Hi Dennis,
You have a number of screen choices open to you. If you're going to be viewing with no lights on and have dark walls you could go with a lighter, or even white, screen, but if you want to have "walking around" light in the room (say during a party), or need to increase the constrast of your projected image, some type of gray screen would be the best answer.
You can save some money by going DIY, but good commercial screens can be had for around a $150 difference compared to a good DIY screen if you have to buy all new materials for the DIY screen. If you can simply paint a wall the cost will plummet to just the cost of the paint, rollers and your time.
For ease of contruction, most DIY'ers go with sheetgoods such as tempered hardboard or MDF and then paint them then make a boarder and wrap it in black velvet. Such screens are every bit as good (and sometimes better
) than many commercial screens, but unless you simply enjoy the DIY process, or like to have "braggin' rights" to your new screen and enjoy the looks on your family and friends faces when you proudly say "I made that!" then commercial might be the way to go.
I, personally, like gray screens because many times what a projected image lacks for one reason or another is contrast and "snap" or "pop" (let us hope you never have "crackle"! :bigsmile
. A commercial screen that might meet your needs would be a High Contrast Gray from Elite Screens:
http://www.provantage.com/elite-screens-silverframe106h1~7ELSC00L.htm. Mech has samples of most of the Elite screen materials so he can give you better advice along that line.
If building a DIY screen and painting it is no problem, it sounds like Cream&Sugar would be a good screen for you. This mix is inexpensive and easy to make with all ingredients being available locally in most areas of the U.S. and Canada. While at N9 on the Munsell Gray Scale (N10 is pure white) it is really a light gray, it has the advantage of having a bit more contrast and richer colors than a true white screen, but has very similar whites as a white screen.
If you need more help in image contrast or combating ambient light problems then you could go with Scorpion or Black Widow which are darker grays. All our mixes here at HTS are designed to be easy to mix and apply. The only ingredient that might have to be ordered from a non-local source would be the Auto Air Aluminum paint used in Black Widow, but it is easily purchased from a number of sources via the internet.
One other thing I will say about our mixes is that they have been
scientifically developed and
documented to work with the documentation published in the named threads of the mixes.