On a mac there are a few places where color profiles can be installed depending on whether they should only be available to one user vs. shared for all user accounts on the machine.
Normally color profiles meant to be available to all users of the machine should be in stalled in:
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles
However, each user has their own private version of this same folder. It is located in your user's home directory:
/Users/<your username>/Library/ColorSync/Profiles
(this is sometimes abbreivated as ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles because the tilde "~" is short-hand in Unix for the current user's home folder).
Note that this is normally a hidden folder. There are a few ways to reveal this folder. But the common ways under more recent operating systems are to either:
a) Open Finder and havigate to your "home" folder (i.e. /Users/<your user name>) then right-click the mouse and select "Show View Options" from the pop-up menu. On the options window you'll see a tick-box for "Show Library Folder" -- tick that on and it will reveal the folder.
b) The other method is to start Finder, but this time in the main menubar along the top of the screen, click the "Go" menu. HOLD DOWN the "Option" key on your keyboard and you'll notice the option to naviate to "Library" is ONLY visible when then Option key is held down. You can pick it off that menu.
There is one more folder. DO NOT install profiles in:
/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles
So why would I mention this but tell you not to use it? Anything under the /System folder is for the operating systems own files (files put there by macOS iteslef ... in other words Apple). This is the part of the filesystem which is over-written when OS upgrades or patches are installed so anything there isn't safe as it could vanish when you upgrade a machine. The /Library folder is the system-wide folder for "everyone else". Apple wont touch stuff in that folder when you patch or upgrade the machine so those files will remain safe.
Software that wants to use color profiles will automatically search ALL of these folders and the choices you'll be given as to which profiles you want to use are the sum of everything (you don't have to know to where the color profile is to use it).
When you install Canon's Print Studio Pro plugin for Lightroom or Photoshop, Canon's installer will put the color profiles for their own papers in YOUR user's personal color-sync folder (not the system-wide folder). Again, this is normally a hidden folder but I've provided instructions on how to reveal it or navigate to it.
It doesn't matter if the profiles are in your personal profile folder vs. the system-wide folder... both work equally well. The only difference is that if there are multiple user accounts on your mac, then other users wont see the profiles that were installed under your personal profile folder.
Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da
