[Digikam-users] Color management with Nikon d40x

[junk at lexoncom.com]

Hello All,

I am new to image editing and raw format so apologize to my lack of
knowledge and probably simple questions.  I have a Nikon d40x camera and I
use linux ubuntu intrepid with dell latitude d630. Recently I decided to
take some Raw picture.  Once I loaded them in digikam i run into problems
with displaying the right colors.  I have read many documents about color
management but I am still confused. Let me explain my setup.
The nikon d40x have three options for color profiles:
aRGB in modes Ia and IIIa (first for portraits, second for web)
AdobeRGG in mode II (for editing)
Default is mode IIIa. This is what I use.
I copied(to linux box)icc files from c:\program files\nikon\profiles folder:
below is the list of available profiles i copied:

root at blwegrzyn-laptop:/home/blwegrzyn/Desktop/Profiles# ls
Nk0034a.lns  NkCBoost.nlc     NKGrayG22.icm      NKNTSC.icm
Nk0034.lns   NKCIE.icm        NKLab.icm          NKsRGB.icm
Nk0080a.lns  NKCMatch.icm     NKLch2.icm         NKWide.icm
Nk0080.lns   NKCMYK.icm       NkLchCal.nla       NKYCC.icm
NKAdobe.icm  NKD1_NEF.icm     NkLchCal.nlc
NKApple.icm  NKDBase_NEF.icm  NKMonitor_Mac.icm
NKBruce.icm  NKGrayG18.icm    NKMonitor_Win.icm

Now have to set digikam:

for the workspace profile I set SRGB
for the the input profile I have only 4 options although there is more
profiles in above folder. I am not sure why only four are displayed:
Nikon D1 for NEF v1.0.0.3002
Nikon DBase for NEF v3.0.0.3001
Nikon Lab Profile v4.0.0.3001
Nikon YCbCr 4.0.0.3005

and here is when my problem starts , which one should I choose???
The all give me same output, so I picked the Nikon DBase for NEF
v3.0.0.3001 profile.
For the raw decoding settings I left default settings.

Then I picked one of the raw pictures and click edit and applied the icc
profiles.
The picture looks like it would have less colors and its kind of yellowish
and green.
I have read that this can happen with using the icc profiles , but it does
not look or feel correct.

Next , I saved the changes and I ended up with png picture that looked
much worse the the one displayed on the laptop screen. You can see the
results here:
http://lexoncom.com/temp/digikam/

Am I setting everything correctly?
Is above correct?
Which Nikon profile should I apply?


thx

Bart