File resolution for projection

I give a fair few talks and generally have a stock of them on my laptop. Up until now I have always resized images to fit 1024x768 pixels.

But increasingly now I get the chance to project my images on higher resolution projectors. So should I start to re-do my talks/presentations at a higher resolution? And if so what resolution would be best? Also will the effect the apparent sharpness of the images when I go back to a XGA (1024x768) projector?

The obvious sizes to aim for are either 1400x1050 or even 1600x1200 pixels.

Any help appreciated.

Alex

I give a fair few talks and generally have a stock of them on my laptop. Up until now I have always resized images to fit 1024x768 pixels.

 

But increasingly now I get the chance to project my images on higher resolution projectors. So should I start to re-do my talks/presentations at a higher resolution? And if so what resolution would be best? Also will the effect the apparent sharpness of the images when I go back to a XGA (1024x768) projector?

 

The obvious sizes to aim for are either 1400x1050 or even 1600x1200 pixels.

...And 1920x1080 (HDTV format), which some movie theaters are using for digital distribution.

My advice: Bring a set of each resolution on a DVD or CD card, and use the folder with the best resolution for the projector at hand. This way, you can resize in Photoshop using Bicubic (Sharper) for downsizing from the master file. [by the way, Bicubic (Smoother) is for upsizing.]

Cheers!

Dan

I'm not sure that "bicubic sharper" can't be used to upsize: sometimes it looks better than "bicubic smoother", if the original hasn't received too much sharpening beforehand.

Tim

B)

Hi Alex

I'd set up the presentations in different resolution settings - a bit of a pain but there you go. At the moment I still use an old copy of Keynote which only supports 1024x768 (but I'm sure that later versions will support larger files), and I optimise the files (including for sharpness) in PS before saving and importing into the presentation software (if I'm really enthused I'll use the shadow/highlight filter to compress highlights too, as this is where I've found that projection is at its weakest). I also embed an sRGB profile as this 'seems' to work best (given that the projectors I use vary considerably too). I suspect that if you want to project as well as you can then there are few shortcuts and you simply have to set presentations up in each resolution setting.

I'd second Dan & Paul's comments. we esentially bring whatever resolution we need for presentations. Also, since many venues are gearing with 1080p type HD projection systems, we are now esentially producing multimedia presentation copies in an HD (1920X1080) format.

Michel

Assembling a PDF slide show presentation in Photoshop is one option, as the playback will be in Adobe Reader.

However, I'm awaiting a reply from my pal, who is a senior engineer in the Acrobat division, as to whether the downsampling is linear or bicubic; and also whether it's dependant on the file format (PSD, JPEG, TIFF) used to assemble the slide show.

Also, if you use 16 bit color (48 bits/pixel, as opposed to 8 bits/pixel as found in JPEG) to build a PDF in PS8 (PS/CS), you get a warning that earlier versions of Acrobat Reader don't support 16 bit color. IIRC, Acrobat Reader 5 or Adobe Reader 6 was the first to support 16 bit color.

I give a fair few talks and generally have a stock of them on my laptop. Up until now I have always resized images to fit 1024x768 pixels.

 

But increasingly now I get the chance to project my images on higher resolution projectors. So should I start to re-do my talks/presentations at a higher resolution? And if so what resolution would be best? Also will the effect the apparent sharpness of the images when I go back to a XGA (1024x768) projector?

 

The obvious sizes to aim for are either 1400x1050 or even 1600x1200 pixels.

OK, I heard back from Len Rosenthol (Mac users would recognize his name: He wrote Stuffit a few years ago), who is now a senior engineer in the Acrobat division.

His advice about Adobe Reader downsizing image files:

I wouldn't worry about it...Acrobat will do the right thing...

In other words, make the images nice and big, put them into a PDF slide show in Photoshop; and Adobe Reader will downsize to the screen size. (Of course, it will also upsize, but you don't want to go there!)

---------------

Another way to do it is pick up a used film recorder on eBay -- Something like a shoebox-sized Polaroid HR6000 can be had for under a hundred bucks -- And convert your digital image files to film for projection.

[Last year, I did just that for a photo studio client that had a 50 slide presentation x 12 for a 12 screen cineplex: They used her slides as "filler" between movies. FWIW, we did a test run with 2k & 4k resolution (2k images 4 times faster); and blown up onscreen we couldn't tell the difference, as we hit the limits of the Astia, Velvia and E100GX.]

I give a fair few talks and generally have a stock of them on my laptop. Up until now I have always resized images to fit 1024x768 pixels.

 

But increasingly now I get the chance to project my images on higher resolution projectors. So should I start to re-do my talks/presentations at a higher resolution? And if so what resolution would be best? Also will the effect the apparent sharpness of the images when I go back to a XGA (1024x768) projector?

 

The obvious sizes to aim for are either 1400x1050 or even 1600x1200 pixels.