Serendipity Blackmagic and Megarip have always included a monitor calibration app to ensure colour accurate softproofing. The one step that was missing was verification of the state of the monitor calibration. Currently in development is a new app called Calcheck which addresses this issue. The concept is very simple. Users use the workbench to create a Calcheck chart from either an icc profile or by manually entering Lab values for patches that describe the process they are trying to proof. Generally one would pick a profile for their printing press and then the Calcheck generator would create a patch set which uniformly covers the target gamut. Below is a screen shot of the workbench app showing some patches I generated for ISO 12647-7. 
As you can see from the image above, each patch can have its own Δe tolerance which is used to decide whether a particular patch passes or fails. Patches can also be labeled as cyan, magenta, yellow, black or paper so that they can be identified as such in any generated report. By default, the generator sets the cyan, magenta, yellow, black and paper Δe tolerances to 3.0 and all other patches to 6.0. The maximum allowed average is automatically set to 3.0 and the maximum Δe is set to 6.0. You can even pick which Δe formula is used for determine tolerances. Currently supported formulas are Δe, CIE 94 and CIE 2000. Once the monitor has been calibrated, this chart can be use to check the calibration. I recently chose 3 monitors that we have here at our Sydney office and proceeded to check how well they proof the ISO 12647-7 printing process. ISO 12647-7 is a printing colourspace which makes it quite hard for monitors to achieve as there are some areas which are outside a monitor’s gamut. The 3 monitors chosen were, in alphabetical order, an Apple 30 inch display, an EIZO ColorEdge CG241W and a Sony SDM X73. The Sony is not really meant for proofing as it is just a simple 17 inch desktop display, however it was included so comparisons can be properly made. Results for ISO 12647-7
| Monitor | Δe C | Δe M | Δe Y | Δe K | Δe Paper | Δe Max | Δe Avg | Std dev | Pass |
| Apple 30 inch | 23.28 | 3.31 | 4.92 | 1.02 | 0.52 | 23.28 | 4.52 | 5.31 | No |
| EIZO ColorEdge CG241W | 2.19 | 3.05 | 2.27 | 1.30 | 1.17 | 3.10 | 1.60 | 0.79 | Yes |
| Sony SDM X73 | 29.76 | 10.09 | 10.26 | 0.89 | 0.70 | 29.76 | 6.76 | 6.46 | No |
Below are screenshots of the 3 monitors in the Calcheck app after having checked the monitor against the ISO 12647-7 patch set. Image below is the Calcheck results for the Apple 30 inch display. 
Image below is the Calcheck results for the EIZO ColorEdge CG241W 
Image below is the Calcheck results for the Sony SDM X73 17 inch LCD. 
As I mentioned earlier, ISO 12647-7 is quite touch to reproduce so for the sake of completeness I decided to generate some patches for the ISO newsprint standard and test the Apple and EIZO displays. Newsprint has a much smaller gamut so it should be easier to pass a Calcheck. Results for ISO newsprint
| Monitor | Δe C | Δe M | Δe Y | Δe K | Δe Paper | Δe Max | Δe Avg | Std dev | Pass |
| Apple 30 inch | 3.46 | 1.58 | 3.55 | 0.88 | 0.37 | 3.73 | 1.71 | 0.98 | Yes |
| EIZO ColorEdge CG241W | 0.76 | 3.20 | 0.85 | 1.08 | 0.61 | 3.20 | 1.27 | 0.78 | Yes |
Below are screenshots of the 2 monitors in the Calcheck app after having checked the monitor against the ISO newsprint patch set. Image below is the Calcheck results for the Apple 30 inch display. 
Image below is the Calcheck results for the EIZO ColorEdge CG241W 
These tests are in no way conclusive as we only tested one of each monitor which is not a statistically significant sample. Once the feature is released we will be able to collect more data and provide more accurate results. The Calcheck feature will be included in version 3.5 of Serendipity Blackmagic and version 4.5 of Serendipity Megarip. Expect them to be available sometime towards the end of October 2007. Note: clicking on any of the images in this post will provide you with a higher resolution version of that image.
Thanks for a great tool! Previously not available except from high-end testing apps. No doubt the Apple 30 inch display you tested was the new Apple Cinema 30 Display? Cheers, Tom at Ynzal, your agent in Manila.
Our Apple 30 inch is about a year old. I am not sure if there has been any change in more recent models.
I’ll check on that, Peter S. Since we are an authorized Mac dealer and service provider, I can find out. However, even 2 years ago, the reports from Koldenhof Grafmedia NL: http://www.colormanagement.nl/reports/index.php?acdcolor05_intro
were very positive on the Cinema Display. No doubt you’ve seen in their report their measurement of color patches on monitor vs Standard printing. I’ve used several Cinema Displays since 2006 for quality magazine publishing and the match to the press (ISO Offset Coated) was very close and very satisfactory. The price is right, too! Cheers, Tom
Looking at the report I see that they used DeltaE CIE94 for all their calculations, which is more perceptually correct. I used the standard DeltaE formula typically called euclidean or CIE 1976. If I use DeltaE CIE 2000, the Apple Cinema display passes without any problems. It is up to the user to select the appropriate formula for their standards. My aim was just to provide a comparison between the different monitors rather than any absolute results.
Hi Pete,
the minitor tool works fine. If you have the chance to get yourself one of the new NEC SpectraView monitors (26″ is out 30 Inch coming) ths will
be even better than the latest EIZO one. I just leaned this at the show in Stuttgart.
If you can manage to get yourself the
Ugra Display Analysis and Certification Tool
for PC and Mac
http://www.ugra.ch/index.php?session=9422325&show=299
It is worth looking at. The best analysis tool I found so far
Right now there seems to be no acceptable middle ground for LCD monitors. You got the uber-cheap ones, office oriented models that sell for under $350 for a 20″ ; then you got the Apple Cinemas which are about double that price but still haven’t got the needed gamut so fail the cyan. And then you got Eizo, LaCie, Quato, Mitsubishi, etc touting displays that are all over $1800 and up to $3000 or more.
Now Dell has released a 24″ called “HC” that they say has an expanded gamut to 92% of NTSC (most LCDs are about 72%) and it’s about $650 ; don’t know if it has 10 bit DACs, but I’m quite eager to test it. May be the holy grial of a decent proofing monitor under $1000.
Pete, your calibrator is just profiling, or it does write to the video luts? or maybe even uses DDC control?
On the Mac our profiler writes video luts if the user wishes to do so. On Windows it does not as not all video card drivers supported downloadable video luts. We find that doing the video luts gives a slightly better result.
The thing about the Eizo and other such monitors is that all the luts and gamma are done in hardware in the monitor. As far as the operating system is concerned the monitor is a totally linear device with a gamma of 1.0.