Photoshop Elements and saving RAW Files.

Raw files are not "saved as raw" by Elements or any other editing/conversion software. A raw file is never changed; you only save your conversion and editing settings in a small sidecar file with an .xmp extension. In Elements, if you only use the sliders and tabs in the ACR dialog, you simply click 'Done' or 'Open' to save the settings. If you 'open', you can further edit the file and save it in all available formats, not only jpeg. If you click the 'save' button, you just convert the raw proprietary format to the DNG raw format, which does not change the data in the original file, but which can be opened by older and not up to date Elements versions.

Special case for the ACR dialog: if you edit jpegs or Tiff, PSD files which are not raw files, the conversion settings are saved in the jpeg metadata header, without creating an xmp companion file.