Understanding monitor/printer profiles?

First, all the prints are a little darker than the image on my screen. But apart for that, print order "441" had the closest match to what I can see on my monitor, but in a strange way. Here's the conclusion:

If I use soft-proofing to view and correct out-of gamut colors with the profile for the Noritsu printer, then APPLY the printer profile (not convert to the printer profile), have the resulting file printed with the auto-correct turned off, and then finally view the image on my monitor with the printer profile applied, the printed version and the version on the screen are very close (although the printed one is darker)!

This doesn't make a great deal of sense to me and doesn't fit the suggested work flow, but it worked for all three, very different, images.

--
Jeff Peterman
Any insults, implied anger, bad grammar and bad spelling, are entirely unintentionalal. Sorry.
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