Norm,
I do not have ELEMENTS but have other editing progs.
I understand the zone system from my film days but I am not sure how this relates to digital.
B&W film expose for shadows and develop for highlights. Digital expose for highlights and post process for the shadows.
With B&W film I used a spotmeter and could use that to determine the various zones in a scene and therefore exposure. Now I am on digital I have 3D colour matrix metering, all very fancy but one still needs to chimp in high contrast scenes to ensure the histogram falls at the right point. Link to cambridgeincolour - histograms.
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tut...istograms1.htm
As the image you posted in the thread starter is so small, I am unable to overlay a grey scale in order to try and follow your explanation of what you are doing and why. It really needs to be at least 800 wide to allow one to really see the finer tones. A before and after would be even more helpful in understanding.
Don