Removing ICC profiles from PSD files?

AW
Posted By
Allen_W
Jan 11, 2004
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3425
Replies
27
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Closed
Is there a way to remove ICC profiles from PSD files? I’m using Photoshop CS. Thanks.
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file icc profile remove

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IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 11, 2004

1. Use the Image>Mode>Assign Profile command and choose "Don’t Colour Manage this Document" (this strips out an existing profile), and resave the image; or

2. Choose "Save As" and uncheck the Embed Colour Profile checkbox.
RL
Robert_Levine
Jan 11, 2004
Do a file save as and uncheck the profile.

Bob
AW
Allen_W
Jan 11, 2004
But the colors in my PSD file will still remain the same as I see it right? It won’t look different the next time I open it?
IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 11, 2004
Allen,

Assuming you have the Photoshop Color Settings configured correctly AND you don’t change the Photoshop working space then the next time you open the image it will appear the same.

I think if I were that concerned about maintaining the appearance I would leave the profile in place.

Why do you want to remove it?
AW
Allen_W
Jan 12, 2004
I was wondering if the colors in the file itself will be modified if I remove the ICC profile.
L
LenHewitt
Jan 12, 2004
Allen,

All an ICC profile does is identify the colour space the file was created in. Applications use that data to ‘alter the numbers’ when displaying or printing files to maintain the original intended appearance of the files, but that does not alter the data IN the file. Adding or removing a profile has no effect whatsoever on the data in the file.

What does alter that data is converting the file to another colour space and then re-saving it.
AW
Allen_W
Jan 12, 2004
LenHewitt,

So I can have color management off by default then, if I want, assign an ICC profile if I want to take the file elsewhere? Would that be a practical approach if color management is giving me on-screen color inconsistencies?
RW
Rene_Walling
Jan 12, 2004
Allen,

Turning colour management off is not really a viable option. The reason you are getting inconsistent colours on screen is either a) your monitor profile is corrupted or b) you are assigning the wrong profile to a file, a common occurence when not embedding the profiles
AW
Allen_W
Jan 12, 2004
It’s not "a" or "b."

I have the color management off now, so it’s using my monitor settings for RGB. I have to do this for files to open with proper colors in ImageReady CS. Weird.
PC
Philo_Calhoun
Jan 12, 2004
If consistance is desired with ImageReady, have all your files in sRGB. If you might want the additional gamut, work in AdobeRGB and convert to sRGB the files that you will work with in IR and then rename the file.
L
LenHewitt
Jan 12, 2004
Allen,

No. You would then be embedding an ICC profile that ‘lied’ about the colour space of the file, this guaranteeing incorrect colour output
AW
Allen_W
Jan 12, 2004

[If consistance is desired with ImageReady, have all your files in sRGB. If you might want the additional gamut, work in AdobeRGB and convert to sRGB the files that you will work with in IR and then rename the file.]

I’ve tried sRGB for RGB. But IR tends to use my monitor color settings instead. So the colors weren’t consistent.
PC
Philo_Calhoun
Jan 12, 2004
There is something wrong with your monitor’s profile.
IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 12, 2004
There is something wrong with your monitor’s profile.

He’s listening with his deaf ear!
AW
Allen_W
Jan 12, 2004

[He’s listening with his deaf ear!]

Are you saying you’re using CS and your sRGB works with consistent colors between PS and IR?
PC
Philo_Calhoun
Jan 12, 2004
Yes
IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 12, 2004
Allen,

No that is not what I’m saying! I’m saying you aren’t listening to what folk have been trying to tell you! Absolute consistency in the appearance of colour between PS and IR isn’t going to happen unless you meet certain criteria.

Have you calibrated you monitor? If not then begin there because ignoring that advice will mean that others will give up trying to help you sort out your problem. It may well not be the problem but we have to start somewhere!

IR isn’t colour managed so images displayed there will in many situations tend to appear different from what they do in Photoshop. If you got the "same" results between the two in PS7 then it is VERY likely that you had the colour settings set so that you were using Monitor RGB as your Photoshop working space.

From what you have written up to now it appears that your images are for the web. If so and you really need to use IR then yes you can just use "Colour Management Off", but doing so should not be necessary and for the most part is undesirable. Unless your monitor is totally screwed it should be close enough to sRGB that differences in colours between the two apps will be minimal. Your best choice for PS colour settings is "Web Graphics Defaults" or "North American General Purpose Defaults" and calibrate the monitor. If you see big differences after this then something is screwed on your system.
PC
Philo_Calhoun
Jan 13, 2004
Colour consistancy for WEB work is still largely a dream for the future, which is likely why IR is not colour managed. On MAC’s, IE can recognize embedded sRGB in WEB images, but there is no widely used WEB colour mgt on PC’s. Converting images to sRGB is your closest bet for "pretty good" WEB consistancy. But as Ian says, colour mgt should start always with monitor profiling. Unless you work at a press and go completely by colour numbers, everything else in colour mgt falls flat if your monitor is off. There is no reliable correction of images in PS.
PC
Philo_Calhoun
Jan 13, 2004
One additional point: don’t try to omit calibrating your monitor and just turn off colour mgt. For instance, if you monitor is so far off that blue colours display pink, when you create your pink flamingo for the WEB, it will display consistantly between IR, PS, and IE, but only for your computer. Everyone else will see a blue flamingo, and you will feel lonely being the only one that visits your site. If you print it, it will look blue as well.

Turning off colour mgt (or setting the workspace to your monitor’s profile) creates a lot of other headaches. When you buy a new monitor, all your images will be off in colour. So what you need to do is either convert your images to sRGB or create them in a sRGB workspace and calibrate your monitor. Other options trade a small initial ease for long term headaches.
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Jan 13, 2004
Unless your monitor is totally screwed it should be close enough to sRGB that differences in colours between the two apps will be minimal.

There’s something I don’t quite understand here.
I thought that sRGB was like a common denominator that tries to describe the common monitor around the world, but that doesn’t mean that the gamut of every monitor in the world is so close to sRGB, that you’ll never see inconsistency between sRGB and Monitor-RGB, does it?
If that’s the case, then I’m getting paranoid over the accuracy of my monitor profiles made with a Spyder from ColorVision and OptiCAL software, because my two monitor profiles is pretty far from sRGB.

This is my monitor profiles compared to sRGB:
<http://home18.inet.tele.dk/madsen/monitor/colour>. (The TFT is a Viewsonic VP201s and the CRT is a Sony GDM-FW900).

A blue colour for instance, defined as R:0, G:0, B:255 in an sRGB document, doesn’t look the same in Photoshop and ImageReady here, and especially not on my TFT. I was sure that the reason for this inconsistency was that ImageReady always sends the numbers directly to the monitor (and therefore always uses Monitor-RGB) because it isn’t colour managed.
Photoshop on the other hand, is colour managed and corrects the colours that it sends to the monitor so that the sRGB profile is "honoured", if sRGB is embedded in the document (or if sRGB is chosen as the working space and you open a document untagged). After reading this thread, I’m suddenly in doubt.

A document tagged with sRGB and filled with R:0, G:0, B:255 in Photoshop, has a much more saturated blue when viewed in ImageReady than it has in Photoshop but right now I can’t figure out why, when I look at: <http://home18.inet.tele.dk/madsen/monitor/colour>. As I see it, sRGB should give me at more saturated blue than my TFT monitor profile can give me, because the gamut of sRGB goes farther into the blues than my TFT profile does, but what I see in Photoshop and ImageReady, is the complete opposite of that. I’m confused and not just a little. Maybe I should go to bed and sleep on it, because it has bugged me for the last couple of hours.

—
Regards
Madsen.
AW
Allen_W
Jan 13, 2004
So to calibrate an ICC for my monitor, do I just have to run Adobe Gamma, and I’ll be done?
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Jan 13, 2004
<http://home18.inet.tele.dk/madsen/monitor/colour>.
As I see it, sRGB should give me at more saturated blue than my TFT monitor profile can give me, because the gamut of sRGB goes farther into the blues than my TFT profile does, but what I see in Photoshop and ImageReady, is the complete opposite of that.

D’OH!
sRGB can’t give me a more saturated blue than my TFT profile can (Monitor-RGB) because if I send the numbers R:0, G:0, B:255 to my monitor from non-colour managed applications, they’ll just show me the most saturated blue that the monitor can produce, right?

It still bugs me though that Photoshop is showing me a much less saturated blue in sRGB than the monitor can produce, when the sRGB profile goes farther in to blues than my monitor profile does, according to my profile viewer. Shouldn’t Photoshop show me at least the same blue on screen in sRGB than in Monitor-RGB then?

—
Regards
Madsen.
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Jan 13, 2004
It still bugs me though that Photoshop is showing me a much less saturated blue in sRGB than the monitor can produce, when the sRGB profile goes farther in to blues than my monitor profile does, according to my profile viewer.

Now I know why (I think).
The 2D-view of sRGB and Monitor-RGB in my profile viewer just isn’t accurate enough. If I compare them in 3D, I can see that Monitor-RGB indeed has a more saturated blue than sRGB can give me.

<http://home18.inet.tele.dk/madsen/monitor/3d/>.
I knew that a 2D-view of color spaces can be misleading, but I didn’t knew that they could be so misleading!

—
Regards
Madsen.
RW
Rene_Walling
Jan 13, 2004
Madsen,

To get more info on sRGB, check out this site: www.srgb.com

And for more on ICC profiles: www.color.org
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Jan 13, 2004
Thanks Rene, but those pages doesn’t claim that my two monitors is with no doubt true sRGB-devices. If that was the case, why should I even bother calibrate and profile them? Then I could just load sRGB into Adobe Gamma and that was that.
They just claim that sRGB is developed to match the colour space of a typical monitor but IMHO, sRGB doesn’t do a very accurate job. You can buy monitors today that is closer to Adobe RGB than to sRGB.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to convert to sRGB when preparing web graphics. I’m just questioning that sRGB is so close to every monitors gamut in the world, that no one should ever see inconsistency between sRGB-documents viewed in Photoshop and other non-colour managed applications because if that’s the case, then there’s definitely something wrong with my two monitor profiles.

The only way to get consistency in colours between Photoshop and non-colour managed applications here, is to tag the document with Monitor-RGB inside Photoshop, soft proof to Monitor-RGB in Photoshop or use Monitor-RGB as the RGB working space and working on untagged RGB-documents.
(I’m aware that choosing Monitor-RGB as the RGB working space, isn’t a very wise thing to do).

—
Regards
Madsen.
L
LenHewitt
Jan 14, 2004
Thomas,

If that was the case, why
should I even bother calibrate and profile them? <<

Because every individual monitor is DIFFERENT and will also change day by day. Monitor’s need re-calibrating regularly – it’s not a one-off, done_for_life job…..
TM
Thomas_Madsen
Jan 14, 2004
Because every individual monitor is DIFFERENT

Exactly my point!

—
Regards
Madsen.

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