Well - the RIGHT version of Adobe PhotoShop Elements v 6.0 arrived today, Tuesay, Hune 10th - "two working days" as promised - though FOUR ACTUAL DAYS from the time I finally got a Customer Service person to confirm that a) the software Adobe sent me was for the WRONG operating system - I needed the Mac OS 10.5 version and they in fact had sent me the XP and Vista version and b) that Adobe would send me the RIGHT version - and "Two Day" FedEx it to me no additional cost to me.
In a "mere" 22 minutes I had PhotoShop Elements 6 installed on my new Mac Mini. Unfortunately - it has only a couple of the functions I HAD been using most in PhotoShop 5 - layers, curve adjust, guides, fit to screen, show actual size, zoom tool, "magic wand"select tool, and the "sharpen" filter.
So now, following Adobe Sales staff recomendation, and with their assurance that first, LightRoom had all the features/fuctions I'd specified, and when that didn't work, that Elements 6.0 would do the job, and after spending pushing $400 and wasting close to two weeks, to say nothing of the time wasted TRYING to get some actual "customer service" from Adobe's Customer Service phone "service" (actually "nightmare") - I'm still no closure to Adobe software that will allow me to do what I have been doing with my "old computer" and he "old" Adobe PhotoShop - than I was two weeks ago. AND - it's going to take another 6 to 8 hours of Fun And Games with Adobe's "customer service" - which I suspect will involve several hours of listening to MUZAK!!! and being disconnected at least twice.
The only thing I've actually accomplished so far is learning that Adobe now wastes better than half of precious screen space with menus filled with sliders, boxes for entering numeric values and pull down submenues.
Open Source software suggested by respondents to this saga - may be what liberates me from Adobe. Thanks for info about the options to The Big Boys who've gotten to big to care about their customers.
charlie b