Here's a bit of a follow-up.  I think I may have jumped the gun.  I think my problem was the paper.  When I switched to a glossier paper (and its associated profile) both the soft proof and final print darkened considerably.  I'm guessing that the heavy matte type papers just do not get the same deep colors as other papers.

Hello:
I'm an amateur photographer. I've been using Qimage for 6 years with great success.  I keep my monitor (a wide gamut NEC LCD2690WUXi) well calibrated. 

Until recently, I printed all of my photos at Costco.  I use the ICC profiles from Dry Creek Photo.  The prints turn out quite nicely and match what I see on my screen in Qimage.  Now, I've found that when I soft proof in Qimage, the soft proofed image I see is much "brighter" and more washed out than the image I see when I double click on the image in Qimage (e.g. to do adjustments) or what I get from Costco.  In other words the soft proofed image does not match the print.  The print does match what I see when I double click.

I just purchased a Canon Pixma Pro9500 Mark II.  Today I did a test print on my Pixma of a photo I also recently printed at Costco.  I set up the ICC profile for the Canon paper (Canon Fine Art "Photo Rag").  This time the print matches the soft proofed image and is brighter and more washed out that what I see on the screen when I double click.  The blacks for example aren't a deep black.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.  If my Costco prints didn't match the screen so well, I would have assumed that my monitor (being wide gamut) is fooling me. 

BTW: I tried adjusting the brightness down in Qimage.  But even then the soft-proofed image looks washed out.   

Any thoughts?