Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile - (solved)  (Read 6885 times)

xpatUSA

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 390
    • Blog

I have a puzzling profile on my system - which is Windows XP Pro SP3.

In the usual place (/system/spool/drivers/color/) there is a profile: srgb color space profile.icm

If I delete it, edit it's content, move it, change suffix to .icc or edit the name - it regenerates itself, unchanged, back in the /drivers/color folder. The content is standard:



By coincidence I was looking for drivers for a Lexmark printer and found a reference to the same profile, albeit "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm". So I thought to stop all the Lexmark processes and try again. No good.

Could a Windows expert please tell me why it won't go away?

Perhaps I should explain that I am simply interested in the re-generative behavior - I'm not intending to change it in any way.

Thanks,
« Last Edit: May 18, 2013, 12:20:33 pm by xpatUSA »
Logged
best regards,

Ted

digitaldog

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 20630
  • Andrew Rodney
    • http://www.digitaldog.net/
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2013, 09:25:01 am »

I don't do XP but it seems like a system profile hence you can't delete it (it regenerates itself).
Logged
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Author "Color Management for Photographers".

xpatUSA

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 390
    • Blog
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2013, 09:31:26 am »

I don't do XP but it seems like a system profile hence you can't delete it (it regenerates itself).
Thank you, Andrew,

Makes sense. I can test that, because my Wife's laptop HD has just been wiped clean, XP re-installed (and she hasn't touched it yet!).
Logged
best regards,

Ted

xpatUSA

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 390
    • Blog
Mystery sRGB color profile - solved by DigitalDog!
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2013, 09:42:08 am »

I can test that, because my Wife's laptop HD has just been wiped clean, XP re-installed (and she hasn't touched it yet!).
Just fired it up: the profile was there, with title caps.
Created a new folder and moved it into there.
After a few seconds it re-appeared, this time in all lower case letters but WTH?

PS: it just now let me change it back to title caps, i.e. sRGB Color Space Profile.icm

Another photographic mystery solved - thanks to "the Dog" :-)
« Last Edit: May 15, 2013, 10:29:49 am by xpatUSA »
Logged
best regards,

Ted

fdisilvestro

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1852
    • Frank Disilvestro
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2013, 07:32:26 pm »

sRGB color space profile.icm is the default profile used by Microsoft WCS (windows Color System), so it could be considered an "essential" file, at least to display colors properly in MS applications (such as IE). It is based (or the same) as sRGB IEC 61966-2-1.

It is very likely that the file in the /system32/spool/drivers/color/ folder has a "Hard link" to the same file in another location, most likely /Windows/Winsxs (Windows components store), which recreates the file if you delete it.

In windows vista, 7 or later, you can check if you have a hard link from a command prompt (with administrator privileges):

> Fsutil hardlink list "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm"

In windows XP the Fsutil hardlink does not support the command "list", but there are a couple of utilities available from third parties if you google for it.

xpatUSA

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 390
    • Blog
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2013, 02:16:06 pm »

Thank you, Fransisco, for explaining that.

I'll poke around - just out of interest, of course.

I used to be good on early Macs, even wrote an app or two in machine code using an Assembler and stuff, But Gates' products leave me cold - just can not take an interest in anything to do with MicroSoft.

Thanks again,
Logged
best regards,

Ted

Simon Garrett

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 742
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile - (solved)
« Reply #6 on: May 22, 2013, 10:31:31 am »

Just out of curiosity, why did you want to delete the file?
Logged

xpatUSA

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 390
    • Blog
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile - (solved)
« Reply #7 on: May 22, 2013, 12:25:35 pm »

Just out of curiosity, why did you want to delete the file?

I was playing around with profiles and at the same time trying to learn more about color management. Like finding out which application uses what profile for example. So I tried to make a horrendous adjust to that particular profile, not knowing that it was an inviolate system file. When that did apparently nothing I tried to replace it with something else by deleting it to replace it with something else. Like a bad penny it always came back. Since then, I had often wondered why.

Please don't tell me I shouldn't play with profiles, my interest is purely academic - I'm not a real photographer  ;)
Logged
best regards,

Ted

Simon Garrett

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 742
Re: Would like some help with a mystery sRGB color profile - (solved)
« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2013, 12:46:03 pm »

Please don't tell me I shouldn't play with profiles, my interest is purely academic - I'm not a real photographer  ;)
I wouldn't dream of telling you not to!  There was no implied criticism in my question; it was just that the sRGB profile is used by quite a lot of software, and I guessed you'd have a fairly specific reason for messing with it. 
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up