Profile Manager & Profile Inspector

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Contents 1 Profile Manager 1.1 Display of Profile Information 1.1.1 The Icons 2 Profile Inspector 2.1 To Open Profiles into the Profile Inspector 2.2 The Profile Inspector Bar 2.3 Overview Tab 2.4 Header Fields Tab 2.5 Tag Table Browser 2.6 Curves Tab 2.7 Errors/Warnings

Profile Manager

Use Profile Manager to organize the profiles you have installed on your system. Profile Manager has been designed to have a multi-paned interface that clearly shows all profiles installed on your system and also allows them to be selected by location, profile type, color space and other attributes. Those users familiar with Apple's iTunes software should find the interface familiar. Profiles can be enabled or disabled individually or in sets.

To Open the Profile Manager:

• Choose “System:Profile Manager” or
• Type command-M or
• Click the Profile Manager button on the menu bar.

Profile Manager will open and begin scanning your operating system for ICC profiles. PM is multi-threaded and performs its work in the background so you can do other things while it works, including closing the window. Profile Manager scans the following locations for profiles:

Windows: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\COLOR

OS X:

/ ~/ Library/ ColorSync/ Profiles/ (your user folder)

/ Library/ ColorSync/ Profiles/ (system-wide multi-user access)

/ System/ Library/ ColorSync/ Profiles/ (system-only profiles)

If you have been disabling profiles by locating them elsewhere on your hard disk we suggest re-enabling them by placing them in the “/Library/ ColorSync/ Profiles/ “ (OS X) folder. This will make them available to all applications and users on your system and allow Profile Manager to handle them from now on.

Once Profile Manager has finished scanning for profiles, it will display the following window:

Display of Profile Information

• Profile Manager performs a quick check to determine file type, internal name, profile type and space and also checks for name parity (the same name internally as externally). By default, the name parity check is disabled but can be enabled in Preferences.
• Click on an item in the Locations list to select all installed profiles or those located only in a selected location.
• Click on an item in the Types list to select profiles by their type.
• Click on an item in the Color Spaces list to select profiles by their color space.
• Right click on a profile to bring up more options: Graph in 2D, 3D,

Through these three lists you can quickly choose profiles that fit your search requirements. The relevant profiles appear in the lower list box for your inspection.

The Icons

Each profile is displayed with an icon as illustrated below:

Profile icon - It has been recognized as a valid profile - this is a preliminary check only. Full Color Medic inspection is required to determine if the profile is fully valid and without errors.

Caution – The profile failed the name parity test. Its internal name is different than the file name.

Stop sign - This file is not a recognizable profile.

Listing Options

• Click on a profile to get a quick summary of profile information at the bottom of the window including the internal and external (file) names.
• Click the disclosure triangle to grow the window and expose more profile information including profile size, modification date, and location.
• Click on a column header to sort the list by the contents of that column.
• Profiles can be displayed by internal or external name by selecting “External Name” or “Internal Name”. The current selection with be underlined.
• Disabled profiles can be hidden by unchecking "Show Disabled Profiles". Disabling a profile when "Show Disabled Profiles" is unchecked will make

the profile "poof" disappear. A little surprising at first but cool overall.

Enabling & Disabling Profiles

Check or uncheck the box to the left of the profile to enable or disable it. Profiles that cannot be disabled due to their location or type will appear without a checkbox. This includes ColorSync default profiles (such as the Generic profiles) and profiles located in folder to which the user does not have sufficient privileges for copying and deleting files. Disabling a profile moves it into a folder near the original location with “(Disabled)” added to the folders name. If you have organized your profiles in subfolders, the subfolder structure will be maintained as the profile is disabled and re-enabled.

Sets

Use sets to enable or disable profiles in groups

• When the current profiles do not match the current set, Profile Manager will prompt to impose the set, do nothing, or update the set. If nothing or update is chosen then new additions are marked in bold. Empty folders may prompt the user to change a set, yet not be displayed when "Show in folders" is not selected.
• A diamond will appear next to the sets popup menu showing the set has been altered and the change has not been saved.

To Open a Profile

• Double-click a profile in the list
• Select a profile and choose “Profile:Open with Profile Inspector”
• Select a profile and press command-I (Mac) or control-I (Windows)

The profile will open in the Profile Inspector

To Rename a Profile

• Select “Profile:Rename Profile...” and the Renamer will open for renaming.

To Restructure / Rewrite a Profile

• Select “Profile:Restructure Profile"

This will read in the profile and write it back out to disk – see Restructure Profile above for more information.

Drag profiles out of the Profile Manager list to

• The menu bar - to open it
• Into an open graph or a graph button on the menu bar to graph it, or add it to a graph.
• Onto the Profile Linker button on the menu bar or into the Profile Linker window to add it to a device link profile.
• Onto an open Image Inspector window to embed the profile in an image.

Profile Inspector

Profile Inspector opens all ICC-compliant profiles and displays their contents graphically as well as allowing browsing of header and tag table information. Using the same technology as the Profile Medic, Profile Inspector performs a comprehensive 16-point integrity check on the profile’s structure and internal information. Any errors or warnings are summarized in a list and can be repaired with Profile Medic.

To Open Profiles into the Profile Inspector

• Choose “File:Open” and select a profile.
• Double click a profile in Profile Manager
• Drag a profile onto the menu bar
• Drag and drop them onto the ColorThink application icon in the Finder

The Profile Inspector Bar

Renamer – Click to open the Renamer and change the internal or external names.

Install – Click to move the profile into the “ColorSync Profiles” folder. This is disabled if the profile is already installed.

Profile Medic – Click to run Profile Medic on the profile and step through the repair process. This is the same process as running Profile Medic from the main menu bar except fixes are performed only on the open profile. This is disabled if no warnings or errors are found in the profile.

Profile Linker – Click to open a new PL window and add the profile as the source profile. Option-clicking this button will add the profile as the destination instead.

2D Graphing – Click to graph profile in 2D in the Grapher. To add profile to an existing graph, drag profile icon onto open graph window.

3D Graphing – Click to graph profile in 3D in the Grapher. To add profile to an existing graph, drag profile icon onto open graph window.

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The Profile Inspector window is composed of several “Tabs”

Overview Tab

OR

ColorSync Check

This indicator displays whether or not ColorSync’s validation procedure found the profile to be sound. ColorSync uses different validation checks for profiles than the Profile Inspector, this information is shown to confirm that ColorSync likes it too. (Mac only)

Device and PCS text

The box area on the left of the Overview Tab summarizes the information regarding the device colorspace of the profile. The box on the right summarizes the information regarding the Profile Connection Space (PSC) of the profile.

Arrows

The arrows summarize the type of profile (matrix vs. look up table – LUT, vs. NCP), the accuracy (8 or 16 bit), the grid size of a LUT-based profile, and the number of custom colors in a Named Color Profile (NCP).

The Color Tabs

The color tabs represent different colors depending on the profiles involved:

• For device profiles, these color tabs represent the colors of the primaries of the device as they were read when the profile was made.
• For device link profiles the tabs show a representation of how colors will be modified by the profile. As no colorimetric information is contained in device link profiles, default RGB and CMYK profiles are used to display colors to screen. If the link profiles refer to color spaces other than CMYK, RGB, Lab or XYZ, there are no standard profiles available via ColorSync and color tabs will not be displayed. When available, the tabs will open to show device settings. Please refer to the Tutorials section of this manual for an example of evaluating a device link profile.
• The Lab and XYZ tabs represent the Profile Connection Space (PCS) and are for illustration only. They cannot be dragged for graphing or other purposes.
• Refer to the section near the beginning of this manual for a full description of color tab features and behavior.

Other notes

• Device Link Profiles are used exclusively to convert from one set of device colors to another and as a result, contain no colorimetric information. To display CMYK or RGB colors on screen, the default RGB and CMYK profiles set in the ColorSync control panel are used.
• Named Color Profiles (NCP’s) are properly opened and the number of colors in the profile is displayed. An “Export Color List” button is available and allows the export of the NCP’s list of colors for further analysis and graphing.
• Monitor Profiles will display the measured white point in Kelvin.

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Header Fields Tab

The header fields in an ICC profile contain information and settings that apply to all ICC profile types. Most of these fields are for information purposes only but some can be edited:

• Default Rendering Intent – in applications or printer drivers that do not allow the setting of the desired rendering intent, this setting is typically used. Change the setting with the popup menu and then save the profile using “File:Save” for the change to take effect.
• Preferred CMM – in applications or printer drivers that do not allow the setting of the desired CMM (Color Management Module), this setting is typically used. CMM selection and arbitration is a complex issue that takes into consideration the available CMM’s, the ability of the selected CMM to perform the desired operation and other factors. Change the setting with the popup menu and then save the profile using “File:Save” for the change to take effect.
• A diamond will appear next to the profile icon showing the profile has been altered and the change has not been saved.

Please refer to the ICC specification for more information. A link to the ICC website is available in the ColorThink About Box and the “Web” menu.

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Tag Table Browser

The tag table in an ICC profile contains a series of data fields that are variable length and contain many different types of information. Text, color, device settings, descriptions and other information are contained in tags. The ICC profile specification requires some tags to be supplied in each type of profile. Additional “private” tags can be supplied by profile making or editing applications and may be used by CMM’s to render color differently. ColorThink recognizes all ICC-approved tags and a descriptive explanation is given for each of these tag types. Private unrecognized tags are marked as such. If a profile manufacturer is willing to make their private tag information available to CHROMiX, we will consider writing tag interpreters for their tags into future versions of ColorThink.

Please contact us for more information.

> The Tag List – displays each tag in the profile including it’s data type and a description field.
> Click on a tag for more information including where in the profile the tag resides and a summary of the tags information.
> Color tags are shown in several different coordinate systems and a color tab displays the color for viewing or graphing.
> “Text” data types can be exported into text files for further processing. Some profile-building applications (such as GretagMacbeth ProfileMaker Pro) embed the original measurement and reference data in the profile in the form of “Text” tags. These lists can be exported and read back as Color Lists for analysis or graphing.

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Curves Tab

This screen gives a 2D graph of the neutral rendering curves.

Change the rendering intent that is graphed by clicking the drop-down box under "Rendering Intent."

The axis are not labeled, but they can be thought of in the following way:

• The left column would be labeled 0 to 100, bottom to top. This represents the lightness scale.
• The bottom axis would be labeled 100 to 0, left to right. This represents the input values for CMYK.
• The bottom axis would be labeled 0 to 100, left to right when referring to the density line.

Errors/Warnings

If any errors or warnings are discovered as the profile is opened,

a caution

or stop icon will appear in the “Errors and Warnings” tab to alert you of the problem. All errors and warnings will be summarized in this tab. Click the Profile Medic button to perform the necessary fixes on the profile.

Drag and Drop the profile icon onto:
> a graph button or into an existing graph to add it to the graph.
> the PL button or an open PL window to add it to a device link profile.
> an open image window to embed it into the image file.
> a Color List window to convert the list using the profile’s color information.

Go on to the next section: Profile Medic

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