Your printer does not actually need a profile to print, and your prints might initially look like a reasonable match. But look at the prints compared to your monitor. The chances are that they're subtlety (or not so subtlety) different - lighter or darker, and with various tints to the colours. Try a black and white print. You will be very lucky if you get an exact match to what you see on screen! Next, try some different papers. Now you will start to see a difference in colours both between your screen and between the different papers.

If you like to match what you see on screen to what you print, or you want to print the same image on different papers, then you have three options.

• Edit the image. In your imaging software you could edit the image to take into account any tints in printed colours. You will have to create a copy of the image and edit it for each different paper that you use. There's a lot of trial and error, with time, ink and paper wastage until you get a close match. Unless you're very adept at your image editing, you will still not get an exact match, and you will not be able to get a match to your monitor.