Need help with soft proofing images

[ccb]

Hi, I am still struggling with my prints. I use PE 6 on a Mac Os screen and use Cost Co for printing. They usually do a good job, but skin tones on people tend to go grey and have a washed out look.
I down loaded their print profile, and still had problems in PE (my photoclass covered this, but with PS, where it all made perfect sense). After a lot of research on the web,I have discovered that PhotoElements doesn't support soft proofing for printing. You can see how the image will look after printing, but there is no way to tweak it before sending it off to the lab. Is this really the case, and if so, how do I go about it so that I get nice looking prints? Is there another way to prepare an image to a specific lab? It seems odd that such a powerful software programme doesn't cover this.

Does anyone have any helpful thoughts or tips on this problem?
I am grateful for all answers, this is becoming such a headache for me.....

[teaking]

Well if you are going to softprrof the first thing you need is a calibrated monitor and a profile for it which you set in photoshop as your display profile. The next thing you need to know is what colour space your lab prints most will print sRGB some support Adobe RGB. So when you know this you need to set your working colour space your working in. And also check the files when open to make sure they are in the right colour space. Then when you have edited your pics print proof them how ever you have been doing if they dont need tweaking you have to go back to your original mode I guess and then tweak and rinse and repeat the print proof till it looks right. It sounds like you may be working in the wrong colour space you may have Adobe RGB set and your Printers use sRGB.

[ccb]

Hi, thanks for your reply, it makes a lot of sense, i will check my settings tonight, and fingers crossed, it might be something I am doing wrong that is easily fixed!!
I will keep you posted, this have given me a huge headache - thanks again for the reply!!