For this project, I picked an area up my upstairs office that was nestled between some built in shelves and cabinets on one wall.  It measured 48 inches wide by 33 inchess tall.

Next I went to my favorite free high resolution desktop wallpaper sites, and looked for something that I wanted to see on my wall.  I wanted to find something that included obvious perspective cues to give the illusion of depth, and seemed to have a light source in the middle of the picture where my lamp was going to be shining from.  I picked this one without over-thinking it too much for the purposes of the experiment.  Many others would have worked, and been much more interesting.  I downloaded it at the highest resolution offered (2,560 x 1,600 pixels).

In order to know how my photo would look, I divided the number of pixels I had wide by inches wide (2,560 pixels/48 inches) = 53 DPI (dots per inch).  For a section of wall that people will be at least 1-3 feet away from, 50 DPI is fine.  100 DPI is good if people will get less than a foot away at eye level to your wall.  This requires less DPI than other printing applications in order  to look good from the distance a viewer sees it.

Next I went to an online printing place to have it printed large.  I went to BargainBanners.com, (my employer), here.   My wallpaper printout arrived well within a week.

When it arrived, I thumb-tacked it to the wall under where the trim was attached.

Since there is a lamp that goes on that part of the shelf, I set it up without its shade to preview how the room’s real lighting would work with the image.  Looks like the bulb is practically part of the sky.  Exactly the effect I was hoping for.

Wood trim, lampshade, and various office junk put back into place.  I’m pretty happy with how it turned out for a first try.  What does everyone else think?  I have more complicated wood paneling elsewhere in the house.  I was thinking of trying something more complex, with a more meaningful image, in the future.

Regarding the copyright of the image, that part is sticky.  I believe it would be a better practice to surf on over to iStockPhoto.com to buy the proper rights to an image they have for $5-$12.  Better yet, if you have a camera with a lot of megapixels, you can print directly from your photographs, which you already own.  My employer sees a lot of this for beautiful engagement photos on huge display at the wedding reception.