As James mentioned, the color "blends in between" come from the having lasers with a wide, smooth, modulation range, and software written to support the hardware's capabilities. With the right combination of software and just 3 lasers, virtually millions of color shades are possible!
The trade-off for us hobbyists often comes in the form of "power vs. color". To put it in VERY simplified (relative) terms, green is cheap, blue is expensive, and "usable" red (beam specs with diameters that actually fit the scanner mirrors) is somewhere in between. With the right software, we can get a pretty good "white" balance, and subsequently a very nice, wide color palette, with just about any combination of lasers in the three colors. Unfortunately, what frequently happens with a lot of us hobbysists is we wind up having to "dial back" the power of our (often) over-powered green, and sometimes red, lasers to white-balance the lower-powered, expensive blue laser. The result can be a VERY nice wide-range color combination for graphics, but less power overall.
DMX-only projectors probably are going to be VERY limited in the color combinations available - in fact, unless it is set up for analog modulation, you may have only 7 colors available, since that is all you can get with 3 lasers either "on" or "off" (TTL modulation) with no in-between shades. Software/hardware packages like Pangolin's LD2000/QM2000 or FB3 with LAStudio, and others, are designed to give you full control of the lasers' capabilities across their full analog range. In fact, the LD2000 lets you assign different color palettes to laser frames as needed, so you could feasibly incorporate nice color-balanced graphics and full-power beam shots in the same show.
Like James said, we take what we can get (afford!!), and make the most of it with software - at least until we hit the lottery and can afford those multi-watt full color mega-buck lasers used by the pros!! Besides, those would be WAY to bright to use in my garage...
Last edited by Stuka; 10-11-2008 at 18:13.
RR
Metrologic HeNe 3.3mw Modulated laser, 2 Radio Shack motors, and a broken mirror.
1979.
Sweet.....