I think with your image you have to make tileable texture. Some examples how to make it on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chFSIUXe1Ro

Thanks for your reply. I've had a look at the video and whilst this could be an option it would take so many hours to get a good grain match i would prefer to keep it as a last resort. I think i would have to retake the photo anyway with a more uniform lighting. Is there a way of just offsetting the tile point in the worktop from the middle to the edge? If i have made my material size bigger than the worktop then in theory if i moved the tiling point to just outside the edge of the worktop one tile would be enough to cover it entirely.
Joe

I just found this on decals so I'm going to look into it. http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Inventor-General-Dis...

I managed to do this in the realistic mode so I'm going to stop there. I'll finish the presentation and then export it as an image. Hopefully I'll get it right and won't have to redo it as obviously it won't save it like this.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2tnsj7mvkmowdv/Top.jpg

Also there is this which I will look into later.
http://oivdoc90.vsg3d.com/content/71-creating-text...