Listens: I'm Not Dead (P!nk)

Argh...

So apparently, any good tutorial out there for beautiful coloring (bright or unusual colors) involves selective coloring as far as I've seen.

The thing is, I have Photoshop Elements 5.0 and have used up trials of Photoshop CS3, CS2, CS and even went so far as Elements 2.0. 

Photoshop CS3, CS2 and possibly CS are the only ones that I know of that have selective coloring and I, having Elements 5.0, obviously don't have it. ;_;

So two questions.

One, is there another free program/Photoshop that I haven't tried that has selective coloring or something very similar? Or two, is there any recommended tutorials that don't involve selective coloring but get the same, beautiful bright/unique colored results people see in icons nowadays?

Thanks muchly. :))