Photoemission electron microscopy has matured into a versatile analytical technique on mesoscopic length scales. Applications range from surface physics or chemistry to biology. When operated with circularly polarized light in the soft X-ray regime, however, photoemission microscopy offers a unique access to many aspects in surface and thin film magnetism by combining magnetic and chemical information. Exploiting the high brilliance and circular polarization available at a helical undulator beamline, the lateral resolution in the imaging of magnetic domain structures may be pushed well into the sub-micrometer range. By means of a newly designed photoemission microscope not only domains, but also domain walls can be selectively investigated under these circumstances. The high sensitivity of the technique yields a sizable magnetic contrast even from ultrathin films in the monolayer regime. The combination of chemical selectivity and information depth can be employed to investigate the magnetic behavior of buried layers and covered surfaces. This approach offers a convenient access to magnetic coupling phenomena in magnetic sandwich structures.