How to tell if safe to remove ICC profile tags

Started by aperturemode, September 13, 2023, 04:18:51 PM

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aperturemode

I have some old DSLR JPG images that at one point I had edited in a 'destructive' consumer photo software (Photoshop Elements I believe - back before I realized I should be only using non-destructive editing software).

For the images I didn't edit and resave, the original color space appears to be defined in:
[MakerNotes:Canon] ColorSpace                   : sRGB
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  ColorSpace                      : sRGB

That seems ok.

However the images I resaved lost the MakerNotes entirely (ugh) and the software inserted ICC_profiles that I can see int the metadata although the EXIF tag for colorspace is still there:
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  ColorSpace                      : sRGB
[ICC_Profile]   ProfileDescription              : sRGB IEC61966-2.1


I'm tempted to remove the ICC profiles from the resaved images as I don't recall doing any color correction. Is that safe and or advisable? Or just leave it there because if it's duplicate it doesn't really matter. But if I remove the ICC profile tags, will Lightroom Classic (which I use now) then revert to reading the EXIF tag and assign sRGB?

Thanks for your help.

Phil Harvey

I'm not a colour expert, but I don't see why the ICC profile can't be removed if it is specified as sRGB.  Maybe this command:

exiftool -if "$colorspace eq 'sRGB'" -icc_profile= DIR

- Phil
...where DIR is the name of a directory/folder containing the images.  On Mac/Linux/PowerShell, use single quotes (') instead of double quotes (") around arguments containing a dollar sign ($).

aperturemode

Thanks, Phil.

Amazingly good and useful tool you developed!