anybody digital projection

[tom0511]

Hi guys,
after waiting 2 years for price decrease of digital sxga projectors (which has not happened) I finally decided to get myself a Canon XEED SX60.
No, its not as sharp as projected slides but its not that bad and I want to use it to project vacation images at home. Its definatly more fun than looking on a 15´´ display.

Are there any other people here who do digital projection of images or maybe even with xeed-series? Do you guys know if there are any standard profiles available?
How much do you sharpen images for projection and which software do you use to project? (So far I just used breezebrowser)
cheers, tom

[DaveEP]

I have a BenQ projector (1024x768) and use it in sRGB mode. It does a pretty good job.

For sharpening, if it looks good on my Apple LCD, it looks pretty good on the projector too.

For profiling, I just convert to sRBG and use the projector in sRGB mode. I found that (like paper) the screen you are using makes much more difference. I one silver (ish) and one white screen and you can see the difference - especially in the lighter shades.

[tom0511]

Originally Posted by DaveEP

I have a BenQ projector (1024x768) and use it in sRGB mode. It does a pretty good job.

For sharpening, if it looks good on my Apple LCD, it looks pretty good on the projector too.

For profiling, I just convert to sRBG and use the projector in sRGB mode. I found that (like paper) the screen you are using makes much more difference. I one silver (ish) and one white screen and you can see the difference - especially in the lighter shades.

Which screen is better?
Isnt silver for daylight and white for projekting in the dark?

[Hartmonstr]

Tom,

I have been using projectors for my seminars (see Solutions for Photography Professionals by John Hartman) since 1992, and am now using a pair of the Canon SX-6 projectors, which are similar to yours except for a slightly brighter output. I can tell that by far and away, the SXGA+ resolution of these projectors reproduces images better than anything else out there, and is the closest to an actual slide projector that I've seen (without the inherent dust bunnies, slide trays and other hassles that accomany that tired old medium).

You can optimize the quality of your output by making the slides to fit the resolution of the projector. In other words, horizontal images should be exactly 1400 pixels wide and vertical images should be exactly 1050 pixels high (ppi doesn't matter). If you allow your presentation program to resize the images for you, they will not be as sharp - nothing beats 100% scaling. Keep in mind that your images will not fill the screen completely on both sides unless you crop them to a 4:3 aspect ratio. In other words, you will have space on the top and bottom of your screen for horizontal images, and on the side for vertical images. Additionally, I add the Smart Sharpen filter (start with 30/1.0 and adjust to taste) for maximum sharpness.

I have found that my images look exactly like those coming off my calibrated 17" MacBook Pro monitor if I use the sRGB color space on the projectors. AdobeRGB (which you don't have on your projector) is too saturated, and the other color spaces are just plain bad. My images in Photoshop are also in the sRGB color space. Of course, you will have to experiment with these settings to determine which is best for you. I like the fact that the projector allows you to fine tune not only the RGB settings, but also Gamma, Hue and Saturation. With the correct setup you can't help but get excellent color with this unit, but the color right out of the box was perfect on both my projectors, so the factory settings should be fine if your output is.

Of course, this assumes you are using a color-managed presentation tool such as Keynote (Mac) or PowerPoint. A simple image browser may not be CMS-savvy, so be sure to check yours.

Best of luck with your projector - you have one of the best out there.

John Hartman

[tom0511]

John,
thank you for the input. I knew the xeed have a good reputation but wasnt sure how much better they would be vs a 1000€ projector.
Frienkly I didnt do much comparison on my own, just from reading.
So far I use breezebrowser which is color-managed.Overall images look fine, just the blues seem to have a somewhat reddish cast.
I read about profiling a projector, (like a display) but assume that the tools to make such profiles are not cheap.
On the other side I dont need 100% color accurancy for projecting.
Regards, Tom