Where and how to download ICC to Affinity Photo

[Jacqueline]

Hello.

 

A member of staff at work has asked for some of my images to be printed.  He is using a local printing firm.  I would like to download their ICC for Gloss paper.  Can you advise where this download will go so that it is picked up by Affinity.  Any help with how to do this also please. Jacqueline

[v_kyr]

Hi, ICC profiles a usually stored/installed under dedicated operating system locations, so that all programs that can deal with those might find them. Aka similar like fonts are stored under special OS places. So it also depends on the OS you are running. Affinity should recognize system wide available ICC profiles if they are available by the OS and offer you to select these then. - See for example here.

[Jacqueline]

i - thanks for the reply - so basically just download it and Affinity will pick it up?

Jacqueline.

 

 

[v_kyr]

No not just download, afterwards install the downloaded ICC file into one of the OS profile directories/folders...

Quote

mac:

In OSX the ICC profiles are in various places, but if we want anyone who uses the system, however they logged in, to have access to them we put them in the main Library > Colorsync > Profiles folder. This is where the OSX system and many installed applications put profiles.

There are also ICC profiles in the "username">Library > Colorsync > Profiles folder. Putting them there has the advantage of backing them up whenever the user's home folder is archived. Screen calibration applications like basICColor Display often place profiles into this user folder.

On later versions of mac OSX, the "username"/library is a hidden folder. It's easy to get to though, just hold down the Alt key (near your keyboard spacebar) and then mouse down on the "Go" menu item (up near the Apple logo, top left of your screen). Now you'll see a list which includes "Library", just highlight it and release the mouse and the folder will open.

For recent versions of Photoshop on Mac, Adobe's own profiles are placed in the Library > Application support > Adobe > Color > Profiles folder. Some more commonly used ones are inside that folder in the Recommended folder.

windows:

Windows puts the profiles into different folders depending upon the Windows OS version. 

7 and later: Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color

XP: Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color

2000+ME: WinNT\system\spool\drivers\color

some programs incorrectly install profiles to Win NT\System32\Color on Windows 2000, if there are any profile location problems it can be advantageous to duplicate profiles to both that folder and the one listed above.

Further on Windows when you right click on a ICC file there might be an "Install" menu entry you may can use to let Win install the profile into an appropriate place. A similar handling is available on MacOS. - After that installation or copying into one of the OS related ICC profile directories Affinity Photo should later recognize the new profile and offer to select it from a list.

[v_kyr]

BTW you can also import an ICC-File directly with/into Affinity Photo via it's "File -> Import ICC-Profile ..." menu entry, but if you constantly need to use certain ICC-profiles in documents, it's always better to install those profiles system wide available, so other programs can also find and benefit from these.

[jeremyrh]

i have a large number of .icc profiles in my user/Color Sync/Profiles folder and AP does not recognise them - any idea why not?  Maybe it only looks in the system-wide Color Sync ??  I can import the profiles as described above, so the profie files themselves are fine.