EIZO Unveils ColorEdge CG221 LCD Monitor

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Eizo Nanao has announced the shipping of their ColorEdge CG221, the new flagship model of its ColorEdge series of LCD monitors for graphic arts, printing, digital photography, and other color-critical applications. The ColorEdge CG221 features a wide color gamut approximately equal to the Adobe RGB color space and a new color and brightness uniformity compensation function. The ColorEdge CG221 succeeds the ColorEdge CG220, which was the first LCD monitor in the industry with a color gamut that could reproduce nearly 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space.

In addition to having the same wide color gamut, the ColorEdge CG221 is equipped with EIZO's latest application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) which now provides uniform color and brightness across the entire screen. The ASIC includes a 12-bit look-up table that has a palette of 4, 096 grayscales and outputs the most appropriate 256 grayscale tones (8-bits) for each red, green, and blue, and 16-bit internal color processing. By achieving uniform display of brightness and color from corner to corner, the CG221 overcomes a problem characteristic of LCD monitors.

The 16-bit internal processing gives the CG221 a remarkably accurate color emulation function. Simply by obtaining the ICC profile of another monitor and using EIZO's ColorNavigator software, the CG221 can emulate its color characteristics. This is particularly useful when another monitor is the standard monitor in a workflow or for a remote proofing environment where all parties need to be sure their monitors display colors in the same way.

The wide color gamut produces substantially more colors than are available with most CRT and LCD monitors on the market. It covers not only the sRGB color space supported by many monitors and digital cameras, but also the ISO-coated, Euroscale-coated, and U.S. Web-coated color spaces used in printing.

The 22.2-inch screen has a 1920 x 1200 native resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio. This wide screen enables the full display of two A4 pages of an application like Adobe Photoshop and its tool palette without any overlap.

The 12-bit look-up table of the ColorEdge CG221 can be calibrated using the bundled ColorNavigator software and a GretagMacbeth Eye-One, X-Rite MonacoOPTIX, or ColorVision Spyder2 calibration devices (sold separately). ColorNavigator has a user-friendly, simple interface and calibration takes less than five minutes. It includes the following features:
- Setting of brightness, white point (color temperature), and gamma values. White point is adjustable in 100K increments from 4.000K to 10.000K and gamma in increments of 0.1 from 1.0 to 2.6.
- Black level adjustment to reproduce the light black used in the text for newspapers. The setting range is from 0.5 to 3.5 cd/m2.
- Post-calibration adjustment of white balance, brightness, black level, and gamma for further fine tuning of color.
- Delta-E indicator for white point that shows changes over time between the target point and the monitor's current point.

A monitor hood comes bundled with the CG221 to help shield the screen from ambient light. The convenient sliding top cover allows a calibration device to be placed on the screen without having to remove the hood.

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