Folding Blue Screen for Under $20

Blue folding screen,
with vertical fold lines.
Photo by Tom Worthington,
 20 July 2021 CC BY

The second hand folding room divider , I painted green for virtual Zoom backgrounds, works well but what if I want to wear green? The most common alternative to green, as a chroma key background, is blue. So I painted the other side of the divider blue. This did not work as well with Zoom as the green side.

QR Code for blue, from the 
Taubmans Coloursmith application

There appears less standardization on the shade of blue used, compared to green. I chose Hex color #0047BB (close to PANTONE 2728 C), as one of the most common mentioned in the literature. I uploaded an image this color to the Taubmans Coloursmith application. This produced a barcode, which I took this to the local hardware store to have a sample paint pot made up (less than $10 for 250 ml).

Blue

Blue folding screen, in Zoom
with virtual background. 
Vertical fold lines visible. 
Photo by Tom Worthington,
 20 July 2021 CC BY

Zoom was not able to delineate the dark blue background as well as the lighter green. Also the joins in the screen showed more than with green. The paint looked darker, and more purple than blue, when painted on the screen. 

QR Code for 
Bright Blue #0061FF 
from 
Taubmans Coloursmith

The literature points out that a blue screen will need more light than a green screen. But it may be that a less dark shade of blue would work better in an office, where studio lighting is not available. The lightest possible shade of this would be #0061FF. Another option would be the "Hi C Blue" (#0174b3) which is one of the standard colors of the Taubmans range.

Green

QR Code for green, from the 
Taubmans Coloursmith application

I also used the Colorsmith application to make Chroma Key Green. This looks almost identical to the Dulux Zatar Leaf color I had made previously.