Icc profiles on the mac questions

Question

There seem to be multiple locations in OSX for icc profiles. I've found them in system/library/coloursync, library/coloursync and user/library/coloursync. Both display and printer profiles seem to be mixed up in these 3 locations.
Is there a preferred location for different profiles - or does Aperture/OSX find things as required (ie, it 'just works') ?
Also - my lab sent me its .icc profiles which I've copied into my system/library/colorsync/profiles directory. Aperture seems to find them okay. Are .icc files universal (ie, mac and PC) ? I didn't specify that I was a Mac user when I requested the icc profiles.
Paul

Answer 1

There seem to be multiple locations in OSX for icc
profiles. I've found them in
system/library/coloursync, library/coloursync and
user/library/coloursync. Both display and printer
profiles seem to be mixed up in these 3 locations.
Is there a preferred location for different profiles
- or does Aperture/OSX find things as required (ie,
it 'just works') ?
[snip]
I cant' speak as to whether display and print profiles should go in different places, or Mac vs. PC profiles, but the general rules for which Library folder to use are:
/System/Library: Don't mess with it. If an installer puts stuff there, that's fine, but the /System folder and all its contents should be considered hands-off at the user level unless you know what you're doing (the greatest ability to screw up the system comes from mucking around in the /System folder).
/Library: Files (in this case ICC profiles) put in this folder's subfolders will be available to all users of the computer.
/Users/Username/Library: Files put in this folder's subfolders will be available only to the user specified. Other users will not have access to them.
So basically, if you have multiple users on your Mac and you want them all to have access to the ICC profiles, put them in /Library/ColourSync/Profiles. If you only want yourself to be able to use them, they go in /Users/your username/Library/ColourSync/Profiles.
If you only have one user, and will never add any users to the computer, then placing things in /Library or /Users/username/Library will always yield the same results - you'll always have access to them.
You probably haven't broken anything by putting the other ones in the /System/Library/ColourSync/Profiles folder, but you may want to take them out and put them in the appropriate place, for consistency.
Also remember that the user's Library folder is checked by applications first, then the /Library, and lastly the /System/Library. That's the magic of how it "just works" no matter which Library you put the files in.