I could spend about 20 pages here describing and stepping through a Curves tutorial to accomplish this task. But I won't. One of the seldom mentioned tools in Photoshop and Elements is the Gradient Map. This tool can do many things -- one of which is accomplish this reader's goals...
As you can see, these examples were toned down, or "tinted" as we called it in the old days. The technique de-saturates color until the image is almost grayscale. Rather than desaturating using the Hue/Saturation functions, the Gradient Map has a much softer hand, and I think does a better job.
Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map...
You can simply hit 'okay' to dismiss the opening dialog, or play with the settings. The Mode should be set to normal, so if the image looks like a negative, then reset that pull-down. Leave it set to 100% and do nothing else.
Now, use the Opacity slider to adjust the effect of the Map. At 100% the image will be grayscale. I have found this to be the best method of converting color photos to grayscale for newsletters and other print projects that use a PDF to print to a Duotech or other "rapid" on-demand printing process.
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