[Craftysnapper]

Hi Christine, I use the HP7960 and CS2 & Elements 5 and I actually prefere printing from Elements and get perfect results so lets see if I can help.

I have read every possible thread re calibration etc,but that is beyond my capabilities,so I have set the Elements to "optimize for print " setting.The printer is set at default for Adobe SRG,as it has been mentioned that if ones cam shoots in Adobe,not the Srgb,then everything should be compatible.

If this is the case then forget the links posted in the previous thread and lets keep it simple, what you are doing here is the correct procedure for a colour managed workflow.

The printed shots are perfect in quality,but just fractionally darker.I have not noticed this before,until obtaining a widescreen monitor,so everything is very bright.
Would I be better off using the original default settings.The new system is a bit of a nuisance as everything goes straight in Elements,whereas I prefer to load into My pictures.

Not quite sure what you mean here, but it is better to use Elements (which is colour managed than to print using a windows program.
It also sound like your new monitor is not calibrated Gamma wise as well as your previous monitor (being wide screen should make no difference)

You also do not say how you are calibrating you monitor, Spider, Adobe Gamma or the windows system.

But lets forget that for the moment and presume that from what you say "The printed shots are perfect in quality,but just fractionally darker" this means that the gamma of your monitor is set to bright, but you have to realise that veiwing the same image by transmited light "Monitor" and reflected light "print" are two different mediums and the print will always appear darker when compared to the monitor.

Now if the difference is dramatic you can alter the gamma of the monitor (as it is proberbly calibrated wrong) to match the prints but if you are happy with the brightness of your monitor you can use this little dodge I have found usefull for fine tuning the brighness of prints. With your image open go to enhance>Adjust lighting>brightness and contrast, now alter just the brightness slider to say +10 and try a print and see if it matches what is on your monitor (all we are doing here is altering the Gamma of the image rather than the monitor) when you find a setting that works remember it and apply it to all your images, but do not save the adjustment to the image when closing it down.

Trying to put some RAW files into Adobe,took me 3 hrs trying to convert them,lost half of them,and the only way I could convert to JPG was by saving for Web,what a waste of time!!!!

Quite simply when you open your raw images in Elements they are in 16 bit mode and you cannot save a 16 bit image as a jpeg. So got to Image>Mode> and change it to 8bit/channel you will then be able to save it as a jpeg normaly.

Paul