I did some experimentation with technique on a few different padd kits to see which worked best. I did a few different tests on painting styles, and graphic presentations. Some of my graphics were printed on pressure sensitive adhesive paper, others were printed on photo paper and lined with chartpak. There are advantages and drawbacks to each technique.
The graphic featured on this padd is the "Long Range Sensor Scan". This was a graphic I found in the Deep Space Nine technical manual. I scanned the graphic into my computer, and used Adobe Illustrator to redraw it. This allows me to scale it to any size and not lose any picture quality.
The graphics on this padd were printed by a friend of mine using a super duper Epson printer that prints on archival quality paper. The print is very resilient, and can handle finger prints, and probably even a wet drink! The draw back to this printing technique is that it doesn't seem to handle anti-aliasing of fonts and vector information very well. This results in a blocky look for the curves on rounded characters. From about a foot away, it looks great. I do like the fact that the black on these graphics matches the black of the midplate of the padd. Good effect, though not entirely screen accurate.
In the picture, the green LED-like things in the button recesses appear to be bright, neon green. This is not the way it is in real life, it just looks weird in the pictures.