Please let me know in the comments… do you use Adobe Bridge?
I’ll admit it… years ago I used to make fun of Adobe Bridge. It was all in good fun, and I actually believe your final photo doesn’t care about your workflow so forget what everyone says. Make a great photo and how you got there doesn’t matter.
But recently I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t know what Adobe Bridge is and its usefulness. Combine that with the fact that Bridge has gotten a lot better over the years and I think it was time to do this video. Enjoy!
I love teaching and photography... In that order. I feel that enjoying photography, and photo editing can get WAY too complicated. So my personal mission (and favorite thing to do), is to create education that simplifies the process of taking great photos, and how to edit them to get the results you’ve always wanted.
Hi Matt,
I do not use Adobe Bridge, at least yet, but the picture itself caught my eye. I am from Charleston, SC and, unless I am badly mistaken, this is the Ravenel Bridge over the Cooper River between Charleston and Mount Pleasant.
Just wanted to give you a thumbs up on the image. It’s one of the things about Charleston I like. That and the seafood. And the beach.
Regards,
Rob Lebby
Thanks, Matt, the metadata access is something new to me. When creating a book in LRc adding titles and captions to the meta is handy as you can use them in Blurb. I get the impression that Bridge may be better. How is Bridge for editing metadata, adding GPS data and batch numbering or renaming file names compared to LRc?
Regards
Geoff
Hi Geoff. Seems like you have some specifics you’re looking for that aren’t anything that I’d look for or compare, personally. Bridge is free… easy to use… so give it a try to see if it does what you’d like. That said, it’s doubtful anyone would think bridge is better at metadata than LR. Thanks.
I didn’t know that!!
Good morning Matt,
I’m one of the old school Photo editors.
My 1st PS App was PS7 and it came with Premier.
Back in those days we only had Adobe Bridge.
I still use Bridge exclusively and have never used Lightroom.
Locating images, rearranging and renaming them is simple and efficient.
With a single click an image can be edited in Raw and/or PS.
Other than subject recognition searches, which “I think” Lightroom can do,
I just don’t see the point.
Having said that, I have most of your training videos.
I love your teaching and appreciate all that you continue to do for the photographic community.
Hi Dave. Glad it works for you. Just understand that some people like me and millions of others do see the point in LR. It’s just far simpler and more streamlined to work through multiple photos shoots and organize an entire photo library.
Thank you for shining the light on Bridge. Tried to figure it out before but now I understand how useful it really is. Awesome program.
I received Bridge when I purchased a Photoshop end-user license before Lightroom ever existed. At the time, I was using Bridge and PS to organize and process slides and negatives I had scanned. Probably because of people like you, I abandoned Bridge and converted to LR version 1.0. Since YouTube or other PS instructional videos were not as comment as they are now, for many years I just used LR to process my photos. Interestingly, when I set up my original file organization system for my scanned files and starting in 2010 my digital camera files, I always organize by date shot. This would make it easy for me to use LR or Bridge with Adobe Camera Raw to make my initial edits before going into PS. Maybe because I have used LR for so long, I do find it easy to quickly go through large groups of old phots for find certain one’s I’m looking for.
I don’t shoot many wildlife or bird photos, but use Bridge in those instances to delete all the out of focus or other bad shots before imposing into LR.
One question – you showed how you can access files on your data cards via Bridge. Please confirm that you don’t delete any individual files on your data cards. My understanding is that just increases the risk of a card failure in the future.
Hi Joe. I most definitely DO delete off the cards both in camera and while looking at them through bridge or any other program. Never had a problem and have never actually run in to a person with a problem deleting something off the card. It’s a hard drive and there’s no reason you cannot delete something from it. Of course, you should always do your own tests, but 20 years of doing it this way hasn’t ever led to a problem. Thanks.
Matt, what a revelation! All these years with Lightroom and, yeah, there’s this thing called Bridge, must check it out some day.
Now I see it could be really useful, so thanks for the heads-up.
PS yes – LR no.
know all that.
love bridge.
still use PS6 as back up – all my actions.
Thanks Matt. Great bear photos, btw!
Thanks, Matt, for the comments on Bridge vs Lightroom cataloging functions. Over the years, I have used LR just for editing, and not for cataloging. I have, literally, a couple hundred thousand photos (some great, some good, many not). I am struggling with whether to use Bridge or LR to better utilize my pretty-well-organized Windows Explorer file system (that makes organizational sense to me). A bit more knowledge might help me make the best decision. 1) I use LR Classic for most photo editing, and find it much easier to use than PS (although ACR probably would also suffice). 2) IF I use Bridge to manage my photos, and I move something that has already been imported into LR, I assume I’ll have the same problem finding it as I would if I used Windows Explorer or some another file browser. True? Or does Bridge have a secret handshake with LR? 3) I quite often edit the same photo in a number of different ways, or re-edit it after I see prints; but, I don’t know how to start where I left off on the last edit, and go from there, after I have closed LR. Like, maybe I did a great editing job, but later I decide that I want to replace the sky, but not lose the previous settings. And, even later, I decide I want to convert the image to B&W. Then still later, I want to go back to the second version and crop it differently. What’s the best way to keep all these different versions in LR, or can I?
Hi Paul.
1) Not sure what the question was there.
2) Yes.
3) Virtual copies in LR could help. Also the “Snapshot” feature in LR and ACR could help, though that’s limited to raw settings.
Thanks, Matt,
So, opinion time!
As mentioned, I have a huge file of photos (100,000s) that are neatly stored in a Windows file system, logically structured by SUBJECT matter, and maybe a secondary level that could be a “date”, So, say main folder “CHRISTMAS”, and then subfolders for “2020”, etc. Or, folder “Edisto Island”, subfolder “June 2023”. In a few cases, the subfolders might be 3 or 4 layers deep. Anyway, it works and makes sense for me. BUT, it doesn’t have any of the benefits of a Lightroom catalog, or a Bridge keywording or rating system.
I believe I want the benefits of LR cataloging (but don’t really know because I haven’t actually used them). Would it be easier to use Bridge to view and rate the many photos that I have, deleting a large percentage of the ones that really are not worth keeping, and then import the remaining images (in their existing file structure) into Lightroom, or would it be just as easy to view them in LR, checking only those that I want to import into LR, and do it that way?
Not really knowing, it seems that culling the trash and then importing only the good ones into LR might be the easiest way. I know that I don’t have to import every photo in a folder into LR, that I can only import selective images. But, because I have SO MANY that I want to cull and save only the best, even a small difference in how I do it might save a lot of time in the end. (And, I want to free up as much disk space as I can, too.
If you have an opinion on this, I would greatly appreciate it.
Hi Paul. I’m not sure why you would use two programs for what you could in one. Why not import all the photos to LR and delete the bad ones there. It’s just as easy if not easier and meant for that exact purpose. But instead, you’ll open a program to delete bad ones, just to import those photos in to a program that was meant to do that exact task? Seems odd to me, but if it works for you go for it.
OK. That helps. I just wanted to be sure I was doing the right thing to go through LR with all the MANY old pics. A lot of those old images I want to keep (documentation, remembrances, etc.), but probably will never actually edit them. BUT, I DO want to go through them and cull things that should have been deleted long ago.
So, one last question…With Bridge, I can cull images I don’t want to keep with no effect on the size of my Lightroom Catalog. If I use Lightroom, can I actually cull pictures without adding the keepers to my LR catalog? Trying to understand the impact of keeping maybe 50,000 pictures I’ll never edit in my LR catalog. If that won’t hurt the LR performance, then LR is definitely the way to go.
Hi Paul. A photo in LR is part of the LR catalog the moment you import it. This is the only way to look at a photo in LR. Whether you edit or not, flag, rate etc… It’s always part of your LR catalog, as it should be. If you delete images you don’t want, then they are gone and not part of your catalog anymore. LR performance doesn’t suffer regardless of whether or not you edit or don’t edit. Hope that helps. Good luck!
Just bought and watched your Bridge mini course but didn’t see the answers to these two questions: how do I get dark mode (Lr and LrC show up in dark mode but not Bridge)? And how can I populate the bar at the top with more than just Essentials and Libraries (you show Filmstrip, Output, Metadata and Workflow)?
Hi Gary.
1) Go to Preferences > Interface
2) Click the pop out menu and choose Edit Workspace.
Thanks.
Yeah. I’ve been a regular user of Bridge since, uh, forever – ad I use it primarily as a “souped up” file browser. I also love its excellent file-renaming features, file reordering (with drag ‘n drop) and of course its access to all META data.
I’ve recommended its use to many people, and still stand by it. ??
Thank you! I’ve ignored Bridge but it looks good for my shoots when I know there are very few goodies.
Hi Matt. I have only used Photoshop and Bridge from PS3. I have not found a need for LR in my workflow (maybe one day I will). Great work keeping us up to date on features and techniques.
Thank Matt great tips and useful advice, never been a bridge person but I will definitely take a look now.
I have been using for some time, couple years at least. I found it easier and faster to find what I want. I keep many different folders on externals. One item I found handy. If one of my HDs isn’t showing up, I drag and drop. Off I go. Thanks for the info.
great intro, never really look at Bridge, but will now
Thanks Matt
I use Bridge extensively, every day. It is the first app I initialize in the morning and the last app I quit at night. I use it to locate and view my files – psd, jpg, png, pdf. I use it to quickly drag-and-drop files into Photoshop. I use it to quickly rename files from our cameras and from designers that do not identify their wares sufficiently. I am constantly referring to the metadata panel for dimensional sizes and updating new photos with appropriate keywords. And I know I don’t use the app for even a tenth of what it is capable of doing, but what I use it for is so important to my daily workflow, that I would be time-lost without it.
I’ve never used Lightroom. I’ve always used Bridge (ACR) and then, if needed, finished in Photoshop.
Cheers Matt,—– Blake will be pleased! 🙂 🙂
My one regret with Bridge is the way it handles Collections. In LR they are virtual, just another folder in the LR database – but in bridge, I actually have to make a copy of the images I want to ‘collect’ and move them into the Collections folder – hence double the hard drive space. Wish I knew of a way to avoid this! If Bridge handled collections the way LR does, it would be perfect.
Lorraine, hi! I suspect BR is not intended to handle collections, that’s where LR comes forward, and Adobe has all of us attached to it hahaha. Think of bridge as a kind of DAM , your asset manager, as it can open so many kind of files, that you can even check what kind of small icons (as an example) another program has! Metadata in BR is very useful if you use it often. And as Matt said, the best, but very best part of it, is , that you don’t need to import anything. So, if you select photos with stars, and then open LR your prefered photos will be “starred” and you import just those ones to edit. Hence even saving space in LR database.
If you want collections, use LR , it’s easier.
Best , Daniela.
Thanks, Daniela!
Lorraine,
Bridge collections do work as they do in Lightroom Classic. You do not have to create a copy in order to add a photo to a collection. Just create a collection (+ icon at bottom of panel). The drag image from preview area to the Collection. Photos can be from any folder or hard drive. See this Adobe help page for details.
https://helpx.adobe.com/bridge/using/collections-bridge.html
Kathy
Thank you, Kathy! Very encouraging.
Just about all the things you have said in this video I have been doing for 15+ years. Adobe bridge is why I don’t make ‘albums’ or ‘catalogs’ in other programs. I already have albums and collections set up in Bridge. Even with CS6E, which was glacially slow. I have more control over what I see where. Me, personally, find Lightroom a bit clunky to use.
Hi Matt, can you give a quick comparison between Bridge and Fast Raw Viewer?
Hi. I cannot… but at the end of the day they both view raw files. I don’t think you can go wrong either way. Open them both up and see which one you like better for viewing your photos.
Had no idea (either!!) Thank you so much. Dove into LR v. 3 and never thought about Bridge after that, Thank you MATT!! :} :} :}
Thank you for this. I really haven’t used Bridge because I wasn’t sure what it actually did. This helps. However, it seems like most of the functionality you explain here is found in PS, which is what I use if I just want to work on one photo, without having to import everything into Lightroom. I don’t use most of the file information aspects, most of the time. Now, I’ll give Bridge a try and see how useful it might be for me.
I’ve always disliked the way EXIF data were handled in LR CC. I didn’t know it was done so much more intuitively in Bridge! One question tho: can you edit the data? I can use “exiftool”, but it is cumbersome.
I assume you do use it. If not, you need to download it asap. 🙂 I have a tiny script that allows me to:
$ photo-exif 2023-06-18.tif
$ cat 2023-06-18.txt
Camera Model Name : NIKON D810
Lens : 28.0-70.0 mm f/2.8
Exposure Time : 1/50
F Number : 13.0
ISO : 1000
Focal Length : 65.0 mm
Subject Distance Range : Unknown
Image Size : 4908×6135
Create Date : 2023:06:18 09:45:21.34
Hey, Matt. Love your tutorials — your ‘real life’ practicality is so refreshing and useful! I’ve used Bridge since it first came out (1997???) so it’s my comfortable ‘home base.’ I take my photos off my card and put them into folders on my hard drive, and immediately open Bridge. I do a quick cull, removing all the embarrassing ones; I batch-rename them there. I do a quick pass through, opening ones that catch my eye in ACR and do some basic editing (exposure, cropping, etc.) to see if they have the potential I thought they might have, and I rank them (star system) from there. And lastly, I make a subfolder for any low-res versions I want to make quickly to email. From there it’s on to Lightroom and Photoshop for more focused work — but I always start with Bridge! BUT — even after all these years, I didn’t know about some of these features you pointed out, esp. viewing metadata across multiple files. Thanks!
Sorry Bruce and all – I inadvertently posted my comment to Matt here as a reply to Bruce and don’t see any way to delete or edit.
Bruce: The only metadata I’ve wanted to edit was the capture date (one of my camera’s is wrong about half the time) and you can do that under the Edit menu. There’s some metadata stuff “create template…”) under Tools but I don’t know what those features do. Looks like you can create and probably edit keywords under the Keywords section in the Windows menu.
Hi Bruce,
You can indeed change the EXIF data in Bridge. I only change the EXIF data as part of an ongoing slide scanning process using VueScan software and a Nikon scanner. If I forget to set the date the photo was taken when I do the initial scanning, I use Bridge to make the change. For these scanned photos, I use Bridge to review them first before importing into LR for further processing
Geez Matt! I’ve been using Bridge since you were in high school probably! Where else can you download your images from your card, copyright, rename and backup to another hard drive in one swoop? Surprised you mocked it!
Hi Carol. Bridge came out in 2005. I was in my 30’s with two kids so probably not high school 🙂
And we used to poke fun at it because… well… it deserved it at the time.
Photo Mechanic
It is what the pros use
Before this video I’ve never even opened Bridge. So thank you for opening my eyes to a useful tool.
Having just imported 50 photos from my phone and then deleted 40 I will certainly use Bridge again if only for the fast visual scanning of photos in folders.
If I had tens and tens of thousands of photos and used mobile devices, the Lightroom hassle would be worth it. But I don’t have a lot of photos and I only edit on a desk top. Bridge suits me perfectly and is all I have ever used. Lightroom does have decent print routines and I do a LOT of printing. Both my own and friend’s photos. But again, what a hassle – having to load into a library before I can print. Instead I bought QImage. It isn’t easier to learn than Lightroom but is far more capable and a faster process. Worth the money. Secondarily, I know too many people who have permanently lost photos using Lightroom. That scared me a bit. Bridge doesn’t have a data-base to mess up. Safer.
Hi Keith. I’m glad you found an option. Also, it’s impossible to accidentally delete photos with Lightroom. Lightroom requires you to press Delete Twice to delete something. And it puts photos exactly where you told it to – it simply cannot move them on its own. So any time anyone accidentally deleted something, they actually pressed delete two times. Or if they moved it, then they actually moved it. I get that it may not always be intuitive as you’re learning, but to say Lightroom lost photos would be misleading people reading this.
I use Bridge all the time … love it. The new updates are great!
I have used Bridge – before Lightroom was born… I like it just fine except the new version because I can’t open multiple windows. It will even work in text based programs- makes it easier to fine poorly labeled paper work.
Great video. I love Bridge, and I have even found it faster than Lightroom for re-naming files. My favorite feature of Bridge is Batch Rename in the Tools menu. I find this way to rename files more intuitive and more customizable than Lightroom. And as I said before, it is faster than Lightroom for re-naming. At least on my computer.
I do use Bridge – sort of. I load my photos through Bridge. Since i basically use ACR and Photoshop, i have no use for Lightroom. In fact, importing and storing photos through LR is cumbersome for me.
So, if u have some tips to actually use Bridge for anything more than importing and viewing images- I thank you in advance for this video.
I use Bridge and Photoshop, not Lightroom. I can organize my own files, and if I decide to move them I don’t have any of the associated Lightroom problems. I like the keywording better because by default you look at the keywords only for the selected folder. I also like to batch process (copy/paste settings), and I just find it overall faster.
OK….I was not ready to agree on this but I get it! I am a diehard Lightroom user but as an instructor it is a great option (occasionally) for some my students and I can certainly see the benefits, appreciate the reminder.
My workflow is to first BU all my photos out of camera to an external SSD. Next I review these photos and decide which I want in LrC on the iMac and copy these to a folder that I give a specific name for this shoot. This folder is my LrC folder. Getting photos off the camera, to an external SSD and finally to LrC folder is troublesome at best. BRIDGE has simplified this. Here’s the steps I do to get photos off the camera to an external SSD.
1. Open Bridge
2. Navigate to where you want to copy the photos. Create a new folder if you want.
3. Connect camera to computer and power ON.
4. Clic on the camera icon in upper left.
5. Verify the Get Photos From is looking at your camera. If photos don’t appear clic the drop down box and select Refresh.
6. SaveCopies to: Select your desired or newly created folder.
7. Default is copy all photos.
8. To select only a number clic Advanced Options:
9. Select only those photos you want copied.
10. Clic Get Media in lower right.
I use Bridge. I “scan” negatives for old family photos by taking a photo of each negative. Often I want the dates of many pictures on each roll of film to be the same. (I used NegativeLab Pro to create positives.) In Lightroom, if you select several photos and then change the date, it adjust the date/time by the relative offsets of the date/times in the photos. I’d guess that the use case they have in mind is fixing time zone errors. But I want to set all the selected photos to a single time (usually, midnight on the date that is printed on the old photo). Bridge lets me do that easily.
I use photo mechanic to download and then bridge
I use Adobe Bridge every week. I’ve used it for years. It’s the only program that allows me to renumber my photos without changing the modification dates.
I do not use Bridge. Don’t know what it is.
I use Adobe Bridge/ACR exclusively. Lightroom is too complicated with having to import/export and set up files. My images are organized when I download and in Bridge I find them all very quickly as well as use the stars for ratings. A double click and an image is easily opened in ACR.
Great video. Will investigate!
I use Bridge all of the time; I don’t enjoy all the bells and whistles of Lightroom and my files are organized.
When I open Adobe Photoshop, I open Adobe Bridge. I have used Bridge since it came out. I do not use Lightroom because I do not like the hassle of importing/exporting, setting up folders, then if I forget Lightroom sets up a folder. It is very easy to browse in Bridge, open photos in Photoshop or in Camera Raw, look at photo data and so on. With a click on the space bar selected photos pop open and close with another click. I can drag and drop from Bridge to any folder I chose. All my folders are visible on the left side of the Bridge screen. As a scroll through a folder I use the star system to select photos for keeping or deleting. Then I sort according to rating and with a couple clicks can send unwanted photos to the trash.
The main drawback is that it crashes too often. Also Adobe dropped a feature in the newest version so I deleted it and use a generation back.
Matt ~ as always the content you create is well crafted! I use Bridge to review my final picks for my web categories. I use the Slide Show function, create Selects , then go to Tools > Photoshop > Image Processor. I set my web dimensions and check, Run Action that incorporates Save for Web in a two up comparison mode.
I’m using Bridge as the start of my workflow, from the beginning. It’s my picture browser and the work on photos would be much less structured without Bridge. There is the colour marking function in Bridge, which I use to sort out the less good photos from a series before starting the import into LR. This colour marking, by the way, is synchronized across Adobe CS (Bridge, Lr, PS), so if I think while browsing that a shot is really great and worth presenting to people, I can mark it already in Bridge.
Can you use Bridge to CULL your photos before importing to LR? I take a LOT of swim pictures and culling those out in LR is a pain! Would be nice if I could see them in real form (on my desktop and not my little camera screen) and delete the bad ones before importing!
Hi. If culling images in LR is a pain then Bridge would be just as difficult. The only thing you have to do in LR is import them which shouldn’t take long. After that, culling is culling really. Hit X to reject them and delete them when you’re done. Bridge wouldn’t be any simpler than that.
Jamie – If the majority of your photos are to be culled, it is easier just to select the ones that are keepers. Photo Mechanic does this well.
Will/can Bridge batch alter the metadata for a bunch of images instead of one by one?
Does it alter metadata that Windows Explorer can’t?
Good morning Matt. Years ago during a Kelby workshop in Orlando you convinced me to abandon Bridge in favor of Lightroom. And now we’re back. Such is life…
Thanks Matt. I have used Bridge for about 30 years and have never seen much use for Lightroom. I keep Photoshop and Bridge open most of the time, using Bridge for sorting, filing, and quickly reviewing images. I download my images daily and open them directly into Bridge for sorting into folders. One click opens them in ACR or PS for editing. I have never found it to be slow.
Thanks,Matt. Learned some new things. I have thousands of graphics and I use Bridge Collections to find the ones I need quickly. I’d be lost without that feature.
Brilliant yet Simple, thank you.
Quick Question:
Do changes you make in Bridge/Camera raw get imported into Lightroom if you choose to import them after the fact?
Regards
Frank
Hi Frank. Because ACR will save a side card XMP file, yes those changes will be seen in LR when you import since it’ll read that XMP file. It doesn’t work the other way around though – changes in LR won’t be seen in bridge unless you force write an XMP. Thanks.
Thanks Matt
I only use Bridge and Photoshop. Bridge is much better than it once was but was neglected by Adobe for too long. It still crashes (PC) too often and the cursor can’t be enlarged, but I too like it.
Thanks Matt, a great video, I never used Adobe Bridge, I will start using it additionally to LR
I have been a Lightroom user since the day it was introduced. I have never used Bridge but this video has prompted me to have another look at it.
Thanks, another interesting and explanatory video. I will be looking at bridge in a different way
Ron
I’ve been using bridge as a front-end to Photoshop (which is my main photo editing tool) since 2005. It’s has always been part of my photographic workflow. It a visual representation of my work drives and provides me with some powerful manipulations tools capable of being applied to multiple images, which is very useful in my wedding work where I may need to create resized (or B&W) versions of 1000 plus images for web use. In fact, I can’t ever remember using Photoshop without Bridge.
I have been a commercial and wedding photographer for over 50 years and now looking to take things easier. The advent of digital photography did make some things easier for photographers, but it also made other things (like making a living) a lot harder!
Hi Matt, I have been using Bridge since Ver 1.0 However, it was only recently (last 2 years) I have used it extensively as I use it to catalogue and rename my photos using the Batch Rename process. The typical methodology being;
Subject
_YYMMDD
–
CameraFileNo
I then import, where required, into Lightroom Classic.
Like yourself, I love the breadcrumb trail as I often store my photos on external drives.
Let me make my comment on Bridge – I do use it: for organizing, metadata etc but also for 2 other things:
1. I usually finish my projects with a slide presentation in mp4 file. And I use Bridge to put photos in the order I want to see them (sort manually) And at the end I rename the ordered photos, giving them numbers at the front of the file name (in Bridge: tools, batch rename). So I get the sequence that is later easy to sort in the movie program…
2. I use focus stacking for macro photos taken with no tripod. I Bridge I look at them and take the cosen ones to layer of PS (tools/PS/ load into PS layers). It realy helps when you can see the photos befor taking them into PS layers…
So I like Bridge
Use it all the time, for years.
I import all my images to Bridge and start my workflow from there. I do not use LR. The RAW processor in Bridge is the same as in PS, so that makes it easy. The new Bridge has great new things, which really elevate it.
There is a Beta Version of Bridge but I don’t know what is new in there as I can’t find the new content. Perhaps you can tell me where to look?
Hi Christopher. I don’t keep up with betas so your guess is as good as mine.
yes i use it.
I have used Br for 13 years. It has been a reliable work horse for organization, reviewing, and building PDFs.
I use Bridge every day
Have always used Bridge in fact I do not use Lightroom as I find that so dis-organised and cumbersome. I consider my workflow from Bridge to Camera Raw and then Photoshop my go to. I will try your video training as there has been some upgrades of late and I want to be kept up to date. Thank you.
I use Bridge when looking for a particular edge or texture. It’s an easy way to pop into my textures folder and find the one I’m interested in. Same for edges or frames. LR is my workhorse, files are organized, stored there, and edited there. PS is used if I need to composite or create a flyer, add text, a texture, or frame. I never even thought to use it like you do but I will now. I transfer photos from my phone to a folder on my desktop with AirDrop all the time. Never thought to cull them in Bridge. I’ve been doing it in Preview. I learn something new every time I watch one of your videos.
I’ve been using Faststone as a previewer and culling tool, but after watching the Bridge vid I’ll be giving Bridge a try. Thanks for posting it!
Tried Bridge a long time ago but it was not really much better than file explorer. Wow, different now! This could well be an addition to my workfkow. Thank you for bringing to our attention!
No- I don’t use Adobe Bridge,
I use bridge to open files in photoshop when I am not coming from lightroom. A lot of my composites in photoshop are opened from bridge
Very helpful, thanks!
Hi
I have always use Adobe Bridge ever since it came out and Photoshop, never LR.
Maybe I am old school.
Really enjoy your work.
Thank you
Bridge is the main program that I use. Like you stated I don’t like the whole ingesting of images etc. For my workflow it is great and all of the Camera Raw editing tools are exactly the same. I always found LR very daunting and does a lot of stuff that I don’t need. I do a lot of sports photography for our local paper and it is much quicker just to work on a single shoot, pull the images that I need, add meta data for captions and submit pics to the paper.
You left out the part where you click on an image in Bridge and get an instant full screen image by pressing the space bar. From that full screen image you can use the arrows to scroll through images without having to go back to the way Bridge opened, or you can press the space bar to go back and see the file name of the image. This makes culling easy.
Hi. You can press F for full screen in LR and do the same thing so that’s not a thing bridge can do that LR can’t.
Matt – great video. 100% agree with all of your Bridge advantages. I’ve tried using Lightroom multiple times and keep coming back to Bridge – mainly because of the import requirement, and I’ve always preferred ACR over the Develop Module (although that difference is all but gone).
Unfortunately for me, Bridge is the bane of my life. It’s incredibly slow. I have a very recent Windows desktop (i9-1300K, 64gb memory, RTX 3080Ti, etc.) and I spend over an hour every day waiting on Bridge. Maybe it’s my folder structure (folders by year with psd’s in the top and raw and jpg in subfolders) because I’ve had this issue for years – through 3 brand new computers. Every time I upgrade Bridge, it starts consuming over 99% of the CPU and will do so for hours on end, which makes doing anything in PS virtually impossible. This is with no other app running. It happens for about 3 weeks, then calms down and I can get things done again. I thought it might be my hard drive, so I have copied the folders I’m working in to a very fast M.2 card – no change. And Bridge cache is in the standard C: drive location, and C: is an SSD. I’ve logged countless bugs with Adobe on this issue but all I get from them is crickets. I do get a lot of likes from other users on the forums, so I know I’m not the only one.
If anyone has any ideas on what I might do to fix this, I would REALLY appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you, Matt. I used only Bridge and ACR until I switched to Lr about 10 years ago, and I haven’t used Bridge since. After your video, I’ll now go revisit the current version of Bridge. Thanks again!
Howard
Thanks Matt! I use Bridge exclusively, having been converted by Rick Burress. I return to LR only when I want to make a triptych.
This is a great video. I had never used Bridge. So its basically Adobe’s version of Photo Mechanic right?
Vito, Photomechanic is not linked to any other program. With Br you just click ctrl+R and you are in camera raw, from there to photoshop if required. I use both programs, Photomechanic is fantastic and so fast, but Bridge gives you a lot of options, and you can even start editing, add presets in CR and check if you like or not the versions. PM is vastly used for newspapers, as a main tool for sport photographers as an example.
I use Bridge and love it!
Point 1 is spot on thanks for the reminder.
Triaging photos is the best part for me. So much fasten LR
This is good. I use Bridge. And it has gotten faster. Could be even faster. Lots of the “pros” will laugh at this. Who cares. I use it for culling. Then I can easily highlight the images I want to “enhance” and then import into Lightroom.
Blake sold me on Bridge a few months ago. I really like its simplicity and ease of use. When you came out with several LR presets for the new masking tools over the past few years I liked what I saw and purchased them at that time. Can I import them into ACR? Will they work?
Yes, all of my presets can be used in Lightroom and Camera Raw. Instructions are included with them. Thanks.
BRIDGE – Soooo much simpler than LR. I gave up trying to figure out how to import and export files in LR. It takes forever. Give me Bridge any day.
I had a love/hate relationship with LR for several years and finally dumped it and only use Bridge, ACR, and PS now and love the organization and structure when using Bridge for all the reasons you just pointed out! Thanks for the video to support my ideas of using Bridge.
As always, Matt provides great information in this Adobe Bridge video.
Watch Matt: Support Matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for posting the video on Adobe Bridge. I found it really useful and you introduced me to some help tools that will certainly help my workflow.
Great work and well done
Many thanks, Neil
Hi Matt,
Thanks for posting the video on Adobe Bridge. I found it really useful and you introduced me to some help tools which will certainly help my workflow.
Great work and well done
Many thanks, Neil
I use Bridge almost exclusively. And I have used it for many years. I agree it has improved over the years and I really appreciate the visual and quick access to my photos.
I once tried to change to Lightroom however at that time saving pictures back to Photoshop was cumbersome so I stayed with Bridge .
In my experience the editing tools inBridge are basically the same as Lightroom and the quality of them is equal.
For me it is just a matter of personal preference as both applications are very good.
I love Bridge and use it all the time. Lightroom is just for cataloguing and making Blurb books where I do use the developing module……. I also download onto the desktop and immediately chose 5 stars then copy them onto an external drive before deleting the file. Too many shots to keep the mediocre images. Thanks.
Hey Matt,
I’m always amazed that when I see an email with a new video from you, 95% of the time, it’s on a topic that is very timely for me. This video is no different.
Having started my photo editing journey in Lightroom, I”ve never had a reason to explore Bridge. However, after capturing almost 2,000 photos during a Blue Angels practice session earlier this week, I wondered why Adobe doesn’t allow me to cull my photos before my Lightroom import.
Your video has educated me yet again, on a different approach I can use.
Thank You!
One great feature that is pretty much unknown when looking for something or checking out a long folder structure is ‘View -> show items from subfolders’. More traipsing up and down the folder structure, just lookout everything in the higher level folder You can sort them all as one group as well there.
Great list of features! Bridge has become much stronger over the years. Although a hardcore LR user, I find Bridge best when working on a project involving many pieces that are only valuable for a particular project and I need to jump extensively from file to file. I don’t want such files in my LR catalog as they are so transient. Bridge makes it very easy to complete such projects.
I haven’t used Bridge in a long time, but now I’m going to. Thanks for the great video on it. It has some things I like that I don’t have with Lightroom.
I use Bridge, but not Lightroom; always Photoshop!
I have used Bridge at times but did not realize that it is more robust than I thought after viewing your brief synopsis. A deeper dive into the app would be helpful to expedite my workflow so I look forward to checking out your new teaching on Bridge. Funny how my initial intro to Bridge many years ago influenced how little I used it but am looking forward to getting the most out of Bridge in the future.
Thanks for the quick preview of Bridge. I will give it a try.
I have always used Bridge…right from it’s inception. It works for me for what I do. Never felt I needed to figure out Light Room. My photo friends think there’s something wrong with me!
Ha! A good way around that is to Make amazing photos. You’ll find the critics will copy you rather than make fun 😉
I love Bridge and it is definitely a major part of my workflow – used in combination with ACR. Love the metadata features and have my Bridge completely customised to suit my workspace. Just wish Affinity would work better with Bridge. Great video Matt
First off – thanks for the videos you do, I find them very helpful.
I use Bridge frequently and find it’s still very slow to generate previews. I haven’t found a setting in preferences that improves this. It’s hard to get anything done until it finishes.
Any suggestions and does your course on Bridge cover settings up preferences to improve workflow? Thanks
I use Bridge daily! It’s the best browser ever. I’m a digital scrapbooker and being able to view and drag into Photoshop, both photos and digital art supplies, is a great way to create my photo books. Also like to use the batch rename option, and I like to click on 3 or 4 photos at a time and view them together in the preview area – this really helps pick the best one.
I started out with Bridge/PS. There wasn’t anything else. When LR was introduced I switched over but after a year or so became disenchanted with LR. Seems like I never could find all my files and or I would delete things but they stayed on my hard drive. (probably my fault in initial set up) However I deleted LR went back to Bridge/ACR/PS and no problems. Couldn’t be happier with the combination, and I always know where my files are. Also the plus is Bridge opens any files. Movies,Docs,photos etc. Batch rename,keywords, Metadata, all there.
Very informative and I can see a big use for it in viewing RAW format files.
My brain and light room file origination do not work well, Bridge and my brain we work well together. So never used lightroom when you have bridge and Photoshop.
Hah – thanks for this ood video advocating for using Bridge and its advantages over using LightRoom. Though you did leave out #6 = it doesn’t have a LR Catalog that constantly crashes, disappears or malfunctions in ways that require hours of wasted time. 🙂 Bridge is definitely the best timesaver and headache preventer as long as – as you clearly pointed out – that you have an organized and retrievable file folder system (plus external hardrive backup). I love how fast I can do client work.
Hi Mark. #1 pretty much covered the catalog thing.
Bridge does have a catalog/cache of sorts and it can crash and corrupt.
As for LR it has never done the things you mention for me or anyone I know.
Not to say I haven’t heard about it but that’s with every software anywhere. Those stories are the exception not the rule.
Glad it works for you, but know your mileage w Lr is not typical.
Matt How do you change the Film view jn LRC to vertical view as can be done in ACR . I cant find the way to do this in LRC!
kind Regards,
kundabungkid.
Hi Matt,
I use to use Bridge when I first started using photoshop, but when LR came out the Photoshop
Guys (and you know who they were :-)) were saying that the resolution and stuff in Bridge was not up to speed with LR, so I stopped using Bridge. Now I’ve stop using LR because it’s a mess to work with. I use ACDSee Photo Studio 9 to do all my culling and it has a compare feature that really helps in comparing two-four photos up close and personal. :-). I then go into ACR and do all my stuff and then into PS.
That 10 year old vid is a classic. What I’ve used bridge for is looking at or for texture files, graphics and such. Even though I have them cataloged in LR bridge is easier.
Have to try out using it to cull images from a shoot, especially now with a 45mp sensor and a gazillion frames per second. Thanks
The shoot you saw load with with a 61mp camera for comparison.
I’ve used Bridge for years and love it. I have a whole list in Favorites of folders I use frequently. It is great for copying and moving files because you see what you are moving. It is great for sorting pics by different ratings but still seeing all, not just a specific rating. Excellent if you want to quickly sort by date, file type, etc. Sometimes I have multiple copies of Bridge open.
I have always used Bridge to review and rate images from a trip. You didn’t mention my most important use of Bridge and that is to rate my images. I do this before I bring any images into my computer. I rate them directly from the memory card. e.g. I recently volunteered for the “Ride for Roswell” (Roswell Park Cancer Institute). There are hundreds of bikers passing me and I rapidly capture many images. In Bridge I can apply stars and eliminate the poor shots which will never be brought into my computer.
Mary Lou
I used Bridge when I was using Photoshop Elements and found it “clunky.” When elements was “dumbed down” I switched to Aperture until Apple killed at which point I went to ON1. That was fine until file corruption convinced me to switch to Lightroom. Thanks to you, I’m very happy there ?
Your video convinced me that Bridge might be a valuable addition to my work flow, so I order the course.
Enjoy the weekend!
Bridge used to be absurdly slow; useless when wanting to browse files with many images. I used to use IRFanview. I’ve returned to Bridge because it’s now much, much better. I used to use it occasionally to move files, batch rename or convert, or other typical batch processes but it wasn’t easy to use (buggy and difficult to understand). I think I’ll try again to see if it’s improved in this area as well.
I use both LR and Bridge. I find it easier to cull the images from a folder, manually change order and batch renumber in Bridge. I use LR to process and edit the images after that.
I also teach beginner photography and use Bridge to view photos my students bring to class. No need to import and checking metadata
So is bridge similar to FastRaw Viewer? Thanks for all the great videos.
Great video. I pretty much transitioned from using Lightroom to Bridge a few years ago. I understand the concept of Lightroom, but I don’t like messing with catalogs. I like how simple and visual Bridge is. I like to create my file structure, and not have to think about the impact to the catalog if I decide to move things around.
Thanks for the video. I use Bridge for all the textures I have (way too many). I keep Bridge open and can easily view all my collections of textures and drag them into Photoshop- especially easy when you use two monitors. Much easier than keeping them in Lightroom IMHO- or even in the Library in Photoshop!
Thanks for coming around Matt. I’ve ben an ardent BRIDGE user since way back, and mentioned it when I attended your “Secrets of Lightroom 3” seminar in Tampa a long time ago. Bridge has ALWAYS had options we’ll worth using in not just cataloging & quick movement around your archives, but with the addition of ACR and the new masking feature, deserves a prominent place among the BEST tools PhotoShop has to offer. This entire situation reminds me of when years ago, Terry White made fun of me for using a 128 gig SD card, saying its too dangerous… but now most all of the pros use this or a larger card. :-). I have been urging the PhotoShop developers to add more muscle to Bridge, and they’ve kindly responded. Now, I use Bridge (and ACR) for 98% of all my pro-editing, and photoshop for the remaining 3%. I only use Lightroom when I’m making WEB galleries of proof sheets. Thanks for backtracking a little and tossing Kudos to a very deserving addition to PhotoShop.
Yes I use Bridge. I especially like using it in Photoshop in a second layer. This provides a double whammy!
I never use the bridge.
I do use Bridge for my digital art supplies, just not for my photos. You have maybe convinced me to use it for browsing my photos too. I have had issues in the past with assigning keywords that get lost with newer versions and then keyword searches fail. Using it as just a browser sounds useful.
I like to cull my photos prior to importing to LR. I also like the rename function of Bridge better than LR. For me, it’s easier to use.
Bears … looks like you had a good trip North to Alaska to photograph them. Been there 5 times and always had good luck seeing and photographing them. Were you at Lake Clark / Chinitna Bay area?? … Looked like you were near the beach and that is where you see a lot and can easily get decent photos without bothering them.
Use it, love it, no catalog, better than 10 years ago.
Cheers, Matt.
For years I’ve used Bridge instead of the Finder
Very interesting, Matt. I never use Bridge, having refined my import-and-annotate flow in LR to pretty much suit my needs but your illustration of access to the flash card images and that they could be evaluated, rejected and annotated there got me to thinking. Thanks a lot.
I didn’t need Bridge until a week ago. Lightroom CC just goes buggers with Sonoma Beta 2. Bridge to the rescue until something happens to fix it, hopefully, Beta 3! I don’t know how in the world you knew that I suddenly for the very first time was looking for an introductory video to Adobe Bridge.
Helpful. Thanks. I do use Bridge but didn’t realize its versatility.
Hey Matt! Thanks for the video on Bridge. I admit I forgot it even existed. ? But after watching this, I can see where it might be useful for me. I’ve always heard good things about PhotoMechanic for quickly browsing photos, but I’ve never purchased it. Bridge might be a “free” per Se, alternative for my purposes. Thanks again!
Danger, danger. You may be able to view your file/folder structure in Bridge, but can’t recommend actually moving or changing anything. If you do, Lightroom will NOT know what you’re up to. Mess ensues!!!
Hi. That’s true with bridge or any other program that you use to view files on your computer. Notice I said “organize things before you bring them into LR”
Thx
Bridge is great but if I move an image or folder in bridge it confuses lightroom. Wouldn’t it be great if bridge and Lightroom worked together like bridge and photoshop do. I moved to lightroom 3 years ago and love it but I’m now thinking of moving back to photoshop and using the lightroom edit option. Are there any pitfalls to working that way?
Unfortunately that would make the good parts of both programs no longer as they are meant for totally different purposes.
Bridge is my go-to browser and if you right-click a thumbnail, myriad options pop right up—no menus required. What could be easier than that?
before I used Lightroom I did use Bridge… mostly to be able to see my raw files, as my photo editor in windows didn’t open them… if I remember correctly. I remember using it again for the new canon R3 files from the mirrorless camera until the updates were made to Windows 10.