Image path for theme help

Hi guys,

I’m trying to build a theme and can’t figure out the best way for image paths. If I add them to the stylesheet they have to be hard URL’s (no php) but this way isn’t very good for those on sub domains as they’ll have to change URL.

Also, I’m using:
<span style="background-image: url(<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/SOMEIMAGE.png); position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; height: 110px; width: 246px;"> </span>
on the index template but it’s showing an error/warning in Google chrome dev tools.. is there a better way to code this inline?

Any help is much appreciated.