Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Does anyone know where to buy some nice and cheap photo backgrounds?
It would be nice to get something with a bit of texture or slight pattern.

Google images?

Eldercaveman wrote:
Google images?

I'm asking to get a nice quality background to buy, as I dont have a high quality printer at home.
Googling images doesn't really help

Google can help, take your photo in a regular background and Photoshop the finished picture to add the desired background.

Are you looking for a Background to do photography against? A Background for your computer desktop?

Im assuming hes talking about poster-esque backdrops that one can put behind models as a cool background/setting.

If you have a decent printer you could print off some images from nature websites or space planets etc?

Maybe a good color printer if your workplace has one? (Sorry Boss, just doin a bit of printing here.....).

Usually Libraries have decent printers you can use for a tiny fee - or if your local library doesn't have any, you could consider going to a professional printers, if there's one around where you live - it might be expensive, but it could be worth checking out.

You might also try using stuff like book covers, or pictures from newspapers maybe?
Maybe cut some pics out of National Geographic or New Scientist...

(Or your local equivalents, if you don't get those in Sweden - I'm not sure if you do or not )

More information...

The easiest answer would be model shops or pet stores... You can get backdrops for model RR and dioramas at the model shops and pet stores sell aquarium backing sheets. The sheetscan be hit and miss as most are underwater scenes, but often they have location backdrops as well, especially for terrestrial pets.

Check out home decorating stores too. You can generally find photo prints there for cheap, and sometimes you will get lucky and find a landscape or other useful image for a backdrop.

Since we are dealing with fantasy/sci fi here primarily though, you might want something a bit more unusual. For unusual, but real, hit up poster stores for astronomy posters. You can find ones which are based on picturss fromthings like the Mars rover or from the Lunar surface with the Earth in the background. They also will often have other posters of photorealistic art work with a fantasy or scifi bent to them.

If you are just looking for something like a blue gradient for taking pictures in front of...then, that will come through photography and art supply stores, or a generic super store like Amazon. Varitone is one of the name brands for that, but it shouldnt be too hard to track down a photo printer to have one printed in high resolution. Heck, I am sure that one of those places that has the print kiosk for digital camera images should be able to do it, and one or two would be cheap enough.

Also you can find some high quality images on the interwebs, save them as jpgs or pngs and send them off to your local walgreens to be printed to the size of your desire.

This will help if you have a certain set of images in mind.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
More information...

The easiest answer would be model shops or pet stores... You can get backdrops for model RR and dioramas at the model shops and pet stores sell aquarium backing sheets. The sheetscan be hit and miss as most are underwater scenes, but often they have location backdrops as well, especially for terrestrial pets.

Check out home decorating stores too. You can generally find photo prints there for cheap, and sometimes you will get lucky and find a landscape or other useful image for a backdrop.

Since we are dealing with fantasy/sci fi here primarily though, you might want something a bit more unusual. For unusual, but real, hit up poster stores for astronomy posters. You can find ones which are based on picturss fromthings like the Mars rover or from the Lunar surface with the Earth in the background. They also will often have other posters of photorealistic art work with a fantasy or scifi bent to them.

If you are just looking for something like a blue gradient for taking pictures in front of...then, that will come through photography and art supply stores, or a generic super store like Amazon. Varitone is one of the name brands for that, but it shouldnt be too hard to track down a photo printer to have one printed in high resolution. Heck, I am sure that one of those places that has the print kiosk for digital camera images should be able to do it, and one or two would be cheap enough.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I will prowl the town this weekend looking for something suitable like this, I think the poster might be a good idea if they're not too glossy.
Also I was figuring some home decoration store as well, a stone texture or something like that would be nice.

Most laser printers with specific paper can print stuff that looks absolutely professional.