresaw with this method was matching the precise lines of the drawing and getting the grout lines even. Also, I would have to cut my tiles slightly smaller since the overall dimensions of the drawing were exact to the shower stall size I wanted.
I opted for an easier and just as effective method: making gridlines in PhotoShop. I made my gridlines the lightest of greys, just to make them fall into the background slightly. Plus, even white tile grout isn't bright white in real life. I also made sure there was a gridline in the very center where the mural would break at the corner of the shower.
Both of these test prints have 14 half-inch tiles across but the one on the left has grout lines 10 pixels wide and the one on the right has 5 pixel-width grout lines.
The 5-pixel lines seem better in print (in person anyway), but I will do a trial run of the next step using both samples to see which works better in the end. I don't want to go through the whole process just to have the lines disappear for being too thin.
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