Misty Evening + Silver "one-coat" solution

Here are some of the pics from my recent labor to improve on the already very good Misty Evening paint (introduced by CMRA). FYI: I currently use a DIY 94" screen painted Misty Evening and it is a vast improvement over the older Dalite DaMat 1.1 screen (78").

My efforts have been to help further improve the blacks without hurting the whites - sorta like the ddog solution of earlier this year. And because I'm not a big painting guy, I wanted something that was doable by rolling instead of spraying. I tried a few variations of ddog, but the rolling is a severe limiting factor when attempting this solution (as other have pointed out in numerous threads).

The ddog improved the brightness enough that I was intrigued, but - in MY application - the blacks weren't significantly improved to be worth the effort. You can see some of those screenshots in Joe P's Ddog vs ME thread. However, after discussions with some other folks here, I decided to try an "overcoat" or topcoat of the ddog over the Misty Evening (instead of the Behr UPW).

Those results were also disappointing because of the rolling (again) but also in that they didn't seem to improve on much, but introduced a pretty limiting viewing cone. NEXT! Further discussions led a few of us to propose a "one-coat" solution using ME and the components of the ddog formula.

And here we are. I tried a few different formulations, but the earliest weren't sufficient to even take screenshots. Next (and currently) I tried to up the amount of glaze and clear flat base for an ultimate formulation of:
33% Faux glaze
32% clear flat base
20% Misty Evening
15% Silver metallic

I painted that over one of the earlier attempts (that gave not-too-different-results from plain ME). I felt this was worth the effort of posting screenshots and some in-depth analysis. I hope you agree.

Pic #1: Daylight shot of ME on left and One-coat formulation on the right.

Moving on to actual movies, I've chosen several to illustrate the improvement in whites with no deterioration in black levels. Not exactly what I was shooting for, but wait till you see how the whites improve. And imprtantly, there is very little viewing cone introduced using this one-coat formula.

One IMPORTANT note: these shots are calibrated for the one-coat panel, not the ME. The difference in settings on my pj was minor, but still present. I took a few shots to see if I could show a difference, but the results were insignificant. So I preface these pics with this remark: the ME side (left) is down in white by about 2 levels for my TW100 (using the Avia disc). Not dramatically different, but different nonetheless. And the black level was not changed. Same with the color settings.

So pic 2: toward the beginning of Gladiator. You can see the difference in the blue sky which appear slightly darker - and not exclusively due to the lower white level. More details later in some white scenes.

Another one from Gladiator showing skin tones.

I am gladiator. Note the nearly invisible line and the lack of difference in blacks on either side. Whites improve.

Take that! Another more white sky shot. Really where it's most evident is in sky and white shots. Can't wait to see a hockey game in HD.

Enough of the Gladiator? How about one more. This is similar to one CMRA posted last night using his Olympic 2100 camera. I forgot to mention that I'm using a Fujifilm 2600 (2.0 Mp).

This is another with skintones, but more shadowy.

Moving on to some animation: Toy Story 2 (one of my demo favorites that we showed to a bunch of friends last night).

First is a shot of the Pixar opening. Again shows the brightness difference in the blue field.

More Toy Story 2.

Brightness difference in an animated dusk sky. Again, notice that the blacks do not suffer while brightness improves.

One more showing the white difference. This is similar to another shot I posted in the Ddog vs. ME thread. That shot showed improved blacks while this one shows much improved whites. I'm trying to get both in one shot.

And the dream lives on...

First off, my measurements are very rough and probably closer to +-5% since I'm really doing it by eye and making a batch at a time. When I need to change the formula, I generally mix in the tray and guestimate the actual percentages. I've gotten better at it (with all this practice), so these are probably close enough since it's mixing a gray with silver - not the white and silver where even 5% difference means a significantly difference result.

Also failed to mention that there is no sheen/shimmer/hot-spotting.

It rolls much easier, though you still have to watch out not to over-work it too long. I got few of the ddog roller problems using my foam roller, and it was much easier to correct when it happened.

Overall, it's almost as easy as ME to apply, though application takes a bit longer to mix and apply. Based on my experience thus far, this one looks the best without adding a huge amount of effort to the basic ME.

This time around it was one of the previous overcoat attempts: approx 40% ME, 30% SM, 15% Clear flat base, 15% faux glaze

I will attempt to paint the other panel straight ME and then reproduce my one-coat formula on top. Kinda hard to call it a one-coat solution if there are 2 coats, but you get the idea.

MM-
You give my camera way too much credit. I noticed what you call the screendoor in several of my (close to 100) shots - but in reality it was a weird moire effect that somehow was caught in the interaction between the screen and my camera. I pitched many of the shots because of this. I will testify that the SDE is nearly invisible in the real-world viewing environment - and is no different from the ME.

Look at OC-ts6 and tell me there's SDE. Not there - simply a strange camera effect. Probably because it's only 2.0 Mp, but who knows...

CMRA-
I think the difference may be the camera mainly, but also the pj. Haven't seen direct comparisons between the Z1 and the TW100 (using the same camera, etc) but I dare say that camera makes most of the difference.

In the future I'll try to lower the resolution of the pics instead of shrinking the high res pics to fit on this site. I've never directly compared the pics to the actual, but I've always had the impression (after using for about 2 years) that the images are nice but stark somehow. Colors are not especially vivid, but unusually washed out. I'm just used to the look of the pics.

Again, these images were not to deride ME in anyway. I only wanted to show the potential enhancements of my formulation over the basic ME. I think the changes are good and worthwhile - especially considering the minimal effort over and above the standard ME application.

MM-
I can wait for awhile. I'm redoing this formulation on top of a standard ME base this week, but I'd like to try one panel of your mix to compare those. As I mentioned, I'd still like to improve the blacks more.

I will try some shots at lower res to see if I can get rid of the moire effects (never had the issue previously as far as I remember).

For the viewing cone, the shift is very gradual and not especially upseting. In our room, it's not an issue unless your walking to your seat or standing next to the screen. In all seating positions, there is no shift.

Look forward to seeingsome good shots from your new screens. Use a tripod!

On a whim, last night I painted one of my panels with an equal parts mix of 25% of glaze, clear flat base, ME, and SM. It was reminiscent of ddog - it rolled poorly.

Tonight I viewed it against my ME screen and, amazingly, there was almost no discernable difference between the two! The color of the test panel was similar to the ddog colr - and quite different from ME. But the differences were negligible.

Just goes to show how good Misty Evening really is all by itself.

Tonight I was able to paint my ME panel with my formula (more accurate % mix this time). Give it a day or two to cure and I'll compare again. Stay tuned.