3 images from DP2M and a thoughts

Per my other post, I suggest you download SPP and get some RAW files and work through directly yourself with SPP. A full manual is on the software itself, under the Help menu. Even if you don't practice edit some RAWs, it would answer many questions.

Yes, you can change the colormode and/or the white balance all at one time on photos you select in the catalog view. I'll generally edit each photo so I really don't know the fine points of 'batch processing' which is counter to my workflow. I can get each photo as I want it in SPP, so I don't then re-edit all in another program! Seems rather pointless to me for my preferences.

I find that 99% of the time auto wb is very good, especially in tricky light (late afternoon, 'color toned' light etc.) I generally start with standard colormode. Sometimes landscape gives me 'better' results, especially with green and autumn foliage. Sometimes it is too over the top however. Out in US southwest red rock country, landscape colormode was awful on my Valley of Fire photos... so it's more lilke a foliage colormode. I now think it acts much like a polarizer to 'pop' the greens, yellows, reds.

Or I switch to sunlight wb for about the same effect, but then usually stay in standard colormode NOT landscape colormode. I found overcast colormode was nice for my cloudy lake photos and... overcast days.

On the sliders, it's mostly exposure + fill light in combination that I'm fine tuning. Prints are my 'test' as I'm on an uncalibrated set-up (long story). With evaluative metering, I'm usually increasing the exposure to +.6 as a default (starting point) and fill light to +.3. Photos usually seem dark, but I think that's a result of evaluative metering on big sky scenes, of which I've been shooting a lot with the DP2Merrill.

Contrast I usually do +.2, highlight and shadow generally I leave alone; saturation +.1 or +.2 usually. If in landscape mode I'll cut the saturation to +.1.
You can 'define' settings (save) and then rather quickly apply to numerous photos, although I'm finding I like to adjust exposure+fill light for each, they can vary from the same scene depending upon (for example) how much dark foliage you may have in the same. Also in the adjustment panel, the slider settings stay the same in the 'custom' bullet from one photo to the next... they don't default back to 0 on the next photo like they do in Canon's DPP. I actually have to click around more on Canon DPP processing than on Sigma SPP processing.... though DPP loads through faster!

Again, I recommend you download SPP, read the manual, and work with the program!

Best regards, Sandy
http://www.pbase.com/sandyfleischman (archival)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandyfleischmann (current, DP2Merrill photos)