Halloween Window Projection: Best Projector and Screen

Quick comparison

How we chose: the Nebula Capsule 3 Laser is the projector the Lazy Lighting team uses hands-on, including in our own videos. The other picks are based on manufacturer specifications; we have not tested them ourselves. Check current specifications and availability before buying. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

How Halloween window projection works

You hang or stick a translucent screen across the inside of the window and project onto it from the room. People outside see the image through the glass, framed by the window. This is rear projection, and it is why window ghosts are the most forgiving Halloween effect: the projector never goes outside, nobody walks through the beam, and you control how dark the room is.

The trade-off is that the screen absorbs and scatters some light on the way through, and the room behind it has to stay dark. Get those two things right and a small projector looks surprisingly strong from the sidewalk. For pumpkins, porches and garage doors, see our Halloween projector roundup.

Choose the screen: film, shower curtain, drop cloth or sheer

Clear glass passes almost all of the light straight into the yard, so you need a diffusing layer in the window. Each common material trades brightness against evenness and how much of the projector's bright spot shows through.

Whatever you pick, stretch it flat and cover the whole pane. Wrinkles show up as dark bands from outside, and any uncovered glass lets the room show through.

• Rear-projection film or frosted window film: applied to the glass, so it is perfectly flat. It gives the sharpest, most even image. White film is brighter; grey film holds contrast better near streetlights. It costs the most, so test a small piece first and choose a removable static-cling type if you rent.
• Purpose-made window projection sheet: a hanging fabric made for this job. AtmosFX, for example, sells a white semi-translucent nylon sheet in 4 × 6 ft and 5.5 × 9 ft sizes and says it is designed to minimize hotspots and glare.
• White frosted shower curtain: the best cheap option. It diffuses well and passes plenty of light. Hang it a few days early or warm it with a hair dryer so the fold lines relax, and hold it taut with a tension rod.
• Drop cloth or bedsheet: a thin plastic drop cloth behaves like a cheaper, flimsier shower curtain. A canvas or cotton cloth hides the hotspot well but eats a lot of light and shows its weave, so it suits a brighter projector better than the Capsule.
• Sheer fabric or grey mesh: lets the image appear to float, which is the classic hologram ghost. It is the dimmest option and shows the strongest hotspot, and anything lit in the room shows through. Use it only with content on pure black in a completely dark room.

Avoid the hotspot

A hotspot is the projector's lens showing through the screen as a bright glow, usually in the middle of the image, with the corners falling off. It is worst with thin, see-through materials and when the projector sits close to the window, because the angle to the edges gets steep.

Three fixes help most. Place the projector above or below the eye line of people on the street, so they are not looking straight down the lens; a tripod set low and angled slightly up works well for ground-floor windows. Move it further back if the room allows. And if the glow is still obvious, switch to a denser material or add a second layer, accepting a dimmer image.

Set rear projection mode, then lock the image

From the street, a rear-projected image is a mirror image. Symmetrical ghosts may look fine either way, but text, a face looking one way and anything else with a left and right will read backwards. Most projectors have a projection-mode setting with front, rear and ceiling options; XGIMI lists all of them for the Horizon 20 Pro. If yours lacks it, mirror the video in your player or app instead.

Once the image is aimed, turn off automatic keystone and screen fit. The Capsule 3 Laser has both, which is handy for movies, but if they run again after someone bumps the tripod they will shift a carefully fitted window.

How bright does the projector need to be?

After full dark, around 300 ANSI lumens is plenty for a typical window, because the image is small and the light is concentrated. That is why the Capsule 3 Laser works so well here, and it is the projector we use in our own videos. Run it on its charger, though: Nebula's support page lists lower brightness figures on battery, and with auto brightness enabled it switches to eco mode when unplugged.

Plan for roughly 1,000 lumens or more if a streetlight or your own porch light falls on the window, if it is a very large picture window, or if you want the effect visible when trick-or-treating starts around dusk. At that point the XGIMI Horizon 20 Pro is the comfortable choice. Brightness is also wasted if the room behind the screen is lit, so fix the room before buying more lumens.

Throw distance: how far back for your window

Image width is roughly distance divided by throw ratio, so with the Capsule's 1.2:1 lens you need about 1.2 m of distance for each metre of width. Measure from the lens to the glass, then leave room behind the projector for the tripod and cable.

Most windows are taller than a 16:9 image, so decide what to fill. Sizing to the width gives a short, wide picture in the middle of the pane. Sizing to the height fills the window top to bottom but spills past the sides, which you then mask to black. Nebula's own chart puts the Capsule 3 Laser at about 1.05 m for a 40-inch image and 3.18 m for a 120-inch image, so most windows fall inside its range. For other projectors, use our throw-distance calculator.

• A 0.9 m (3 ft) wide pane, sized to its width: about 1.1 m (3.5 ft) back. The image will be about 0.5 m tall.
• A 1.2 m (4 ft) tall pane, sized to its height: the 16:9 image is about 2.1 m wide, so about 2.6 m (8.5 ft) back. Mask the sides.
• A 1.8 m (6 ft) wide picture window: about 2.2 m (7 ft) back.
• Room too shallow? Fill only the lower sash, or choose a smaller window.

Mounting and keeping the room dark

Put the projector on a tripod at roughly the height of the window's center and aim straight at it. Lock the ball head, tape around the tripod feet so it goes back to the same place, and keep the vents clear of curtains. Route the power cable where nobody will catch it in the dark.

Then make the room as dark as the screen allows. Switch off lamps, close the door to a lit hallway, and cover standby LEDs or a TV glowing near the window. Close the curtains on any windows you are not using. Light from inside hits the back of the screen and lifts the black parts of the image, which is what turns a crisp ghost into a grey rectangle from outside.

Map the window shape

A plain video player shows a rectangle, and the edges of that rectangle glow on the frame, the wall and the curtains. Projection mapping fits the scene to the window instead: you trace the glass and everything outside it stays black. Mullions can be masked so the ghost appears behind the panes rather than painted across them, and arched tops can be traced with an outline shape.

The window section of Lazy Lighting's Halloween guide walks through this from a phone, and Lazy Lighting Link lets the phone send the show wirelessly to a Google TV projector such as either of our picks. For content, use loops made on pure black so only the figure lights up. Life-size silhouettes, slow movement and the occasional jump scare read best through a window. If you would rather play your own files, start with Lazy Lighting's list of free Halloween projector videos.