“A Delta E 2000 value of 1 is the threshold below which a colour difference is imperceptible.”
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We rated this Partly true and called the 2024 study the better authority. An outside audit pointed out that the study measured something else. It tested ceramic dental shade tabs, viewed by 20 dentists and 20 patients, and the threshold it found is the point where half of observers see a difference. That is a different material and a different viewing task from print, so it cannot set or contradict a threshold for printed colour. The '1' figure comes from a vendor blog with no data or method, and our sources hold no measurement made on printed samples. We confirmed that the vendor says 1, not that 1 is the threshold, so the figure is unverified.
This verdict was revised on , against pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. It was published as ◐ Partly true. The reasoning it was published with is below, unedited.
As first published
1 Delta E 2000 as the perceptibility threshold is stated verbatim by Source 1 (Techkon/Datacolor), a vendor blog, but Source 2 contradicts the figure: the peer-reviewed 2024 J Clin Exp Dent study measured 50%:50% perceptibility thresholds of Delta E 2000 = 2.29 for dentists and Delta E 2000 = 2.27 for patients — over twice the claimed value. Source 2 is the better authority, being a controlled visual study under D65 illumination with stated statistics, whereas Source 1 offers the '1' figure as a generalization with no supporting data; the claim is therefore only defensible as a rule of thumb, not as a measured threshold.
The span it rests on
Generally, a 1 D E 00 is deemed the threshold, indicating that any value below it signifies an imperceptible difference
Copied character for character from techkon.datacolor.com and matched against the fetched page before this verdict was written.
We rated this Partly true and called the 2024 study the better authority. An outside audit pointed out that the study measured something else. It tested ceramic dental shade tabs, viewed by 20 dentists and 20 patients, and the threshold it found is the point where half of observers see a difference. That is a different material and a different viewing task from print, so it cannot set or contradict a threshold for printed colour. The '1' figure comes from a vendor blog with no data or method, and our sources hold no measurement made on printed samples. We confirmed that the vendor says 1, not that 1 is the threshold, so the figure is unverified.
“color differences in ceramic shade tabs observed by dentists and patients using CIEDE2000 color difference formula”