How do I load a printer profile into LR 6 on a Mac running El Capitan

[kirstens76504621]

Hello, 

I am trying to load the printer profile of a printer at an outside vendor so that LR 6 can use it.

I am running El Capitan on my laptop.

The instructions say to copy and paste the printer profile into the User>Library>Colorsync folder, however there is no Colorsync folder in this path.

Thank you for any tips.

[JP Hess]

Wouldn't you also have to install the driver for that printer?

[kirstens76504621]

I guess I'm confused as to why they are asking me to install anything for their printer.  Maybe you can help me understand.  I should only need printer profiles and drivers installed on my computer for printers that I am directly sending to, right?

If I go with an outside vendor, I should be able to export from LR as a jpeg and upload it to their site - and leave the printer information to the vendor.  Is that right?

[JP Hess]

Yes, that is correct. If there is an ICC profile specific for their printer then they should be able to provide that ICC profile. The way I install those profiles on my Windows computer is I just right-click and choose to install them. Windows takes care of the rest. The ICC profile is used for soft proofing. If there is not an ICC profile specific for the printer then just export JPEG images using the sRGB color space or print to a file in the print module and you will have a file that you can hand off to their lab technician to print on the printer. What kind of a venue are you at?

[JoeKostoss · Accepted solution]

kirstens76504621  wrote

Hello,

...I am running El Capitan on my laptop.

The instructions say to copy and paste the printer profile into the User>Library>Colorsync folder, however there is no Colorsync folder in this path.

There are 2 places where you can load the ICC profile:

The first is similar to your instructions, however, you missed your specific user location; see below; In my case it is ...Users > josephkostoss > Library...

You can also load the ICC profile here:

In the first case, the profile is available only to you, not to other users on your computer.

In the second case, it is available to all users.

The only real reason I can think of as to why you might want to do this is if you wanted to do some soft proofing and adjusting before sending the jpeg file to the printer.  I find soft proofing to be of marginal value unless there are large main areas of your image that are out of the printer's gamut.

[kirstens76504621]

Thank you, both, JoeKostoss and JimHess.  I appreciate the answers!

I guess I don't know how to soft proof using the ICC profile before sending the jpeg file.  Where/how do I do this? 

If this question is one I should know the answer to, or if there's an obvious tutorial on this, I apologize.  I am trying to navigate the world of LR as my needs for it's various functions arise because I learn better with practical/real life application. 

Thanks for your direction!

[JoeKostoss]

You can find a short description of soft proofing here: Develop module options in Photoshop Lightroom

It might be interesting to try this on a few photos just for your own learning experience; however, as I stated in my previous post, I find soft proofing to be of marginal value for me.  If you are new to Lightroom, I suggest you do not get too hung-up on soft proofing but instead let the printer software handle the gamut issue.  It does a very good job of rendering a print that is quite acceptable.