Projected Images

[davidedric]

There are regular discussions here and on other forums about images displayed on monitors, through the web and when printed. Another way of displaying images is to project them, as happens at my local camera club.

I've not been a member there very long, but the images of mine I have seen projected don't look much like my monitor: they look less saturated and more highly exposed. There must be so many variables (the software, the projector, the screen, the ambient lighting) that it is hard to get predictable results, but I'd be interested in any other experience (the club also hopes to get a new projector next year )

Dave

[ashcroft]

I do a lot of talks to camera clubs in Wales. I've done about 12 in the past year, so I've used quite a lot of club projectors (I don't have my own). I take my own laptop which is calibrated and I have never had any of the problems you mention. I did have one occasion where the projector was slightly out on exposure and focus, but that is easily corrected on the projector. Images never look quite the same, but then there are obviously some differences between showing on a monitor and projecting it onto a large cloth screen. I make sure my images are 1400px long side for landscape, and 1000px longside for portrait. They are saved from the originals using Photoshop 'save for web' with a colour space of sRGB.

I find it helps when projecting to keep all other lights out. A screen is large and will capture any stray light. It's like reading from a Kindle in a lit room and when you turn the lights out the screen seems way too bright, so you turn it down and it looks better without the room lights on. Best thing is to get a shot that you know is a good exposure with a good range of tones/colours and use it as a test shot on the projector. Adjust the projector settings until the shot looks as it does on the monitor.

Make sure your monitor is calibrated. If you use the factory settings they are normally too bright, so when editing in PS you will naturally tone things down. The shot will then be 'under-exposed' and may affect how it looks on the big screen, even thought it looks OK on your monitor. But I'm not quite sure about that bit. Perhaps someone else knows better.

[Manfred M]

Rob - the fact that your laptop screen is calibrated / profiles has nothing to do with the colour accuracy of what you are projecting. In theory, your laptop would have to be profiled with the projector that you are using to ensure maximum colour accuracy.

Dave - being rather high level here (I used these devices frequently at work for presentation). There are a number of factors at play here; first of all most projectors are effectively meant for giving presentations (nicely said, most of these will be in Microsoft PowerPoint), so a diminshed colour pallette will be used. Don't expect these devices to be even sRGB compliant, especially the lower end ones; they were never designed with accurate colour reproduction being a key performance driver. Often they still use a smaller resolution than we are used to in our computer screens. A display size of 1920 x 1280 has been pretty standard on displays for years. I still see a lot of 1280 x 720 projectors out there. This means that the high resolution images we see have to be downsampled for the projector to be able to project them, and this can introduce some pretty hideous looking artifacts in what we look at too.

The second issue is that in many ways, they have a lot in common with viewing a photographic print. Our computer screens transmit light, so they seem inherently brighter. With projectors, we are looking at reflected light, i.e. the surface that we are projecting on plays an important role in colour reproduction. In most cases this will be a wall somewhere; hopefully some shade of that is sort of white in colour. In the "old days" projection screens were used. They often had surfaces that were specifically prepared, sometimes with glass beads, to ensure a reasonably neutral surface that did a reasonable job reflecting the projected light back at the viewer.

A short real life anecdote; the people I worked with knew I have a strong technical backgrond, so if there was an equipment problem I would often get called for help. I was once called in because a projector wasn't working and the colours were funny looking. When I got to the room, it took me a 1/1000th of a second to diagnose the issue. They were projecting the image onto a green wall. No wonder the colours didn't look right!

[Mike Buckley]

I'd be interested in any other experience (the club also hopes to get a new projector next year )

Consider telling your club to investigate the possibility of purchasing a projector that doesn't require being hooked up to a computer. Instead, you would insert either a memory card or a USB thumb drive into it. Using only a projector minimizes the variables that will affect the display of color.

I purchased such a projector years ago and it works fine. Back then there weren't many of this type to choose from but I tried two and selected the one that met by needs the best. Both of them had a strong yellow cast as does a projector owned by a friend of mine. I simply toned down the yellow cast and, fortunately, everything seems fine. That's despite that I don't have any software to calibrate the projector.

I have regularly used it to project onto a white sheet and onto a projector screen with the glass beads Manfred mentioned that was originally designed for use when projecting slide film. I have never done a side-by-side comparison. Even so, I've always felt comfortable viewing my images in both situations.

As Manfred mentioned, I always project image files that have been reduced in size to match the native resolution of the projector. Mine is old enough that its resolution is 1280 x 800.

[DanK]

I am not an expert, but I think Manfred nailed it. I don't think the issue is the input (computer vs. card). The issue is that the devices themselves are not designed to do what photographers want. My club has an almost-monthly electronic image competition, and I have spent a lot of time looking at wonderful images poorly rendered by a variety of projectors.

BTW, images also look lousy, in my experience, when shown on high-quality HD TVs. I think the issue there is partly color rendition (most TVs are not accurate when shipped, by design), but even more resolution. The vertical resolution of an HDTV is similar to that of many computer monitors, but the pixels are larger and farther apart. I think the same is one of the problems with projecting.

[davidedric]

Thanks for the comments, I now feel rather better informed. Interesting that Rob hasn't observed this. I am very new to clubs and competitions, so I don't want to shout too loud (might even be my eyes )

The downsizing is handled by all images needing to be submitted as 1400 x 1050. If the image has a different aspect ratio it must be padded out to that size with a black "canvas" (which is a real pita if you are a Lightroom user). The images are presented using competition software

In theory it shouldn't affect the competition, since the judging should have been done on the judge's own (hopefully calibrated) kit.

Regards,

Dave

[Shadowman]

Dave,

Which model projector do you have and what display settings do you use? Epson has a distance calculator that I used when I positioned my projector and I'm sure it could be used for photos display as well.

http://www.epson.com/alf_upload/land...ce-calculator/

[Manfred M]

BTW, images also look lousy, in my experience, when shown on high-quality HD TVs. I think the issue there is partly color rendition (most TVs are not accurate when shipped, by design), but even more resolution.

At work we started installing large screen HD televisions and removing the installed projectors in some of the meeting rooms.

As a bit of a lark, I took in my profiling equipment and did a proper profile on one of them. The results were quite encouraging.

1. The HD TVs were a lot better than the projectors; and

2. Once profiled, the HD TVs, while not as good as a wide gamut computer screen, were equal to your average laptop screen. Yes, the display resolution was the same a native resolution of a computer screen, but this was only an issue if one sits too close.

I guess the real downside is the cost; the large TVs are definitely pricey when compared to a lot of the projectors on the market.

[loosecanon]

I find camera clubs just don't understand colour space and resolution, indeed I gave up on one club because I was so annoyed at the poor quality of projection of images that were fully colour corrected on calibrated screen.
Incredibly that club used a Macbook, running windows softwear, the Mac screen was calibrated separate from the windows interface used, and then projected with no attempt at calibration of the projected image. Even worse they insisted on an image size that meant all images would be resized for projection with consequent loss of definition of fine detail.

[tclune]

Even worse they insisted on an image size that meant all images would be resized for projection with consequent loss of definition of fine detail.

And what image size could they have selected for projection that would not have involved loss of definition and fine detail?

[Shadowman]

I find camera clubs just don't understand colour space and resolution, indeed I gave up on one club because I was so annoyed at the poor quality of projection of images that were fully colour corrected on calibrated screen.
Incredibly that club used a Macbook, running windows softwear, the Mac screen was calibrated separate from the windows interface used, and then projected with no attempt at calibration of the projected image. Even worse they insisted on an image size that meant all images would be resized for projection with consequent loss of definition of fine detail.

Sounds like only one person had control of the projector, if showcasing my own images on their equipment I would prefer some leniency in setting up presentation or the option to bring in your own.

[Mike Buckley]

1. The HD TVs were a lot better than the projectors;

My limited experience involves using one HDTV and two projectors. Even so, my experience is the same as yours.

[Mike Buckley]

In theory it shouldn't affect the competition, since the judging should have been done on the judge's own (hopefully calibrated) kit.

If the judging isn't being done using the exact same equipment being used to display the competition's entries to the photo club, I imagine members of the club will lose confidence in the system. I sure would.

[FrankMi]

I have visited two local photo clubs and both used a projector and screen to display the competing images. Having seen some of the originals, the projected images provide a poor sense of reality. Very discouraging. I wouldn't want my images displayed under those conditions.

[davidedric]

Interesting comments.

Far from being discouraged, the number of digital entries into competitions keeps going up, whilst the number of prints dwindles (all the comps are either/or, though judged separately), I suppose it's much easier to email a jpeg than to print and mount.

I imagine the reasons for the downsizing are to level the playing field (though as has been pointed out, the resolution of the projector is likely no more than the resized image), and to make the file sizes manageable.

It's a little odd that no-one else in the club has mentioned anything, at least to me. Maybe it's so obvious it's not worth saying, or maybe it's the emperor's new clothes. Who knows. I think I may make a couple of gentle comments and see what occurs!

Anyway, thanks for all your feedback,

Dave

Dave

[loosecanon]

The majority of projectors are still xvga - 1028 X 768, early models were svga 800 X 600, Some are wxga - 1280 X 768, a few HD 1960x 1080 and some odd format. The 1400 come from SXGA 1400 x 1050.
All goes to show every camera club needs to read the manual for its projjector and set the native resolution correctly and tell members that is what it is (providing display software doesn't resample as it often does)

I prefer prints for competitions as everything apart from the viewing light is under my control.

[Shadowman]

Interesting comments.

Far from being discouraged, the number of digital entries into competitions keeps going up, whilst the number of prints dwindles (all the comps are either/or, though judged separately), I suppose it's much easier to email a jpeg than to print and mount.

I imagine the reasons for the downsizing are to level the playing field (though as has been pointed out, the resolution of the projector is likely no more than the resized image), and to make the file sizes manageable.

It's a little odd that no-one else in the club has mentioned anything, at least to me. Maybe it's so obvious it's not worth saying, or maybe it's the emperor's new clothes. Who knows. I think I may make a couple of gentle comments and see what occurs!

Anyway, thanks for all your feedback,

Dave

Dave

Dave,

As a member of this photo group, can you ask or check the settings used on the projector?

[Macmahon]

There are regular discussions here and on other forums about images displayed on monitors, through the web and when printed. Another way of displaying images is to project them, as happens at my local camera club.

I've not been a member there very long, but the images of mine I have seen projected don't look much like my monitor: they look less saturated and more highly exposed. There must be so many variables (the software, the projector, the screen, the ambient lighting) that it is hard to get predictable results, but I'd be interested in any other experience (the club also hopes to get a new projector next year )

Dave

Dave
Basically, a projector is no different from any other output device: if you want accurate colour from it it needs to be calibrated and profiled. I don't know what instrument you use to profile your monitor, but many can be used to profile the projector too.
I have used my ColorMunki, and the i1Pro at different times, to profile our club's projector. It works well. The profile is stored on the laptop and is there next time you want to use the projector. On our system at least, the correct profile is selected as soon as we plug the projector into the computer.
Our biggest problem is that other users fiddle with the brightness and contrast controls between camera club sessions: they often have to be reset.
Cheers
Tim

PS Nevertheless, I only ever enter prints into camera club competitions. Even a well profiled projection gives a comparatively lousy rendition of a good photograph, IMHO.

[Ian H]

David,

I am the current digital secretary for both Southampton Camera Club and the Southampton International Exhibition. We currently run a brand new 1920 X 1200 Canon projector. As long as the projector and computer are calibrated to each other and the projector is placed at the correct distance from the screen for its brightness it should work ok. One tip I give our members that they find really helps is for them to process their images as if they are going to print them, then if using Photoshop in an adjustment layer decrease the brightness by -10 and increase the contrast by +15, in Lightroom the settings are exposure by -20 and contrast +15. These only really work if your screen is calibrated. The one thing a lot of clubs do not understand is there is an optimum distance depending on the lumens of the project, most manufactures website have some information regarding this.

Merry Christmas
Ian

[Manfred M]

One tip I give our members that they find really helps is for them to process their images as if they are going to print them, then if using Photoshop in an adjustment layer decrease the brightness by -10 and increase the contrast by +15, in Lightroom the settings are exposure by -20 and contrast +15.

Hi Ian - this is the right approach, but the specifics will vary from screen to screen, so these one-size fits all parameters rarely work. I do my screen to print compensation via an adjustment layer that uses Screen blending mode and I dial that back to 20% opacity. That parameter was determined by making test prints. So long as I don't change any of my screen's display setting, I can keep on using this setting. I picked up the technique through one of Scott Kelby's tutorials. I'm a bit suspicious of your parameters being different in Photoshop and Lightroom. As Photoshop and Lightroom are built on the same processing engine, so the output parameters should, in theory, be identical to give the same print output results.

The only way to confirm your individual requirements is by making a test print and then viewing it under an appropriate light source; which in my case was indirect light at mid-day on my kitchen table. The light seems to be in the 5000K - 5500K range, which I determined by shooting a grey card using auto colour balance and looking at the "native" colour temperature that Adobe Camera RAW reports. I suspect a colour temperature meter would be an even better approach, but I don't own one, so this appears to be "close enough".

This needs to be repeated for every different paper type used.