Betsy I have a few recommendations for you depending on what you are looking for specifically. If you want something really unique and are OK w/ it on glass, then absolutely 100 percent I would recommend Designer Glass Mosaics. They are WONDERFUL, true artists and the work they do is absolutely exquisite. They did a mural for us in our upstairs guest bathroom: If you don't want glass, we used Stone Impressions for our kitchen mural. We custom-designed our mural using graphics they sent to us, although I believe you can send in any high quality images and they also have a designer program to help: Our kitchen mural: Lastly, if you want an inexpensive option of just having photos printed on tile, we used ImageSnap for the tiles for our dog shower. They also did a great job!

Is that the backsplash in the surrounding kitchen as well? If so, I'd do some tin, stainless, or something you can buy in a sheet and just put up there. I've seen ceiling material (the stuff to look like tin ceilings) cut and used as a backsplash. If you take the tile down and wanted to re-tile; there's a good chance you'd be stuck with having to re-sheetrock first.

I have marble subway tiles for my entire kitchen and I sealed it with Miracle 511 Porous Plus before my GC installed them. Every time I cooked there's some level of splashes and I wiped the entire backsplash area behind my cooktop at the end of that day as part of clean up. I haven't notice any etch from looking straight at my backsplash with and without my hood lights. I can go home tonight to look at it from different angle to see if there's any etch but at least with my hood light on, I can't tell. It's been a year and I think I will reseal the backsplash again.

Are you asking about practicality or aesthetics? Practically, I don't see a problem. My stainless steel backguard looks dirty every time I cook. My encaustic tile bathroom floor is so busy I can hardly tell when I need to clean it (I just wiped it down yesterday, and it cleaned right up..). Aesthetically, I think it depends on the rest of the elements in the kitchen. I've seen some stunning cement tile backsplashes. I've also seen some I don't at all care for.