[quote author=VW link=1211999457/12#20 date=1212015756]AFAIK, IR emits much less diverged than the actual laser beam. As long as you're standing behind, or to the side of the laser, you're not getting exposed. Look at it this way, with low powered lasers you'll probably get 1mW of IR to every 5mW of colour. So you'll only really be exposed to say around 5mW of IR with a 20mW laser. Higher powers on the other hand give out a significantly large ammount of IR, almost equal or greater than that of colour, this is where you really need to start to worry and where an IR filter is necessary. As long as you're aware that looking along the beam towards the laser is exposing you to IR, even while the beam isn't touching your eye, you should be okay.