I sure am a better photographer since I started messing with elements.  On the top left is the original, the right is tweaked just a little...and since I still haven't learned about distracting backgrounds, a new one put in.  I think it turned out at least as nice as your average school portrait.  Especially done bleary eyed after night shift when I shoulda been in bed, but felt like doodling instead.

I found a great new outlet- I LOVE restoring battered and old photos but have pretty much exhausted my supply.  Looking at a profile on tipsquirrel (an awesome place for tutorials) I saw on Janine Smith's profile that she got much of her expertise volunteering for an organization called Operation Photo Rescue (OPR).  They use volunteers across the internet to restore photos for people in disaster hit areas.  I've finished my first photo for them and hope they ask me to do more more more!

Meanwhile, I still haven't tried out "actions" in elements.  Its a series of somewhat automated fixes that you can rapidly apply to photos without having to go step by step.  Especially for when you want to do the same thing to several pics without having to go through all of those steps over and over.  If you have (at least version 9 or above) elements, the guided edits are pretty much the same thing.  Trouble is, except for lomo (which is a very cool effect) I don't much desire to use them.  And they seem very complicated to install.  Still, so much bru-hah about them, I'm going to get around to it one day.  I guess it took a couple years before I could see the point of brushes.

Happy editing!