Embedding your monitor's calibration profile in an exported image, which tells viewers about your screen rather than about the file.
Colour
ICC profile
Also called icc, international color consortium profile or .icc. Here is what it means, when it changes what you export, and what people get wrong.
ColourRuns on your deviceUpdated 10 August 2026
The short answer
An ICC profile is a standardised file that describes the colour behaviour of a device or a colour space. Defined by the International Color Consortium and published as ISO 15076-1, it lets colour management software translate colours accurately between a camera, an editing space, a monitor and a printer.
Updated
The short version
ICC profile at a glance
| Quick fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Maintained by | International Color Consortium |
| Also published as | ISO 15076-1 |
| Extensions | .icc, or .icm on Windows |
| Connection space | CIEXYZ or CIELAB at a D50 white |
| Rendering intents | Perceptual, media-relative, saturation, absolute |
| Typical embedded size | A few kilobytes for a space profile such as sRGB |
Slide the table sideways to see every column.
How does a profile let two devices agree on colour?
Through a shared reference. Every ICC profile describes its device or space in terms of a profile connection space, a device-independent space based on human vision measurements: CIEXYZ or CIELAB, adapted to a D50 white.
A conversion therefore runs in two halves. The source profile maps the file's numbers into the connection space, and the destination profile maps them out again into the target device's numbers. This is why you only need one profile per device rather than a translation table for every possible pairing.
What are rendering intents and when do they matter?
They decide what happens to colours the destination cannot reproduce. The specification defines four.
- Perceptual. Compresses the whole range so relationships between colours are preserved. Everything shifts slightly, nothing clips abruptly. The usual choice for photographs going to print.
- Media-relative colorimetric. Leaves in-gamut colours exactly where they are and clips out-of-gamut ones to the nearest reproducible colour. Best when most of the image already fits.
- Saturation. Prioritises vividness over accuracy. Intended for charts and business graphics, not photography.
- ICC-absolute colorimetric. Also reproduces the source white point, so proofing a newspaper stock on bright paper actually shows the dull paper colour.
Intent only has an effect when colours fall outside the destination gamut. Converting a modest sRGB image to another sRGB-like space, the choice barely changes anything.
Which kinds of ICC profile will you meet?
Profiles come in classes. Input profiles describe scanners and cameras, display profiles describe monitors, output profiles describe printers with a specific ink and paper combination, and colour space profiles describe abstract spaces such as sRGB or Adobe RGB.
Two versions are in common circulation, v2 and v4, and most software reads both; a broader specification called iccMAX exists for more demanding work. Files carry the extension .icc, or .icm on Windows.
Size varies a lot. A matrix-based space profile such as sRGB is a few kilobytes, because it only needs primaries, a white point and tone curves. A printer profile built from measured patches carries multi-dimensional lookup tables and can run to hundreds of kilobytes or more, which is why you embed the former in delivery files and keep the latter on the machine.
What people get wrong about icc profile
Each one is a real failure mode, not a style preference.
Choosing absolute colorimetric for a normal print, which reproduces the source paper white and usually makes the result look tinted.
Assuming a printer profile will make an out-of-gamut neon colour printable, when it can only choose how gracefully to give up.
Treating a calibration and a profile as the same step, when calibration adjusts the device and the profile only describes the result.
Questions people ask
ICC profile, answered
The follow-up questions people search for once they have the definition.
Do I need an ICC profile for web images?
Not strictly, because browsers assume sRGB when nothing is present. Embedding a small sRGB profile still helps, since it removes the guess and costs a few kilobytes. Anything that is not sRGB should definitely be converted, and ideally tagged, before upload.
Where do I get an ICC profile for my printer?
From the printer or paper manufacturer, who publish profiles for their ink and paper combinations, or from a print shop that supplies one for their press. Custom profiles are made by printing a measurement chart and reading it with a spectrophotometer.
Which rendering intent should I pick for photographs?
Perceptual is the usual choice for photographs heading to print, because it compresses the whole range smoothly rather than flattening the most saturated areas. Media-relative colorimetric is better when the image is already close to the destination gamut and you want in-gamut colours untouched.
What is the difference between calibrating and profiling a monitor?
Calibrating adjusts the display itself towards a target white point, brightness and tone response. Profiling then measures what the calibrated display actually does and writes an ICC profile describing it. You need both: calibration sets the behaviour, the profile records it for colour-managed software.
Same cluster
More from the glossary
Neighbouring entries, so every term in the set is one hop from every other.
ICO
ICO is the Windows icon format, a small container that holds several sizes and colour depths of the same image inside one file.
Hex colour
A hex colour is an RGB value written in base 16, prefixed with a hash.
Image matting
Image matting works out how transparent every pixel along an edge is, and what colour the subject would be there without the background showing through.
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Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. Every link opens the specification, standard or documentation the claim was read at.
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