DxO Optics Pro v3 -- please help with RAW conversion

Archived from groups: rec.photo.digital.slr-systems (More info?)

I have recently become the proud owner of a Nikon D70s and the 24-120 VR
lens.

This is my first SLR camera, but I do have a little photo retouching
experience from previous digital cameras. I've never shot in RAW before,
though ... so I'm still struggling to find a good and fast way to work with
my NEF images.

DxO Optics ( http://www.dxo.com ) seemed like a great idea, being able to
correct lens distortions and do the basic retouching in one go. Basic
retouching, to me, is stuff like correcting whitebalance, exposure, general
contrast, lighten shadows and darken highlights.

I've tried different settings without good results ... please take a look at
these photos (quick snapshots, not great images)
http://dansken.dyndns.org/users/dxo/

The colors seems wrong (oversaturated? too yellow?). Maybe I have just
stared at these photos for too long ... the colors may seem right to
everybody else?

Which of the different settings looks best to you?

Anybody else getting good results with DxO v3?
What settings do you recommend?

I'll be happy to provide original NEF files on request, if you want to
demonstrate better settings for DxO. The demo version of DxO is currently
unavailable, but should appear at
http://www.dxo.com/en/photo/optics_pro/photo_demo.php


Thank you for your help,
David Knudsen