[GeoffWessex]

Painting on a Layer Mask - that's what you're doing - is, in its basic form, painting black onto the mask (in fact, over the picture while the mask is 'active')......... to swap to white (to correct anything you've over done) give a quick press on the 'X' key.... (D to get Default Black and White in the foreground and background palettes and X to swap them over).

Have no worries about PS Elements 10 - there's lots that it can do and most magazines and websites (including this one) are chock full of tutorials....... however, I'd always recommend a good book and yours would be "Photoshop Elements 10 for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. As an alternative, or perhaps supplementary, "PS Elements 10 - The Missing Manual" goes into more depth but can be a little 'drier'.

Many people start out with Elements as a way to get into the full Photoshop, but then find that Elements has all they'd ever need. In fact, while there are a few very good things about Photoshop that will make you envious in the next couple of years (which is what Adobe want you to do) the one thing that really irks me is that Elements has a very inferior Adobe Camera Raw compared to full PS.

I'm still very happy with PS Elements 6!