With Photoshop out of my budget for now, I decided to give Adobe Elements a try.
At Doug's suggestion, I took a shot atRestoration Challenge #16 "Boothed" using only Adobe Elements.
Keep in mind that I have very little experience with Photoshop, generally using Paint Shop Pro; someone experienced with Photoshop would likely do much better than I with this.
This restore is also a "NO Clone" version. I adapted some steps from Tim's great description on this challenge.
For the un-exposed, Adobe ELEMENTS offers a minimal set of the tools found in Photoshop. What it does, it does with well. It does not, however, allow you to use masks or channels--though you can cheat quite easily mask-wise. I does support many if not most Photoshop-compatible plug-ins and filters.
With the Alpha Channel unavailable, the layers take center stage. Using layers, you can essentially create masks. More steps are necessary in many cases, but it does give a different look to some processes.
I've uploaded the results as if it were a regular restore, description et al., and thought to offer it here as well.
Anyone else using Elements?

Pat,

It looks like you've done a real nice job on it. I gotta see the description! Does "Elements" support layer masks, or are there no masks at all? Not sure I could live very long without layer masks. :)

Ed

Elements does not have layer mask commands as such.
You can add them by digging into the history of several of the Frames effects in the Effects Browser..hard to explain..you have to explore it.
The Browser(s) are a nice addition, file and effect.
Though Elements has no channel editing nor CMY K spliting, there are plug-ins that can help bridge that need that you may already have in Photoshop.
It offers "recipes" which are summary protocols for common tasks. They could be helpful I guess for someone without prior experience....sometimes for us old dogs too :) though I can't say I have used them.
:bawling: (always wanted to use that)The HELP section---there's a browser and stay-on-top thingy (technical term)--have been my demon! The desk-top thing gets in my way. The regular Help section opens quite nicely and lets me scroll----half a page maybe---then freezes the whole pc! I have the manual and have avoided "HELP" now I'm headed to Adobe's site to find a fix. Seems I remember similar complaints in various posts when I was there before.
It's not a bad program--getting it when it first came out, I spent $69 for the CD and manual.

Great job Pat especially with not being able to use layer masks or doing with out the clone tool.
DJ

Nice job, Pat!

I bought Elements for my brother after being frustrated by his other image-editing software. He wants to learn to do some editing, but not enough to make PShop worthwhile, and I was trying to show him some steps. I only used Elements a couple of times, but felt quite comfortable with it compared with Adobe Deluxe, Microsoft Picture Perfect, and such. I do remember that
stay-on-top thingy (technical term) getting in the way - grr!

IF you decide sometime to go with Photoshop, you might consider buying the "academic version" at your local community college. I take an occasional class (non-Photoshop) and qualify for buying as a student - got Photoshop for hundreds less than retail. It just can't be used for commercial purposes. I still am eligible for the upgrades (as regular upgrade prices, I'm afraid).

Thanks for the review.

This has nothing to do with the review, or even really your restoration, but I really like that odd paper/background texture in the new version of your photo. It has kind of a 3d spiderweb kind of thing going on.

me too. (really like the texture)

had no idea it could do so much, but i know mostly that depends on the driver.

can you guesstimate how long it took?

Since I was rather well acquainted with this photo from working on it in Paint Shop Pro (and some in LE), it's hard to give a fair estimate of the time. I knew what wouldn't work, so that cut down my experimenting. It was quick though--with no cloning, really just some layer-blends and filtering, it was probably 30-40 min tops.