Some art projectors, called opaque projectors, will project a painted, drawn or printed image that’s on a piece of paper or canvas (or any other flat, opaque material), while others, known as digital projectors, use digital images, videos or anything else you can view on your phone, tablet or computer screen.
Can a LCD projector imprint an image onto a light-sensitive paper?
I am trying to develop an experiment in which I would expose a fast-framed video (almost timelapse-y) to a light-sensitive paper for a short amount of time as in the same process used to make photograms. However, I do not own an analog projector and I was wondering if it would work with a regular LCD projector. I have run a few experiments on a scanner, but unfortunately the light of projection and the light used by the scan to capture the image mostly cancelled itself out, due to the LCD nature of both, resulting in an overexposed image with a few dashes of what the projection was. Considering analog procedures don’t use that kind of light information, I thought it could work. What do you think?
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asked Nov 13, 2020 at 12:52
joaomoita4 joaomoita4
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$begingroup$ You want to project video onto paper made for still images? Light sensitive paper will capture an image, One image, if the image being projected is not moving during exposure. It is not clear what your end goal is. $endgroup$
Nov 13, 2020 at 19:35
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Noritsu, a Japanese manufacturer of photo equipment designed and marketed mini-lab printers based on the LCD. Also, Electronic System Engineering (ESECO) marketed an enlarger based on an LCD display. Both project an image on standard color negative paper which develops up as a positive color print. The ESECO enlarger micro-moved the LCD display as the projected image played on the paper. This scheme greatly multiplied the resolution of the finished print. This resolution multiplication is possible because most camera digital files contain far more data than the LCD can display. Software was devised that micro-moved the LCD and at the same time the LDC displayed pixels that otherwise would be discarded. These were systems I was involved with. Kodak, Fuji, and many others produced color printing devices based on the LCD. A successful spin-off, Noritsu used a modified Texas Instrument micro-mirror array and made an impressive color printer and they marketed this device.
What Can You Use an Art Projector For?
Artists, being creative, find so many different uses for their art projectors, and some of the both common and not so common uses include:
- Projecting an image or other guide onto a wall for painting a mural
- Tracing or copying an image on a large scale
- Displaying Art
- Creating Multimedia Art Pieces and Installations
- Making a Light Show
- Displaying, or even working on, videos oranimations
- Cool mood lighting
- Displaying photographs and running slide shows
- Projecting slides, graphics and other images for meetings, sales presentations etc.
If you have a digital art projector you can also, of course, watch movies or videos, but only after your work is done!
What Different Kinds of Art Projectors Are There?
There are lots of different kinds of projectors, of course, and many have been around forever – for three rather old-school examples there’s the hot, noisy overhead projectors, the clunky and oft-jammed slide projector, or the movie projector, also usually hot and loud but with the added attraction of often spooling precious movie film across the classroom floor.
But here we’re going to the about two types of projectors which are most useful to artists:
- Opaque Projector – this projector shines light onto a physical image – specifically a small (maybe 5-7 inches) and opaque piece of paper, canvas or fabric – and then shines that image onto the wall (or a canvas or larger piece of paper) using mirrors and prisms, so that you get a big projected enlargement of the original image to work on or with.
- Digital Projector – the digital art projector uses, instead of a physically drawn, painted or printed image, a digital image or computer file instead, and projects that image onto the wall. This means you can also project movies or videos, although you might find that Game of Thrones was already plenty intense on your five inch phone screen.
Digital Projector vs Opaque Projector – Which Should you Get?
So, the natural question is which is better for an artist – a digital projector or an opaque projector? More specifically, we might want to ask?
- What is the best type of projector for an artist?
- What is the best type of projector for tracing?
- What is the best type of projector for murals?
- What is the best type of projector for displaying art?
Not long ago even halfway decent digital art projectors were pretty expensive, and while they were good they didn’t really shine like it seems they should have – performance, like brightness and sharpness, wasn’t amazing, and especially for the price. At that point, the opaque projector, with its (often, at least) much lower price, seemed a much better bet for artists.
But now digital projectors are cheaper, brighter and easier to use, and the premium models are frankly amazing, and for somebody who works almost exclusively in the digital realm (or somebody who can easily scan, photograph or otherwise digitize their paper or canvas creations) they really do make a lot more sense.
The opaque projectors are pretty cool, though – they work great, can still be quite a bit cheaper than digital projectors and are an absolute snap to use. Anyway, if you yourself are still pretty old-school, and working a lot, or even exclusively, on paper, canvas or other physical media, and you don’t want to scan or take digital pictures of your work, you will need to use an opaque projector.
And many artists have both, and love the option of easily projecting any image from their computer, cloud or the internet and, at other times, working from physical media with no need for conversion or other prep work.
