yeah, i knew that was a great price. and i also knew she was wanting it, so i grabbed the last copy & she repaid me. i didn't even realize that elements had add ons you could buy. there are tons of plug ins made for regular ps- i guess i never thought about the fact that they could work with elements, too. i don't know if you can change brush tips in elements, but if you are a halfway serious user, go to adobe's website and look through the user forums. people make all these neat actions, tips and brushes and you can download them for free. i've gotten some indispensible stuff on there i use every day in cs2. i'm not as familiar withelements, because i only use it when i'm at mom's 3 states away from home and have no other way to edit/look at my digi pix from when we're there. at home i use cs2, all the way. i was really impressed with how much elements has in it for a fraction of the price. and, i assume they've had some updates since the version i gave mom that came with my camera.

GreenieBeanie, I tried the .Mac service and was actually very disappointed in it - but that is a completely personal observation here. On June 18th I instead registered the domain name http://www.myblogpix.com (aptly named) and use it for hosting all my blog pix on my blogs (I maintain three blogs at present). For $11.95 a month I have 2 Gig's of storage, 25 Gigs a month in transfer allocated, and can have up to 25 email addresses that will hold 2 Gigs each. It works for me. I love iPhoto too BTW. It has been my primary means of keeping my photos organized on my Mac. Since I moved to Louisiana on March 15th of this year I've taken over 2,200 photos! Yes, that's a lot, but I figure a digital camera is such a wonderful thing and years from now the photos will still be in pristine condition - no fading, cracking or crumbling. And of course - I make regular backups to DVD to insure I never have to worry about losing my precious photo collection. A few days ago I started writing a Mac Software blog. I plan to add a brief review and link regularly to some kind of useful Mac application I run across. While some may be commercial (shareware) I am planning to try and cover only freeware applications as a rule of thumb. I'm finding my passion for gardening and my passion for computing work so well together it's as though that's how it all was meant to be from the get-go. I am Borg. You will be assimilated... Here is a link that might be useful: My New Mac Software Blog

I use Irfanview more than anything, especially to size wallpaper. I found the instructions lacking for some things like cropping. I still have Roxio and will continue with it for "fixing" photos until it is no longer supported. Then I will go with Irfanview for everything. I don't do a lot of pictures anymore, there is no one who shows an interest in them besides me. I don't even take a camera with me on trips anymore.

I use photoshop. I don't know if photoshop elements has this option. I recommend making a copy of your file, then working off the copy. First, convert the copy of your photo to grayscale: Open the copy of the image, then select IMAGE, then MODE, then GRAYSCALE Doing that will then activate the DUOTONE option. Re-select IMAGE, then MODE again, but this time choose DUOTONE. When the window opens up, it'll have two basic selections: PRESET which will have "Custom" in the window, and TYPE which will have "monotone" in the window. You can select "Monotone", "Duotone", "Tritone", or "Quadtone" as your type. That controls how many levels of additional color (1, 2, 3, or 4) you want to add to your grayscale photo. Under "preset" you can select from numerous types of preloaded toning combinations. The name implies the type of tone it will impart to your grayscale photo. For a "chocolate" look, you might want to take a look at "brown 464 bl 1" or something in that group. You can also tweak the tones to your liking. Best, Mongo