CMYK Conversion

[semu]

I have incurable cancer, last yr was given 2 wks to live but currently am doing great. My children ages 26 and 29, asked me to leave writings for them and their future children. I have written a children's book for future grandchildren and illustrated it in watercolors. (Haven't done any art for 35 yrs but am getting positive feedback on my book.)

Have taken jpg images of the artwork, have found a (self) publisher/printer and they require the images to be CMYK. I am lost. The printer will charge $135 to convert from RGB to CMYK.

I think that money would be better spent on better software for future endeavors but of course then there is a learning curve. I don't have a lot of time to spend learning!

I currently use only MS Paint for retouching my images (very crude!) I don't want to spend a lot of time / money to do this. Have found a suggestion through Internet research that i can purchase an older version of Adobe Photoshop Elements via Ebay, then an add-on to Elements for $15 which will allow the conversion (Hidden Power Photoshop Elements...).

Is there anyone familiar with all this who can advise me? I would be so grateful for any guidance. I don't want to become an expert in conversion, just want to easily convert to CMYK (with reasonably good conversion) and get on with publishing and hopefully writing more books for my future grandchildren.

Is this the best path to take for conversion? Is there an easier, faster way?
What version of Elements do i need to get to conversion capability? Once i get all the software needed, how to do the conversion?

Thank you in advance for any help!

[creativeretouch]

Hi semu & welcome to the RetouchPro forum ....

Can you ask your printer to give you his final CMYK color profile? He should know what you will ask for...

You can download a trial version of Photoshop - it should work for one month, so you will have enough time to finish your work free of charge.

When you will have your profile & photoshop installed, we will be able to help you convert your images to CMYK.

[semu]

Thank you, CreativeRetouch, I will call the publisher on Monday and will get back to you. I really appreciate your help.