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ColorSync found bad profile on Mac. What are the possible side effects?

Photography Asked by Abhinav Singh on December 25, 2020

Today something led me to discover ColorSync Utility under Applications > Utilities. Upon Verify I discovered 9 bad profiles on my Mac.

Searching for profiles...
Checking 63 profiles...
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/EW-GRAY18
   Tag ‘desc’: Tag size is not correct. 
   Tag ‘desc’: Description tag has a bad Macintosh string. 
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/EW-GRAY22
   Tag ‘desc’: Tag size is not correct. 
   Tag ‘desc’: Description tag has a bad Macintosh string. 
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/EW-sRGB
   Tag ‘desc’: Tag size is not correct. 
   Tag ‘desc’: Description tag has a bad Macintosh string. 
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/EW-RGB18
   Tag ‘desc’: Tag size is not correct. 
   Tag ‘desc’: Description tag has a bad Macintosh string. 
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/VideoNTSC.icc
   Header message digest (MD5) is not correct. 
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/VideoHD.icc
   Header message digest (MD5) is not correct. 
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/VideoPAL.icc
   Header message digest (MD5) is not correct. 
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended/image-P3.icc
   Header message digest (MD5) is not correct. 
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/JapanColor2011Coated.icc
   Tag ‘desc’: Description tag has a bad Unicode string. 
Verify done. Found 9 bad profiles.

I recently started using Lightroom, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, etc. I’m wondering if having these bad profiles can impact my production work in a way that I am unaware of.

I have little idea if they are actively used. I manually don’t fiddle with any profiles in my workflow. My DSLR images utilize ProPhoto profile, and on my Mac, I convert them to AdobeRGB or sRGB profiles before export. Is there a way to find out if they are in active use?

What (if any) are the possible side effects of having these bad profiles on a MacBook?

One Answer

It looks to me like the desc tags are not used for any functionality. They are mainly for having a human-readable description of what's in the profile. According to Apple TechNote 1160:

The ICC Profile Format Specification (available at http://www.color.org) includes a Description tag ('desc'), designed to provide more information about a profile than can be contained in a file name. This is especially critical on file systems with 8.3 names. The tag data can consist of up to three separate pieces (strings) of information for a profile. These different strings are designed to allow for display in different languages or on different computer systems. Applications typically use one of the strings to show profiles in a list or a pop-up menu.

You are unlikely to want to use NTSC or PAL color profiles in photo editing. For Final Cut Pro work, it shouldn't be a problem as Final Cut Pro now works in the Rec-2020 color space. It will use profiles built into the app for converting between something like NTSC and Rec-2020 and wouldn't rely on a user or device-installed profile.

Answered by user1118321 on December 25, 2020

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