You won't be able to select areas of the photo to apply changes to in Lightroom that are irregularly shaped. You get a round brush. That's it. Try to actually use the brush as this is quite untrue. It is a very simple way to make quick irregularly shaped effect masks. You can even make it only go to certain tints, making it operate like a magic selection brush. While Lightroom supports Metadata keywords, adding keywords to photos is much easier in Elements. You're kidding right? The keywording in Lightroom is very good and very easy. Try using the metadata spray can, the keyword tabs, the automatic associations, etc. It is far better thought out than what you get in Elements.
As the previous post indicated, Lightroom is more of a photo touch up utility. You're basically playing with color tone, highlights, exposure values, gradients, etc. You can apply these to a single photo or a group of photos at a time. It's more a different way of working and more photographic than a pixel editor like Elements or the real Photoshop. I used to swear by (adjustment) layers in Photoshop, but Lightroom allows me to do the stuff I used those for far quicker, more space and resource efficient and with usually better results. The only times I go to Photoshop now are for images that need a lot of cloning touch up (extremely rare), where I need to combine multiple images from different exposures, or when I need to do softproofing.
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