Roger Cavanagh has written an informative article that attempts to explain the differences between assigning a profile and converting to a profile in Photoshop, something which I’ve never fully understood before…(found via digicamera.net

“It’s important to understand one key distinction between assign and convert: assigning a profile/colour space to an image does not change the underlying colour number data, but converting to a different colour space does. If you assign the wrong profile, there is no damage to the file. You can simply assign the correct profile. However, the colours you see on the screen will change because the colour numbers are mapped into a different colour space. Colour spaces are three-dimensional and can differ in size and shape.”

Website: Roger Cavanagh - Assign vs Convert