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InDesign not recognizing .icc Profile

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 9, 2021
2 replies
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I’m working on a book with a mixture of over 600 color and grayscale images. The tech for my printer recommended that the grayscale images be converted to CMYK in Photoshop and in Edit > Convert to Profile > choose GRACoL4cBW.icc

However when I check the grayscale images in the InDesign Links info panel, it only states ICC Profile: Document CMYK, and the tech at the printer also tells me that the .icc profile has not been applied even though when I open the converted grayscale photos in Photoshop, it says they are GRACoL4cBW.icc

Now a few of my images have been left as grayscale in Photoshop and a Black Ink GRACoL2006-coated1v2.icc applied. That .icc profile is verified in the Links info panel in InDesign—but the GRACoL4cBW.icc does not show up. Why?

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rob day

Community Expert

Now a few of my images have been left as grayscale in Photoshop and a Black Ink GRACoL2006-coated1v2.icc applied. That .icc profile is verified in the Links info panel in InDesign—but the GRACoL4cBW.icc does not show up. Why?

InDesign doesn’t have a grayscale space, if the Export Output is No Color Conversion, or the Output Destination is Document CMYK, grayscales export to the CMYK black plate unchanged. If a placed grayscale has an embedded gray profile, it will be listed in the Link Info panel but will be ignored on the export and with Overprint Preview turned on its display will be handled by the Document’s CMYK profile.

If you are trying to output grayscales as 4-color CMYK—not black only—you can convert them to profiled RGB and the conversion to Document CMYK at export or output will be 4-color.

Here are some threads on how InDesign handles placed grayscales:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/greyscale-jpegs-or-psd-images-are-going-much-darker-when-dropped-in-on-indesign/m-p/11152264

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/exporting-rgb-cmyk-and-grayscale-to-print-pdf/m-p/10990825?page=1#M179498

Martin Orpen

Participating Frequently

So we still have a bug here and a problem for workflows which have CMYK colour and CMYK B&W images.

InDesign will not acknowledge the embedded ICC profile of an image that it has already classed as "Document CMYK". You have to strip the profile from the original, save over it, relink, replace the profile, save over the image again and then relink again to get InDesign to acknowledge the profile.

The reason this is problematic (and the reason why RGB conversion to destination CMYK will not work in this case) is that the destination print condition might be GRACoL, but the colour images and gray images need to use two different ICC profiles with totally different black characteristics.

The printer wants to see images tagged with two different GRACoL CMYK ICC profiles otherwise they will have to visually inspect every image to ensure that they have been separated properly 😞

rob day

Community Expert

You have to strip the profile from the original, save over it, relink, replace the profile, save over the image again and then relink again to get InDesign to acknowledge the profile.

There’s no need to resave the files, you can select an image and use Object>Image Color Settings to reassign or assign any CMYK profile to the image

But, there can’t be two different ouput destinations, so in a case where you are converting to an alternate CMYK profile in Photoshop in order to produce a quadtone with a heavier black plate, it is important not to include a profile otherwise there will be a CMYK-to-CMYK conversion when the placed quadtone’s embedded profile conflicts with the ID document’s profile.

So here I’ve converted to a profile with an extra heavy black plate and the middle gray at the bottom converts to 30 | 21 | 22 | 38:

If I place the image in an InDesign doc with an extra light black generation profile as the CMYK assignment, the output values for my placed quadtone are unchanged, but only if the image profile is Document CMYK:

If the embedded profile is honored, there will be a CMYK-to-CMYK conversion on an export to PDF/X with Document CMYK as the destination. The image will be converted to the document’s CMYK profile and the heavy black generation will be lost—the output values will be converted to 53 | 44 | 42 | 7:

The InDesign Preserve Numbers (Ignore Linked Profiles) CMYK Policy is designed for cases like this.

Martin Orpen

Participating Frequently

Annoying, isn't it 😞

Once InDesign has decided that the images are "Document CMYK", it will not acknowledge the embedded ICC profile even if you edit the image and then Update or Relink it.

This destroys pre-press PDF workflows that carry out CMYK to CMYK conversions or CMYK reseparations of individual images based on their embedded profiles 😞

You can open each image, Save As and then overwrite them with Embed Profile unchecked. Go back to InDesign and Relink each image. Go back to Photoshop and Save As again, but this time overwrite them with Embed Profile checked. Return to InDesign and Relink each image again and this time it will acknowledge the ICC profile.

That's annoying to have to do even if you have one or two images -- not 600!

If I discover a way of bulk recovering the profile info, I'll let you know. The alternative would have been for you to stick with RGB or grayscale images and let the printer's pre-press workflow deal with the conversion to 4 colour B&W.

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