i have the apple cinema 24" display. it really is a beautiful screen. i have read that apple monitors are difficult to calibrate, but it seems alright to me with my eye1 display. I have done several calibrations, and the best one is to me is almost identical to the default factory profile that the monitor came with. this is a darker version calibrated using a windows standard gamma of around 2.1-2.2. i leave the whitepoint to the native, but the gamma is something that i can definitely play around with and they all look good, just some are lighter, brighter, and some are darker and more contrasty. i am looking for any advice on how to decide on which gamma to use for my apple LED display.

Another issue is, i am using a windows laptop only for qimage. i retrieve my processed images ready for printing via my home network in a shared folder. i have always 'converted to profile' (sRGB) right before saving. i noticed in qimage last night after adding my images for printing to the queue that sRGB is what is listed onside of the images down at the bottom. should my printer profile be listed there? it is listed under printer ICC in the job properties. i'm wondering if i need to change my workflow and actually assign a profile in photoshop rather than convert to profile.

Second part of question.
No, it's the image colour space shown in the exif hotbar below the thumbs. If there are asterisks either side, then the profile is embedded in the image - the sure way of telling a program what profile is associated with the image.
Yes, your printer profile should be selected in job properties (blue dot) or from edit preferences. NB. selected by you, it does not appear automatically.
I'm not exactly sure what "assigning" a profile in PS does. I would think assigning is only ok. when you are sure what the image colour space is and will only be of use within PS. I think if an image is converted in PS, the profile is embedded in the image and that is certain to be recognised in Qimage.
Perhaps someone else will confirm or otherwise what I have said about PS profile "assignment".
BTW. if an image has no exif tag or embedded profile, Q will default to sRGB but you can override that with a filter.
Terry.

The only other thing to add is the often missed Checkmark in HONOR EXIF color space tags when no embedded profile exisits.
If you have a check in there, and an image with a tagged color space, Qimage will open it in that color space.
Furthermore, above that area in the dialogue box, there's another area for camera input color space; designed to have Qimage check for tagged color space from your camera shots.
If I shoot in JPG mode, I usually set the color to the adobe setting in my camera.
By setting that up in that box, Qimage will assign the Adobe color space to any JPG it sees from my camera. If I shut it off in Qimage, the Qimage will default to unknown and assign sRGB.

Of course, shooting in RAW mode, there is no assigned color space at the shooting time, and Qimage will either assign sRGB, Adobe RGB, or your camera Raw profile as the color space depending on the settings in Options Raw.

Fred