Originally Posted by ghelary 
well in this very case I believe the actual file that Element 6 would send to the printer would be a TIF file which is about looseless compression.
Regards,
Guillaume
true,
i would also like to add a few points
Elements 6 is doing one or some of the following
1. taking the in-camera jpeg settings, translating them into "element speak", and then applying them to the RAW
2. completely ignoring the in camera jpeg settings, and applying its own "basic" algorithm to the RAW file
3. completly ignoring the in camera jpeg setting, and not applying any processing to it
option 2 is most likely to happen, and the 3rd option is (IMO) least likely because there always has to be a "baseline" to which the program has to reference something. IE, blue is only blue if you reference it to blue, if what the camera says is blue but the program things is 1 point off blue towards green then you will obviously get conflict
same goes for sharpening and all that jazz