Planning to purchase PS Elements 6

[C2S]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently using an ancient version of the Photoshop Elements, that was bundled with my Canon scanner when I bought it years ago. Probably the very first version, as there's no additional version number on the splash screen. Well anyway, I'm slowly getting annoyed to its limitations, and begun to think about if I should upgrade to the latest version: 6.0. After all, it would be only a fraction of the price of the CS2 or CS3.

I've gone through a few thread of the subject, but since I'm not sure how "professional" Adobe allows you to go with the "dumbed down" Elements-versions of PS, I would like a confirmation from you guys if the following features exist in Elements 6.0:

(If you can't / don't want to answer all, I've numbered each if you want to answer some of them)

1) 16-bit editing: I usually spend quite some time on PP, and my current version of Elements only supports 8 bits per channel. Does Elements 6 allow full color editing? Is there any kind of limitations to this? And I remember reading once that in some Photoshop versions, not all editing tools / filters supported 16-bits - any truth to this?

This would be very useful as I sometimes twist and tune the tones and colors in some images a lot, which leads to slight banding and graininess in 8 bit mode.

2) Color management: My Elements only has some kind of generic "color management"-setting, without any specific option for sRGB or AdobeRGB - so can you control these in Elements 6? Note that I don't need the "convert to CMYK"-option, as the lab can do that when I supply the TIFFs (I don't print home atm) - but I should be able to do the actual PP in Adobe RGB.

3) Layer masks: My Elements only supports grayscale masks for adjustment layers, that is, for levels, hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, and such adjustments - but not for regular layers. Does this restriction apply to the latest version Elements as well? (although I hear some plug-ins can work around this)

4) RAW-import: Well I'm sure this covered, as you can download updates to ACR that work in Elements too. But here's a question still: does it make any difference / is there any benefit whether I:

A. Import my RAWs into Elements using ACR, and do the normal global RAW adjustments it (probably) offers, or
B. Use DPP to open, edit, and transfer the image to Elements with full information, including colors?

5) Curves: Some say Elements don't have curves, some say it's been recently added... so has it been added?

6) Photomerge: If you can say a word or two about how well these are working in Elements, if at all, that would be great too.

7) WB adjustment: ...in case I want to tune it mid-PP... my Elements has click-something-white kind of WB correction - in addition to this, are there any other options including some kind of a slider or multiple sliders?

That's all for now. If I forgot something essential, I'll probably post it in a reply later on. And if you'd like to add something worth thinking about, that is missing above, go ahead.

I'd like to hear your thoughts.