Last week, I wrote about color management. This prompted several e-mails from readers who need help using ICC profiles.

Step one, is to acquire the profile. If you have your own colorimeter, then you can build your own profiles. If you use a standard inkjet printer from a major company like Epson or Canon, you will receive profiles with your printer. Lastly, if you work with an outside service such as MPIX, you’ll be able to obtain profiles from the service provider.

But what do you do with these profiles when you get them?

You need to install them in the right place on your Mac, so that Aperture can find them when you’re ready to output a file for print.

First, close Aperture. Using MAC OSX - Copy the profiles you’ve created, downloaded or purchased into the /library/colorsync/profiles directory. You typically must have administrator privileges to install profiles in this location.

Once you’ve installed the profiles, restart Aperture and you will be able to access the profiles from either the Print or Export menu.