If you're using Photoshop Elements and you open a RAW photo, you see something like .

But instead of instinctively clicking Open Image--which sends the photo along to Photoshop Elements--take a look around. If all you want to do is tweak the photo, everything you need is right here in a streamlined interface.

Near the top of the right pane, you should see three buttons. The first, Basic, is where you'll find all the color and exposure controls. Since you shot the photo in RAW, you know that the white balance might need to be adjusted. Drag the Temperature slider until the color is properly balanced (if you prefer to use a dropper to set the white balance by clicking on a neutral tone in the image, stand by--I'll get to that in a moment). Tint lets you fix the balance between red and green, as you'd expect. And the list of sliders continues from there, with sliders for adjusting overall exposure, recovering blacks, adding a fill light, altering brightness and contrast, and so on.

For more controls, flip to the Detail tab by clicking the second button at the top. you can add some sharpening and noise reduction, if you so desire.

That's not all--if you look at the icons at the upper left of the window, over the photo, you'll see controls for common tasks such as zoom and pan, as well as a white balance dropper (click on a white or gray patch in the photo to adjust the colors automatically). You can even crop and straighten the photo, though you don't have a way to specify a particular aspect ratio, such as 8 by 10.