Lightroom on low resolution displays?

Question

I probably didn't find the right text to search by, but I figure this has to be an ongoing issue...
I periodically need to show people how to do things in Lightroom.  When it's a group we project the display using an ordinary projector at 1024x768.  When I do this, the side columns are huge (sorry, I've forgotten the right term for the columns that show keywords, collections, and so on)...  I've gone to the small font, which is NOT small, but how do I change fonts or whatever so these columns are visible but a WHOLE lot smaller so there's room for the thumbnails in the middle?  And yes, I know I can close them, but that pretty much defeats the purpose of showing people how to use LR if you have to keep closing all the displays to show thumbnails.....
I figure there's GOT to be a way to make the fonts or whatever a LOT smaller, but I haven't found it yet...

Answer 1

ambienttroutmask wrote:
Projectors should scale to the screen resolution up to the maximum resolution the projector is capable of. I pointed out earlier that with most projectors made in the last few years this is 1280 x 800. If you are using an older projector then it may be limited to the resolution you give and changing the screen will not produce a higher resolution, but you should always be running a monitor at its maximum resolution to get the best from LR. If I was using a 1024 x 768 monitor or projector to teach I would use it as an opportunity to explain how Adobes minimum standards are in reality not practical and that using LR (or indeed any other serious editing application) requires a higher resolution screen.
Increasingly of course home cinima projectors are capable of 1080 (1960 x 1080) for FHD movies and these may be the very expensive ones you were thinking about when you rather over priced projectors! Although here in the UK 1080 projectors are around £2,000.
If you are using the projector for photographic purposes, rather than home cinema, you want a 4:3 projector (unless you specialise in panoramas!). Wide-screen is just wasting pixels - what we really want are square lcds in our photographic projectors so that portrait and landscape images are the same size when projected to fill the screen.
Although projectors will scale up and down, you positively do NOT want to use that facility. For best results, you MUST export your images from LR at the correct size for the projector. I have two projectors, an Epson 1024x768 (which is still the commonest size around for photographic use in camera clubs), and a new Canon 1400x1050. I size the images for the projector I am using. Also, make sure that when exporting the images at the correct size, you also sharpen the images for the screen in the export dialog. It makes an enormous difference, because scaling down softens the images just as scaling up does.
You should also try not to use keystoning; that ruins the image detail, just as scaling does. Raise the projector to midscreen level, if possible. Any scaling up or down should be done in LR or PS, where you are using decent scaling algorithms, not the simple ones in projectors.
I should perhaps add that most people projecting images at camera clubs do NOT use LR - its slideshow facilities are fairly minimal. But I do use LR for preparing the images for projection, irrespective of the slideshow program used to project them.
Bob Frost