Wall tiles: low quality print?

[Jim Walsh]

I was after some dark/ black marble effect tiles for the bathroom recently and went round to several local, supposedly high quality outlets in Sheffield. Looking at tiles around the £10-£20 per sq m mark, almost all seem to have shockingly low quality printing for the marble effect. Actually looks worse resolution than newspaper print! From a distance, fine, I know, but I *would* notice it close up (e.g. washing at the basin) and it would bother me. Eventually found something approximating to what I was after in Wickes, where the print quality isn't a lot better, but at least it's sort of blurred such that you can't see the individual dots of which the design is composed. Surely tile manufacturers must be able to do a better job than this? You don't see the printing artefacts on even cheapo laminate flooring, for example?

Regards, Jim.

[Toby]

Freaky isn't it? Topps Tiles seem to have some OK ones, and you can buy individual ones which can make sense for the more expensive highlight tiles.

[Grunff]

We've just been through tile buying, and decided to avoid printed tiles for this reason. The vast majority were just really poor. We went for a ripple textured white wall tile, and a porcelain floor tile (very nice, but £35/sqm).