Mx4 ???

[Dario]

Hi all,

can anyone please help me to find information about MX4?
I don't know what it is and where it came from!

 

[Bret Hesler]

MX4 is gmg's file format for its color tables.

 

[arossetti]

It is GMG's proprietary version of an ICC profile.

 

[Dario]

OK, THANKS!!
I'm having difficulties finding the right spot in their website... Could someone kindly point me to the right web page to read?

 

[Bret Hesler]

I don't see much on their website either. It is more of a "behind the scenes" part of their software. What are you trying to find out about mx4?

 

[Dario]

What are you trying to find out about mx4?

I ran into it today for the first time and I knew nothing about it.
I just wanted to fix my knowledge gaps

 

[Dario]

Is GMG really the packaging industries standard proofing software??
What do you all think about it?

 

[arossetti]

Is GMG really the packaging industries standard proofing software??
What do you all think about it?

I find it BS that they decided to make their color management proprietary. I don't live in the flexo packaging world but it is my understanding at one time they had the corner on multi-spot color profiling which made it very popular in packaging. I believe CGS has caught up.

 

[mikestr]

I find it BS that they decided to make their color management proprietary. I don't live in the flexo packaging world but it is my understanding at one time they had the corner on multi-spot color profiling which made it very popular in packaging. I believe CGS has caught up.

It's not quite that simple. MX4 is a proprietary form of device link profile that connects the reference color space with the printer output space. In most RIPs standard ICC profiles are used in both positions. By itself his has little or nothing to do with proofing spot colors, which is an area of special need for the packaging industry. This latter area needed some improvement, especially in the simulation of spot color tints and overprints. GMG leveraged some developments in this area in their OpenColor module, which uses a sparse sampling of tints printed over paper and over black to extrapolate a full range of tints and overprints. This type of sampling is part of the CXF-X4 specification and some software (e.g., ORIS CxF ToolBox, ColorLogic ZePrA) makes use of it for embedding data in PDFs and for conversion to the output space. This will become more common as CXF-X4 is increasingly adopted. As always, selection of any color conversion software should be evaluated in light of specific needs rather than as a blanket "better/best" ranking.

 

[Dario]

...so MX4 come in handy more than ICC when spot colours are in use, otherwise ICC and MX4 are equal.

 

[arossetti]

...so MX4 come in handy more than ICC when spot colours are in use, otherwise ICC and MX4 are equal.

As Mike stated the MX4 is more of a DL ICC profile.

A big issue I had with MX4/GMG when it came to actually using there color management in production it doesn't allow for a CMYK+RGB workflow which we rely on heavily.

For a proofing system; I think it is pretty tried and true. I just rather work with an ICC since it allows you to understand the sauce behind the profile, I can easily drop it in ColorThink and get some really good understanding of what the profile is doing. A MX4 beyond the trick I PM'd you about you really have to trust GMG.

 

[mikestr]

I'm probably not the person to ask for the full sales pitch for GMG. I'm sure they'll be happy to fill you in. But I think it would be safe to say that without the OpenColor module ColorProof will struggle like most proofing RIPs with advanced spot color functions such as simulating overprints; that is, after all, why they developed OC. I haven't seen any software that does a better job at this than ColorLogic ZePrA, and none that makes proofing and production multicolor separations in a single high-speed color server. (Disclosure: I sell CL software along with constant services and therefore partial to these solutions.) For CMYK proofing the playing field leveled long ago, at least as far as color accuracy is concerned--many choices out there from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars. MX4 does not, in my opinion, provide an significant advantage in this case, though the software is well engineered and supported.