Adobe Bridge

Adobe Bridge is a great file management program which you might find helpful if you have a large number of photos to organize. In addition to organization, you can label, prioritize, batch process and share files. Of particular interest is Bridge's integration with some of Photoshop's automated features (Contact Sheet and Photomerge) and photo adjustment with Camera Raw.

Read more about it in the Adobe Bridge Help (Help Menu) and CS3 for Dummies pg. 43-47.

About Adobe Bridge CS3

Use Adobe Bridge, provided with Adobe Creative Suite 3 components, to organize, browse, and locate the assets you need to create content for print, the web, television, DVD, film, and mobile devices. Bridge keeps native Adobe files (such as PSD and PDF) as well as non‑Adobe files available for easy access. You can drag assets into your layouts, projects, and compositions as needed, preview files, and even add metadata (file information), making the files easier to locate.

For a video on understanding Bridge, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0090.


File browsing From Bridge you can view, search, sort, filter, manage, and process image, video, and audio files. You can use Bridge to rename, move, and delete files; edit metadata; rotate images; and run batch commands. You can also view files and data imported from your digital still or video camera.


Camera Raw If you have Adobe Photoshop® or Adobe After Effects® installed, you can open or import camera raw files from Bridge, edit them, and save them in a Photoshop-compatible format. You can edit the image settings directly in the Camera Raw dialog box without starting Photoshop or After Effects, and copy settings from one image to another. If you don’t have Photoshop or After Effects installed, you can still preview the camera raw files in Bridge.

Label and rate files

Labeling files with a certain color or assigning ratings of zero to five stars lets you mark a large number of files quickly. You can then sort files according to their color label or rating.

For example, suppose you’re viewing a large number of imported images in Bridge. As you review each new image, you can label those you want to keep. After this initial pass, you can use the Sort command to display and work on files that you’ve labeled with a particular color.

You can label and rate folders as well as files. You can even label and rate files and folders on read‑only media, such as a CD.

You can assign names to labels in Labels preferences. The name is then added to the file’s metadata when you apply the label.

Note: When you view folders, Bridge shows both labeled and unlabeled files until you choose another option.

For a video on rating files, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0093.

Label files

Select one or more files and choose a color from the Label menu. To remove labels from files, choose Label > No Label.

Rate files
1. Select one or more files.
2. Do any of the following:

• In the Content panel, click the dot representing the number of stars you want to give the file. (Dots do not appear in very small thumbnail views. If necessary, rescale the thumbnail view until the dots appear.)
• Choose a rating from the Label menu.
• To add or remove one star, choose Label > Increase Rating or Label > Decrease Rating.
• To remove all stars, choose Label > No Rating.
• To add a Reject rating, choose Label > Reject.

Note: To hide rejected files in Bridge, choose View > Show Reject Files.

Sort and filter files

By default, Bridge sorts files that appear in the Content panel by filename. You can sort files differently by using the Sort command or by using the Sort By menu in the Filter panel.

You can control which files appear in the Content panel by choosing criteria in the Filter panel. You can filter by rating, label, file type, keywords, date created, or date modified, among other criteria.

Criteria that appear in the Filter panel are dynamically generated depending on the files that appear in the Content panel and their associated metadata. For example, if the Content panel contains audio files, the Filter panel will contain artist, album, genre, key, tempo, and loop criteria. If the Content panel contains images, the Filter panel will contain dimensions, orientation, and aspect ratio criteria.

You can also specify that Bridge show or hide folders, rejected files, and hidden files (such as cache files) in the Content panel by choosing options from the View menu.

For a video on sorting and filtering in Bridge, see www.adobe.com/go/vid0096.

Sort files

Choose an option from the View> Sort menu, or click the Sort By menu in the Filter panel and choose the order in which you want to sort files. Choose Manually to sort by the last order in which you dragged the files.

Filter files

Control which files appear in the Content panel by selecting one or more criteria in the Filter panel. The Filter panel displays the number of items in the current set that have a specific value, regardless of whether or not they are visible. For example, by glancing at the Filter panel, you can quickly see how many files have a specific rating or keyword.

In the Filter panel, select one or more criteria:

• Select criteria in the same category (for example, file types) to display files that meet any of the criteria. For example, to display both GIF and JPEG files, select CompuServe GIF and JPEG file beneath File Type.
• Select criteria across categories (for example, file types and ratings) to display files that meet all of the criteria. For example, to display GIF and JPEG files that have two stars, select CompuServe GIF and JPEG file beneath File Type and two stars beneath Rating.
  

Shift-click rating criteria to select that rating or higher. For example, shift-click two stars to display all files that have two or more stars.

• Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) to inverse selected criteria. For example, if you’ve selected CompuServe GIF beneath File Type, Alt-click CompuServe GIF to deselect it and select all the other file types listed.

Note: If you filter a closed stack, Bridge displays the stack only if the top (thumbnail) item meets the filter criteria. If you filter an expanded stack, Bridge displays all files in the stack that meet the filter criteria.

Clear filters

Click the Clear Filter button (circle with "no" slash) at the bottom of the Filter panel.

Lock filters

To prevent filter criteria from clearing when you navigate to another location in Bridge, click the Keep Filter When Browsing button at the bottom of the Filter panel.

Create a contact sheet

If you have Adobe InDesign installed, you can use Bridge to create a contact sheet of images in InDesign.

1. In Bridge, select the images you want to include in the contact sheet. Otherwise, all the images currently displayed in the Content panel are included.

Note: You can select different images by clicking Files after the Contact Sheet dialog box opens.

2. Choose (a) Tools > InDesign > Create InDesign Contact Sheet or (b) Tools > Photoshop > Contact Sheet II

In InDesign, under Layout in the Contact Sheet dialog box, specify layout options for the thumbnail previews:

• For Place, choose whether to arrange thumbnails across (from left to right, then top to bottom) or down (from top to bottom, then left to right).
• Enter the number of columns and rows that you want per contact sheet. The maximum dimensions for each thumbnail are displayed to the right, along with a visual preview of the specified layout.
• Select Use Auto-Spacing to let InDesign automatically space the thumbnails in the contact sheet. If you deselect Use Auto-Spacing, you can specify the vertical and horizontal space around the thumbnails. The contact sheet preview in the dialog box is automatically updated as you specify the spacing.
• Select Rotate Image For Best Fit to rotate the images, regardless of their orientation, so they fit efficiently on a contact sheet.

Under Caption, select File Name to label the thumbnails using their source image filenames. Select other caption options as desired.

• To use an InDesign template for the contact sheet, select Use InDesign Template. Click Template to select a template.
• To save the contact sheet as PDF, select Save As PDF under Output Options. Click Output File to select an InDesign PDF preset.
• Click OK.

— From Adobe Bridge Help