This is because it is a wide gamut monitor, probably close to Adobe RGB rather than the usual sRGB.
I have recently bought an Eizo monitor; they overcome this problem by having various modes available: Custom for utilising the calibrated settings, sRGB for web browser etc. use, Text for word processing, e-mail with a lower brightness and so on, 5 modes altogether.
The mode can be controlled manually with a button or automatically, based on active application, by Eizo's Screen manager software.
The other useful feature is the automatic brightness control, based on the ambient light. I can now get consistent results when refining images, whether I do it in daytime or with artificial light in the evening.
Terry.

I think this is a wrong assumption but someone more expert than me would need to confirm or otherwise. I think that what the cursor reads is the screen value, therefore it depends very much on your monitor profile.

Your approach seems very unconventional and a lot of hard work, that is why I said about colour management. The conversion from one space to another is done by clever algorithms and the rendering intent selected.
If you are using Qimage for raw conversion, are you using a custom camera profile, well worth the few $ and you'll get the best possible correlation of colour.
Terry.

Firstly, about the selective color table.
While in the table, click F1 to get the Help on the subject.
I think you need to enter a value, right click and select Copy entry to same column.
You do not say if your monitor is calibrated, the values you read on the screen will depend on the capabilities of the monitor and its calibration icc profile.

Surely the "correct" way to get correlation between scene and image is to use colour management with calibrated monitor, and printer profiles.

From what I know, especially with highly saturated colours, there is no such thing as perfect correlation from scene to image because the gamut of monitors, printers etc. is far less than then the original scene and the raw image.
See my post here on gamut comparison http://ddisoftware.com/tech/computer-software/colour-gamut-visualisation/

If colour management is a "black art" to you, come back & I can point you to some reading matter.

Qimage works in 8 bits except that raw files are processed in 16 bits (or at least the 12 of your images) so nothing is lost in that sense.
Mike wrote an article about 16 bit printing which has some useful background:

http://ddisoftware.com/tech/articles/december-2006-hype-or-hero-take-2-16-bit-printers/

Terry

I've attached some screen snaps of my PP results for Ilford Smooth Heavy Weight Matte, Epson R800 with Epson ink, for you to compare. I guess the paper is similar to yours.
The PP reports are actually quite good.
However, you can see on the printer target histogram particularly, that there is a gap at the LH end. This resulted in poor detail in dark shadows on prints. I assume my Canon 8400F scanner, with Vuescan, could not cope with the darker patches on this paper.

I did also buy a "professional" custom profile for this paper; it was better but shadow detail was still limited so I assume that's the limitation of this type of paper.
Did you try any prints with your profile?
(Click attachments to see full size)
Terry.

Clone him off in Photoshop.  
Oh, I forgot, you don't know how to!
Terry.

Hi Persio,
PhotME will do it at http://www.photome.de/
Terry

No problem here in getting to the web site.
Terry.

Fred,
Thanks for the feedback. It looks like v258 makes a significant difference with a quad core machine but less on those with older processors.
Terry.

Mike,
RAW thumb building checks, a folder with 102 Canon 350D CR2 files:
On a Core 2 Duo, 2GHz laptop I'm seeing about a 30% improvement on thumb build speed, ie. from 1.8s/thumb to 1.25s/thumb.
On a P4, 3.6GHz dual memory Desktop PC a 12% improvement from 1.5 to 1.3s/thumb.
Is this the order of improvement to expect on these machines? I guess a quad core will be much better.
Terry.

Mike,
One little inconvenience with the forum is that although I can receive e-mail notifications of posts, the message always says "More topics may be posted, but you won't receive more email notifications until
you return to the board and read some of them."
Returning to the web pages is OK if you want to post a reply but a nuisance if you only want to keep up with new posts at that time.
Is there any possibility of this being changed?
Terry.

Hi,
I've just looked up the specification for the k1400:
"Maximum Image Size     Up to 8.27x12 inches" and you can use "Receiver Format / Sizes     Cut Sheet: 8.5x12, 8.5x14 and A4"
In theory, you should get your four 6x4 prints (8x12 total area).

Terry

Fred,
If you haven't got a web site or photo gallery, just attach a downsized image (<128KB) using Additional Options, bottom left of the screen.
Terry.

Hi Eric,
Melbs is a great city, I was there for a few days last October.
The only (limited) experience I've had in a similar situation was taking some on-stage shots of dancing & singing, individuals and groups. The lighting was constant so I found that it was best to use a fixed manual setting, with regular checks on the histogram.
Worth a try?
Terry.

One thing I missed out in my initial post was that the camera profile for use in Qimage SE for RAW processing was one I made with Profile Prism.
However, they are available from DDI as Fred has indicated.
Terry.

Fred,
You are making me do all the work ;-)
There appear to be some differences between the gamuts R800 & 1800. I compared Smooth Gloss  & Pearl Ilford profiles and the R800 had a bit more in the blue-green area (-a axis).
There is no significant difference between Pearl & Gloss based on my custom profiles.

I do note that Ilford Fine Art paper has a significantly smaller gamut than Pearl or Gloss so that surprises me especially when many pro's advertise their prints as being printed on fine art type paper. Are we missing something? When I tried it I was disappointed, shadow areas were not good. I do use archival matt, Epson & Ilford versions, and the look is similar to the fine art paper I tried.

Have you d/l the little program yet, you can then try all this for yourself.
Terry.