Is it OK to convert into the Chroma Variants instead of into the master space?
No! It doesn’t work (right, if at all). Photoshop CS2 treats a conversion into a chroma variant as if it were an assign, and assignment is what the control is all about, so just assign it to be sure everything works right. It is structurally impossible for these profiles to give a normal conversion result when converting into them, and often it won’t work at all, so don’t mess with it. Convert into the master space, then assign the variants. Converting from the variants is entirely fine, and also entirely necessary in order for them to function. Converting from one profile to another keeps the colors the same, while changing all the numbers in the file. Assigning a new profile to an image changes all the colors in a color managed viewing environment only (like Photoshop), not by changing the numbers in the file, but by redefining what they mean. I know this is terminally confusing until you get it, but just think about this: Photoshop 6 and later do something very tricky, but very good
