Thanks guys!
Al - I have a love/hate relationship with #1, it was original a landscape shot that I rotated in Photoshop as I felt it worked better that way. This shot was taken at something like 1:1.5 or so, probably a bit too tight. I haven't really hit it with this Skipper yet, I've either been too tight I think or too wide. Need to shoot it more (and yes, it was back today but I haven't processed the shots yet). I also like the mauve, it's pretty much 'as is'.
Brian - both really. I shot it in camera as Adobe RGB (a recent change for me, since I've always shot sRGB before). Post processing in Photoshop was several steps, some of them semi-newish for me, and some new.
1. Balance the shot using curves/thresholds as per existing technique. The difference though is I'm now also selecting a mid tone point as well. I'm grabbing the midtone by duplicating the layer, changing the blend mode to difference and then opening up a new threshold layer. Move the slider all the way to the left, then slide it to the right until you start getting black sections. These are your neutral greys (works for the vast majority of images it seems). Don't be phased if the selected area isn't grey, you're after a midtone, so colour doesn't really matter 
2. After this step, I'm opening up a levels layer and adjusting each channel separately, just really grabbing the dark/white points and dragging them into the histogram. I then flatten the image for the next step.
3. I'm no longer adjusting contrast by a simple contrast layer. My new technique is to duplicate the layer. I then desaturate this particular layer, invert it, and add 10.5% gaussian blur to the layer. I then change the blend mode to overlay, and adjust the opacity to 25%. I then typically add between 1 and 3 points of contrast via a contrast layer. Seems to work pretty well for most images from my experiences so far. I then flatten the image for the next step.
4. I then add some saturation to the image, but not via the normal hue/saturation adjustment layer. I duplicate the layer. I then add a 3% gaussian blur to this layer. I change the blending mode to colour, and then add a hue/saturation adjust layer on top of this. I'll typically only add a few points at most here.
I then do my usual flattening of the image into LAB mode, smart sharpen on the lightness channel, then re-convet back to RGB mode and apply Neat Image (defaults). I'm noticing now that I'm consistently getting better noise profiles in Neat Image. Most profiles are upwards of 90% now, whereas it used to be around 80% on average. Not sure what to make of this
I'm really being quite gentle with saturation adjustments, and the contrast changes are subtle as a general rule as well. If anything, I'm probably applying less contrast than I used to (typically hit around the 9 or 10 points with my old technique). I feel that the balancing that I'm doing now in Photoshop is better as well, more accurate than previous attempts.
Both images are as per camera exposure as well, I think I bumped up one of the images by 0.17 of a stop in DPP from memory, but nothing really major. I've dropped the LCD brightness on the Mark IIn down to neutral. I've also removed Adobe Gamma from Windows startup. I also had another program running that loaded a profile for me at windows startup, that's been uninstalled. Graphics card settings have been reset to defaults, as has the hardware side of the monitor. I'm waiting on a Huey Pro to properly calibrate the monitor (or least hopefully do it lol!).
That's about it really. I think a lot of my darkness problems before were threefold:
1. Incorrectly calibrated monitor (too bright).
2. Too bright a Mark IIn LCD setting
3. Not bloody well checking the histogram at shooting time...I got used to my 1D which as a general rule, if it looked OK on the LCD screen, the exposure was pretty good. The Mark IIn's new LCD screen has been fooling me.
One thing I've noticed - the Mark IIn uses the E-TTL II flash system (whereas I only used E-TTL before on the 1D & D60). I'm noticing up to a stop or so difference in accuracy between the original 1D and the Mark IIn. I'm not sure if E-TTL II is accurate to be honest, at least for macro shots. Either that, or there's a problem with the flash, or the camera.
Dave
edit: Another reason why I'm sus on the E-TTL II flash metering is that when I'm starting to blow out the main subject, I'm still getting very bad underexposure noise in the darker sections of the frame...I only ever got that type of noise with the original 1D if I badly underexposed shots by like 1-1.5 stops or greater and then tried to up the exposure to brighten the image etc. At the most these recent shots have only been around half a stop underexposed I'd estimate, nothing too serious from my previous experience...and I haven't been adjusting them in DPP, cos they looked OK on my screen...so exposure as is with no brightness changes...I just shouldn't be seeing this type of noise imho...
