In a system where the color space conversion process uses color profile look-up tables to select a profile for each of the possible attribute value combinations, assigning a value of wildcard to one or more attributes. In this case, if all of the values of one of the attributes can not be exactly matched, and that attribute has a wildcard value, the wildcard value is selected. The profile associated with the wildcard is designed to enable a reasonable color conversion in any case where an attribute calls for a particular value and the printer does not have a corresponding profile. The result is that the printer will most likely still print a reasonable image in the case where there is no matching profile.