Typical color management for ink jet printers includes a generic printer profile or a driver for each printer model. In addition to the profile of the specific printing process, it also addresses some parameters, such as printing media, ink types, and rendering intentions. However, it rarely deals with the variations of each individual ink cartridge, unless a profile is built for each ink cartridge at the user level. This is not quite feasible for general users because it requires expensive color measuring instruments and extensive knowledge of color science. The variations of ink cartridges affecting colors can be due to the hue and concentration variations in ink formulations, or the drop size variations in cartridge manufacturing. Test data indicates that the variations in color can be very noticeable from cartridge to cartridge. A novel idea of color management per ink cartridge, which is under investigation, involves characterization of individual ink cartridges at the manufacturing stage, storing condensed characterization data in certain media, retrieving the data upon the cartridge installation, and then building a color correction profile on the fly. This implementation is transparent to the user. The process will be explained in detail and the cartridge variations will be compared before and after the correction.