Its primary function is as a photo organizing tool. The reason you can't do any of those things is because Adobe Lightroom's secondary function is as an image editor, and a basic one at that. You can't merge photos shot at different exposures to create a high dynamic range image, you can't cut one object out of an image and paste it into another and you can't use any of those cool artistic filters that Photoshop users have come to love (or hate). You can't use it to make yourself lose 30 lbs, for example, which is something you can do (given enough time and skill) in Photoshop. the much more expensive Photoshop, currently priced at $699), Adobe Lightroom can't do most of what Photoshop can. They do have a few features in common, but they are actually good for vastly different purposes. Part of the confusion comes from Lightroom's proper name: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, which should in no way imply that the two pieces of software perform similar functions. Now if you're not already familiar with Adobe Lightroom, I bet you thought it was just a scaled-down image editor, similar to but nowhere near the equal of its big brother Adobe Photoshop.
