How to optimize colors for video projectors?

Question

as I am doing my first conference talk, I want to prepare as best as I can. I often encounter problems that make my images looking on laptop/workstation screen perfect, but you can't see anything or the decisive detail when projecting the same with a video projector. Of course this may have many causes:

• each projector displays colors differently
• The lighting conditions are different for each talk
• ...

But can you give me advises or rules I should follow that improve my chances to have good presentation? One thing I will certainly do, is to pre-run the presentation on the video projector of our institute. I hope, if this will not fail, I have chances to survive :).

Some information to my images used in the presentation and information I have so far:

• Mostly screen shots of MRI acquisitions
• I decided for white background, so I can reuse most of the images from my publications
• Colleagues told me that we will have good lighting conditions (no windows, darkened room)
• The presentations will not run from my own laptop, so I can't say if VGA, DVI, HDMI,... will be used, nor I have no information on the projector that will be used.

Answer 1

Because the technology of projector and LCD display differs, your colors will never look quite the same on both devices, exactly as printed photograph will not look the same as the same photo on your display, even if your printer and monitor are calibrated properly. Here are some generic observations that might help you:

1. Make sure your graphics are in high contrast. Subtle differences you can see on your display may be lost on projector.

2. Stay away from very light or very dark colors, for the same reason as above.

3. Remember eyes need time to adjust. So if you have very bright white page, and the next page will be a very dark photograph, nobody will see it for a while after they stared at the bright white rectangle in a dark room.

Without seeing your presentation, it's hard to give more specific advise. However, please at least try to view it on a projector beforehand, even on a different one, as a test. It may be quite revealing.