How do I remove a ColorSync profile from a JPEG image from Terminal in El Capitan?

I have several images that I would like to strip the ColorSync profile from. Eventually, I would like to automate this in bash so I could easily process this on a file or folder from the contextual menu using an Automator service.

How do I strip a color profile from an image file using Terminal?

Solution 1:

Use sips (scriptable image processing system) to remove an ICC color profile from an image file in El Capitan. sips does a ton of other stuff as well.

To remove the ColorSync ICC profile from an image:

sips -d profile --deleteColorManagementProperties <imagefile>

Example:

MyFILE="${HOME}/Pictures/RemoveMyColorSyncProfile.jpg";
sips -d profile --deleteColorManagementProperties "${MyFILE}";

It appears to support the following image types, but I'm basing this on the format image property key (see Options in the man page):

• jpeg
• tiff
• png
• gif
• jp2
• pict
• bmp
• qtif
• psd
• sgi
• tga

See the man page for more info, or use sips -h for help to stdout.

Solution 2:

OP @Emeraldo's answer is on-target: you can use the sips (scriptable image processing system) terminal command to remove the color profile from a JPEG (or PNG) image. This is often necessary to get colors in an image produced with a graphics app to render correctly in a browser.

I will add that Apple provides a script that will do this for you without you having to open a terminal or remember the slightly non-trivial command syntax. In /System/Library/Scripts/ColorSync (/Library/Scripts/ColorSync on Catalina) is an AppleScript droplet, Remove.app. If you drop one or more image files on it, it removes the color profile(s). If you open the droplet with Script Editor, you'll find it runs a sips command, just as @Emeraldo described. The original question indicated a hope to automate the process in Automator; this script would be a great starting place for that (if its function as a droplet isn't already enough for the stated batch conversion task).

I don't know for how long this script has been available, but on my High Sierra system the app file has a 2012 creation data. The script itself has comment giving a 2009 date. So I suspect it's been around for a while. I wish I'd known about it years ago. I used to use a Dashboard widget called "PNG Pong" for this, but it's no long available. I learned about the droplet from a 2010 Adobe forum post: How to remove color profile from an image | Adobe Community (though the script's location has slightly changed since 2010).