Changing the values of $i and $counter within the loop does not look like a good idea to me.

If I've understood you correctly you want to loop through values 1 - 100, checking whether each value is in @numbers. If it is then you want to display an image corresponding to that number, and if it is not then you display an error image.

If this is what you want then you don't need both loops if @numbers is sorted in ascending numerical order:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @numbers = (1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9);

my $pos = 0;

for my $counter (1..10) {

    # Is this value of $counter the next value in @numbers?
    # If it is then display image number $counter and move onto the 
    # next value in @numbers.
    # If it is not then display the error image and carry on looking 
    # for the same value in @numbers.

    if (defined $numbers[$pos] and $numbers[$pos] == $counter) {
            print "Use image: $counter \n";
            $pos++;
    } else {
        print "Use error image\n";
    }
}
[download]

Update: I think this is what you were trying to write. This does not depend on the values in @numbers being sorted:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my @numbers = (1, 2, 5, 7, 8, 9);

for my $counter ( 1..10 )    {
    my $img; 

    # Check whether this value of counter is in @numbers

    for my $i ( @numbers )    {
        if ($i == $counter)  {
        $img = "image" . ($counter-1);
        last;
    }
    } 

    # If $img is still undefined then this value is missing
    if (!defined $img) {$img = "error.bmp"}

    print "$counter  $img\n";
}
[download]

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

If I were you I would reword my question a bit. You aren't comparing two lists of sorted numbers, really, but rather two lists of "things". You want to check everything in list1 to see if it is in list2. If it is, go for a party! If not, go to a different party! (Sorry, early Friday morning sense of humour there). So, you could write it like this:

my @list1 = (1,3,4,5,6,7);
my @list2 = (1..100);

foreach my $list1_item (@list1) {

    my $flag = 0;

    foreach my $list2_item (@list2) {
         if ($list1_item == $list2_item) {
               $flag = 1;
               last();
               }
          }

    if ($flag == 0) {
         print $img1;
         }
    else {
         print $img2;
         }

    }
[download]

So basically we just loop over list1, see if it's elements are in list2. If they are, set the flag variable, stop looping and print it. If they aren't, print the alternate image. There are definitely more concise and efficient ways to code that, but this is clear and will work if you move from numbers to strings, objects, etc.