Common questions and answers about preparing your images for display by the club projector.
Typically ‐ YES! You do. The colour space (also called a colour profile) drastically affects the way your image displays on your computer, other computers, the web, the projector and in printed media. That means you need to consider the colour space in terms of how the image will be displayed. The club projector is capable of displaying accurate sRGB colour. If you send us an image profiled to a larger colour space, such as AdobeRGB(1998) or ProPhotoRGB, your image may appear somewhat muted or drab when it is projected. You should convert your image to sRGB (if it isn't already in that colour space), at the time you prepare it.
DPI ("Dots Per Inch") is a printer setting. It instructs a printer how to print an image ‐ how many pixels to print in each inch. DPI is not related to displaying an image on a computer monitor or a projector. If you're submitting an image for display on a projector to a competition, you can ignore the DPI settings. For more information about DPI see this Wikipedia article.
It depends. Do you want your image to display the way you prepared it or do want to leave it to chance? You've worked hard to capture the perfect image and spent hours making it even better on your computer. Why would you leave displaying it to chance? Resize your image to get the best display possible from our projector.
Think of colour space as a set of instructions telling your device how to display colours. The profile you use determines how wide a range of colours will be displayed. For more information about colour space see this Wikipedia article.
That's a big topic. Some people recommend setting your camera to an Adobe based colour space, editing your image in a larger colour space and then converting your image to sRGB when you export the image for a medium that requires the smaller sRGB colour space. Another approach would be to set your camera to use the sRGB colour space and use that colour space in your editing software. Then you wouldn't need to convert the image.
This is also a big topic. Calibration has been compared to tuning a musical instrument so it will be in tune with instruments that belong to other people everywhere. You can calibrate your display using both software and hardware devices but there are limitations. Different displays have differing abilities to reproduce accurate colour. Quality monitors (from Eizo, NEC, Dell and others) reproduce more accurate colour that the display attached to a budget laptop. Matte screens produce different effects than glossy screens. If you boost the colour on your home colour to give you satisfying results when editing photos at home, you may notice a difference when the same image is displayed on another computer or the projector.
DPI ("Dots Per Inch") is a printer setting. It instructs a printer how to print an image ‐ how many pixels to print in each inch. DPI is not related to displaying an image on a computer monitor or a projector. If you're submitting an image for display on a projector to a competition, you can ignore the DPI settings. For more information about DPI see this Wikipedia article.
The aspect ratio has to do with the relationship between the width and height of an image. As for preserving the aspect ratio, that depends on the purpose of the image. If you're just trying to re-size an image, you typically want to preserve the aspect ratio. On the other hand, if you are deliberately trying to stretch or squish an image for artistic reasons ‐ then don't preserve the aspect ratio. For more information on aspect ratio see this Wikipedia article.
It is 4:3. This means any image that is this ratio will fit the projector's 1400 x 1050 exactly. If your image is "wider", say 2:1, size it to 1400 pixels wide and let the height of the image be somewhat less than 1050. If your image is taller, size it to 1050 pixels tall and let the width of the image be somewhat less than 1400.
The software and projector will decide how to display your image. Your image might display correctly, which means it might look the way you expect it to, or it might not. If your image is larger than the projector specification, it will be downsized on the fly. This usually doesn't do much visual damage to an image although it can slow down the projection process. If your image is too small, it will only occupy a portion of the available screen space ‐ any attempt to make it larger will result in an image that will look blocky or blurry.
No more than 1400 pixels wide and 1050 pixels tall. Do not exceed either number. Your photo should fill at least one of these dimensions. Electronic devices display little dots, aka pixels. Every screen and every projector has a "native resolution". For example, a 1080P television displays an image that is 1960 pixels wide and 1080 pixels tall. Our projector is said to be SVGA+ which means 1400 pixels wide and 1050 pixels tall. Any image sized to fit that window will be displayed without further resizing by the projector or projection software.
The image file size is determined by the software saving the image, the format type of the image, whether or not any compression has been utilized in the saving of the file, and finally the resolution of the image itself. Photos can be measured in KB or MB. Don't worry about the file size when sending images for projection ‐ set the pixel dimensions instead. Generally, it is best to set your software to save images at the highest quality setting which results in a somewhat larger file size.
It is one million pixels. For example, a Nikon D750 captures an image that is 6016 pixels wide and 4016 pixels tall. 6016 x 4016 = 24,160,256 so the camera is said to be a 24 megapixel camera. A file straight out of a D750 is a lot larger than needed for the projector. For more information about pixels see this Wikipedia article.
The projector has a maximum resolution of 1400 pixels wide by 1050 pixels high.
Probably not! There are two reasons ‐ the nature of the medium and the calibration of your home system.
The projector reproduces accurate sRGB colour but the medium, a projected image reflected from a screen, will not be exactly the same as an image produced by a calibrated monitor or printed on photo paper. The best projected image requires a completely dark room. Even in a dark room, the projector will not be able to reproduce blacks that are as intense as you see on your computer. (Think of the contradictory idea of reproducing black by projecting light).