DDog 1.0 VS. Misty Evening: w/screenshots - Page 2  

More gladiator.

Okay, one more Gladiator shot.

I was hard-pressed to see any difference here. My wife even came down and watched for awhile and asked what she was supposed to see. I asked what she saw and she said not much other than a line down the middle of the screen. Even during HDTV watching, we couldn't see anything truly noticeable.

Bottom line for me: ddog is a LOT of work for a minimal difference, positive or negative, versus the simple application of Misty Evening. I'll give the panel a week to cure and test some more to see if the glaze curing has a dramatic effect on the outcome. In the meantime, I'm going to try to overcoat the ME panel with Joe's mix to see if there's a noticeable difference with ME underneath instead of UPW.

Joe,
Can you elaborate on "Clear flat base?" My guy at HD said all base is white and that he's never heard of a clear base.

Thanks, Scoob

dpadair: I painted the non coated side... the fuzz on the fabric stood up between coats and had to be lightly sanded off when it did. I put on a couple coats satin ultra white, followed by several coats of the silver/glaze/white mix, with a couple drops of red toner (The screen was intended for a Sony HS-10 or 20 which benefits from the red - if you are not using that LCD projector I'd say forget it.) I do not have a misty evening screen, nor intend at this time to to do a side by side with misty evening, so I defer to those who have. All I can say is that having seen that screen lit up with a relatively low light X-1, I was very pleased with the result. Ddog 1.0 does require some care in application, and misty evening may be a lot easier to do, I cannot comment. But as one who did the Ddog version 1.0 screen, I was happy with the end result.

Chris

Scoob- When rolling the ddog mix, I believe others have had better success with 40/40/20 mixture insted of the 50/40/10 mix like you tried, but I'm not sure if it would have made much difference in your findings. I actually like the ddog mixture in your screenshots better, but it doesn't show the "shimmer", and we all know screenshots are misleading anyway. FWIW, I hear the real silverstar has a noticeable "sheen" to it, I wonder if this is similar to the "shimmer" you are seeing.

Anyone else have comments on this? Joe? CMRA? I'm really interested in the flat clear base Joe mentions and my HD guy doesn't have or understand.

I previewed the overcoat on Misty Evening last night and the results look VERY promising! Unfortunately the roller marks are very visible on this panel. Even so it added brightness to whites and increased contrast noticeably. The spray crowd should investigate further based on this preview. I'll post screenshots and analysis this weekend (after further curing of the overcoat).

Scoob-

Read through this page. It has all the info for clear flat base along with part #'s.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0&pagenumber=7

I tested the ME + overcoat mix today. My first topcoat was pretty much ddog standard. I found this over the ME was too dark. I then mixed straight silver and quite a bit of glaze and did another coat. I was rolling so there was lots of marking. After letting the second topcoat dry for a few minutes I took a damp cloth and rubbed it down. That got rid of the roller marks. At this point I had a nice silver but obviously it had a lot of shine. Last I mixed a touch of silver with UPW and glaze and put that on.
Looking at the surface with the room lights full the final product appeared much lighter than straight ME. However, when I lowered the lights it was much darker. I was really excited to see this. In testing tonight the mix blows straight ME away in dark frames. Full black is serveral shades darker then ME, while the whites are pretty much the same. In really bright frames the ME has a bit of an edge. My mix looks just a little pink.
I took a lot of screenshots from HDNet and other HD stuff. I will try to get them posted soon.
Sorry for the lack of exact measurments. I was just messing around until I got a color I liked. When I do my full screen I will get exact measurements.
I should note that I am painting onto a draper luma 2. The straight ME is dead flat. The ME + overcoat has just about the same amount of sheen as the white screen.

Porter-
Excellent! I'm glad someone else is trying this. I watched an entire movie with the split screen last night (Yojimbo, B&W) and the blacks were much better on the overcoat side and whites the same, but with a little shimmer on the overcoat side. I'm curious if you're noticing any viewing cone from the overcoat+ME? I'm finding the picture from straight on is perfect, but a few feet to either side reduces the overall brightness and contrast. ME only looks great from every angle, so no complaints there.

I'll be sure to try your trick of wiping it down between coats.

Incidentally, I'm not using the red in the ddog mix because I found it didn't need it with my PJ. I'm using more of JoeP's formula. I hope to find the clear flat base today at WalMart or HD now that I know what to look/ask for. Then I'll do another coat using your wiping technique.

Thanks, Scoob

I'm interested in this "wiping down" procedure. I have a ddog 1.0 screen, but am considering changing to a 2.35:1 screen and using vertical masking for 1.78:1 and 1.85 material, so I'd be repainting if I do. Roller marks were the tough to avoid, if there's a better method then I'd like to hear more about it. I wonder if this works better than thinning with Floetrol?

All-
I found the clear flat base and mixed it in Joe's formula. Painted both panels and got much better roller results tonight. I did not dilute with water or floetrol this time and it worked pretty well. I'll let it cure for a few days and determine if I need another coat. Then I'll consider the wiping technique.

I'll post pics this weekend. Stay tuned. And Porter, please post pics when you get a chance. JD, keep us in the loop with your plans.

scoob,
There was most certainly a viewing cone with the overcoat. As you would expect, the greater the silver the tighter the axis. This is why I had to do the extra top coat. The trick is to find the right amount of silver. My second to last coat was unreal looking straight on. However, any off axis view just died. My next go I am going to leave out the red and see if this helps my whites. The slight sheen to the screen did not show hot spots.

I had to do a faux finished wall for my wife using glaze and I had to use water to work the paint a bit. This is where I got the rubbing idea. The trick is you have got to do it at the right time. Also, just a damp cloth will do. Rubbing is also helpful when you need to lighten your coat a bit.

I need to take more pics. I downloaded the first batch to my computer but they really don't show what they need to. All of my cam shots came out too dark so it was really hard to see the subtle differences in shadow detail. I am going to try to use a slower shutter speed on a few shots.

I will try to get back soon.

Ok folks, I am having no luck with these damn screenshots. I have a sony 3.3megapixel dsc-s70 camera. All the pics come out too dark. The pictures look great but are totally misleading. If I could get the black levels my camera shows I would be in heaven.

Does anyone have any tips on taking high contrast shots in the dark with a digital camera??

Try to take them at a lower resolution setting - like 800x600. High res is not the friend of dark shots.

Thanks Scoob, that's about the only thing I haven't tried.

Joe, I see your formula uses Satin white. Do you have any noticeable sheen or hotspotting? I used 10% Satin white in my ddog mix tonight and I'm seeing some. But I need to put more coats on, the Satin white base is still showing through too much.

scoob, do you think the shimmering or sheen you see on ddog is because of the eggshell white instead of using flat white or is it because of the silver?

like you, i don't care for *any* sheen at all. i like the nice, even, almost dull look of a matte white screen like blackout cloth.

I don't think it's from the UPW at all. I think it's from the silver and/or the glaze, but as it dries/cures, the shimmer dies down to almost unnoticeable.

Incidentally, I added a very light overcoat with a formulation of about 40% glaze, 40% clear flat base (WalMart 5053), 15% silver, and 5% UPW and the results were not good. Seems to remove all of the benefits of the JoeP mix over ME. Will have to work on that panel again.

When I put that same overcoat on the ddog panel, the shimmer was reduced, the whites look whiter/brighter vs. ME, but the blacks look very similar to ME alone. I think it improved the ddog panel overall, but I still believe the ME base is best with the JoeP overcoat.

scoob,
Good thing the weekend starts tomorrow. The eyes of a greatful few are upon you. BTW, what's all this about ME and Joe's overcoat? Sounds exotic.

CMRA, et al-
As I sorta screwed up the ME + overcoat panel, I'll have to repaint tonight using the original overcoat formulation that gave the improvements with ME as the base. I fear the benefits of having ME underneath may be hidden because of the latest blunder (too many layers on top of the ME now?), so I may have to repaint with ME (another trip to HD) then do the overcoat again.

It looked very promising, but I kept tinkering anyway...

Redid the ME panel tonight then painted both the ME and the ddog panels with the following:
35% silver
40% faux glaze
20% clear flat base
5% UPW-eggshell

Drying tonight and hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be able to get some good screenshots from both compared to my straight ME screen. Wish me luck.

After 2 coats and 12 hours of dry time on the second, my ddog test panel is still too glossy. It's at least as glossy as a straight Satin finish. Maybe even closer to a Semi-gloss finish.

I'm really impressed with the results so far but I'd like to reduce that gloss. It is visible on sky and cloud scenes.

Any hints for how to reduce that? My mix was:

50% Behr Metallic
40% Behr Glaze
10% Behr Satin Pure Ultra White

I still think I'll try the flat white and maybe a bit less Metallic.

Wish granted.

dpadair-
That sounds reasonable. Maybe 40% silver and a little more flat paint. You might also try adding the clear flat base Joe suggested like I'm doing now. Got mine at WalMart (like ddog suggested earlier this year). It's the Color Place Accent Base 5053. I found addition of this really cuts the sheen/gloss/shimmer effect.

I'm wondering what the Faux Glaze actually does for all these mixes. What would happen if clear flat base completely replaced the glaze?

I imagine that the glaze is what gives it a little gain, for the brighter whites. But if it's only there to suspend the silver (to create a matrix), then I would think the flat base could accomplish the same thing. However, when I (accidently) tried the equal parts glaze and flat base, I lost all of the advantages of the ddog overcoat - when used over the ME. I don't think it made any difference on the ddog panel when I applied it.

Your efforts are so intense. I'm beginning to think your'e headed against the current. Does ME really need improvement? Please see my last batch ( MR redux screenshots) in "screens" under "CMRA posts misty grey screenshot"-Page 6. If you like these you'll love ME a la natural. On the other hand, who am I to challenge your creative efforts? Please compare with my former shots and report.

Just for fun I applied a 100% thin coat of faux glaze over the ddog. It created a lot more shine/hotspotting. I'm going to reduce the glaze (or replace it with clear base) on my next mix.

Is clear base actually clear? I'm off to Walmart to find out!

Clear base is actually white. ;)