Hi Vince:
Welcome to RetouchPRO.
Many of the functions available directly (or indirectly via Hidden Tools) in Elements has are also in Photoshop. I don't have Elements, but here's the Photoshop perspective.
There are a couple different ways to create
selections, that is, isloate portions of your image that you want to work on or apply an effect to. For example you may want to blur only the background of an image, so you would select it and then apply a blur filter.
Tools used to make selections include Rectangular and Elliptical Marquee, Lasso, Polygon Lasso, Magic Wand, etc. These are "mouse controlled" tools -- click, drag, or click and drag in nature. Though functional, sometimes it's not easly to use these tools to make complex selections.
Quick Mask allows you to create and modify a mask (which becomes a selection) using the paint brush tool... You can use options such as airbrush or special brushes as needed. You literally paint where you want to select.
You didn't ask for it, but here's a site I ran across that has a goldmine of info on Elements:
http://www.arraich.com/elements/psE_intro.htm
Hope this gets you moving.
Again, welcome. Here's to a long and fun time learning all of the awesome things Elements can do.
~DannyR~