Low cost Mac utility to detect embedded icc profiles?

but even now there's no missing iCC profile detection in the "place" process so placed images [with no embedded profile] pick up "document RGB". Ideal for some workflows I guess, but a warning would be a nice option to have

Actually there is a warning of sorts for image files—if you have the Link Info dialog open, the ICC Profile always gets listed as Document RGB when there's no embedded profile. The image’s profile property is "None", so an alert would be easy to script.

You could assign the Place key command to this AppleScript:

tell application "Adobe InDesign CC 2018"
    set myFile to (choose file with prompt "Please select a file to place") as alias
    if selection is {} then
        set i to place myFile on active page of layout window 1
    else
        set i to place myFile on selection
    end if
    if profile of item 1 of i is "None" then
        display dialog "The Image You just Placed Has No Embedded Profile"
    end if
end tell

For PDFs, ID, and AI files there's no way of knowing the embedded profiles, because there could be any number of profiled objects inside of those files.

Also, OSX ships with AppleScripts, which include some sample colorsync droplets. They should be installed in /Library/Scripts/ColorSync. If you can't find them here is a zip archive:

http://www.zenodesign.com/forum/ColorSyncScripts.zip

The Show Info droplet returns this when you drop an image:

But, if your friend finds an untagged image what would she do with that image? Open it in Photoshop and assign a random profile?

With InDesign placed RGB image links with no embedded profile get assigned the Document's RGB profile, so it should be just a matter of choosing the desired profile via Edit>Assign Profiles... (not Color Settings>Working RGB), rather than going to the trouble of opening each file in Photoshop and resaving with a profile.

If you are exporting to PDF for printing, be careful not to strip the RGB profiles during the export. The [High Quality Print] preset would do that, so make sure to Export using the PDF/X-4 preset, which leaves RGB color unchanged and always includes a profile.

For CMYK links, InDesign has the Preserve Numbers (Ignore Linked Profiles) policy, which is useful in workflows where you want to prevent CMYK-to-CMYK conversions. But if you need CMYK profiles to be honored for inkjet printing, the CMYK policy has to be changed to Preserve Embedded. For existing documents you will have to check Ask When Opening to make the policy change.

Hi Neil,

So many options to choose from:

Adobe Bridge (free/cross platform):

Use the Filter panel to isolate untagged files by checking/ticking the “Untagged” filter.

Adobe InDesign:

The Links panel can be configured to show if an image has an ICC profile or not:

ExifTool (free/cross platform):

One can also use ExifTool to conditionally check files for the absence of an ICC profile (or presence), then do one of many different actions such as apply metadata such as an ICC profile or a label or rating or keyword, create a report file, move the file to another folder etc.

On the Mac OS, the CLI code to create a .csv log file would be similar to:

exiftool -csv -sourcefile -if 'not defined $ICC_Profile' -r 'Path/to/Input Folder or File' > 'Path/to/Output To/log_file.csv'

Although CLI based, one can make simple drag-n-drop processing on Windows OS or use Apple Automator on the Mac OS to create a hot/watched folder, drag-n-drop app, contextual right click command, run from an OS script or batch file etc.

Prepression: Apple Automator

I use an inexpensive Mac utility called Hazel. $32, can watch any folders you desire. It can find untagged documents and Assign or Convert (using Apple Script workflows). I use to also tag the images with the color space. It's invaluable for screen captures which all products appear to produce untagged. I have a Screen Capture folder, Hazel assigns the display profile. Then copies the TIFF to another folder and that watched folder is setup to convert to sRGB and JPEG. This is just a tiny amount of functionality it has.

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