Image Projection Into the Future
Thanks for your interest in the presentation, Image Projection Into The Future, which was held on May 26th 2005 in the Communications Facility, using the most advanced projection systems currently available on campus. A new bulb was inserted into the slide projector before the presentation, and the digital projection system is about a year old.
At the presentation, a sheet was handed out to all attendees to rate images on a scale of excellent to poor, and acceptable or unnacceptable.
Images are shown in the order they appeared in the presentation. The score was derived by assigning point values to the ratings given in the survey.
| Score | Points |
| Excellent | 4 |
| Good | 3 |
| Fair | 2 |
| Poor | 1 |
score (poss.): The points for each image were totaled, with the highest potential score shown in parenthesis. For example, an image that received 5 votes would have a potential score of 20.
% score: The actual score was then divided by the potential score for a percentage. This was done to gain a slightly more meaningful rating because not all the images had the same number of votes.
a:u shows number of "acceptable" and "unacceptable" votes.
format tells whether the image projected was digital or a slide. The next column tells the source of the image.
DPI, or Dots Per Inch, is the resolution of the digital images. This seems to matter more in printing than in projection.
Findings
Brightness: The slide projected images were consistently darker than those digitally projected, although the slides were more likely to be truer to their original context. Digital images were sometimes perceived as being too bright or harsh.
Resolution: DPI seemed not to influence the quality of the projected image. Some images with 72 dpi, which is the preferred size for web browsers, ranked as high as those with 300 dpi.
Highest-scorers: (80% and up) The highest score, 86%, was shared with a 72dpi web downloaded image and a direct from digital camera digital image. The highest scoring slide came in at 83%.
Acceptable: Very few images received more than one "unacceptable" score. The ones that did were dark or had visible pixels (even though this one was 300 dpi).
Equipment: Digital technology has come a very long way. Some care might have to be taken to match a digital image to its original source for color and intensity. The future is pointing towards digital although it will be a very long time before slides are not used at all.
Copyright: This forum was not set up to address the issue of the use of copyrighted images, although it is a large concern, and will be part of an on-going effort.
Comments
"My use of images (which I do constantly in my art history classes) depends on context... i.e. 'quality' is not necessarily determind by brightness. That said, I rely almost exclusively on digital images."
"Keep in mind that some of the older digital projectors are lower resolution than the one in this room."
"Mute point to campre what's good and what's not. It's all relative."
From Discussion
Projectors are not the same from room to room.
Will it project it okay?
Art history can be taught with digital images
Technology has caught up?
Color rendition: pros and cons; in neither case are you producing the original.. quality is good enough overall.
There are sources such as "artstore" but only provides 35-40 percent of images you need so you still need to shoot imagery to back up your lecture.
Will get excellent quality images from art providers... get copyright agreement across campus. Get a server set up to make it seamless.
Faculty can request classrooms with digital projector. In the process of renovating two dozen classrooms but not available til fall06. What are options for people with large slide collections?
Fair use requires materials used one time... not in successive semesters. you have time to go out and seek copyright for that material after first use.
Comments? email Rochelle Parry.