Bridge Lesson 1 Using Adobe Bridge

Adobe Bridge is the command center of the Creative Suite. In Adobe Bridge, you can manage and organize your files, utilize and modify XMP metadata for faster searches, and quickly preview files before opening them.

• Navigating Adobe Bridge
• Using folders in Bridge
• Making a Favorite
• Creating metadata
• Using automated tools

Starting up

You will work with several files from the br01lessons folder in this lesson. Make sure that you have loaded the CS5lessons folder onto your hard drive from the supplied DVD. See “Loading lesson files” on page XXIX.

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  See Lesson 1 in Action! Use the accompanying video to gain a better understanding of how to use some of the features shown in this lesson. The video tutorial for this lesson can be found on the included DVD.

What is Adobe Bridge?

Adobe Bridge is an application included with Adobe Photoshop and the other Adobe Creative Suite 5 components. Adobe Bridge helps you locate, organize, and browse the documents you need to create print, web, video, and audio content. If you have Photoshop or any one of the Creative Suite applications, you can start Adobe Bridge using the File menu, or you can select the Launch Bridge button ().

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  This lesson covers the functionality of the complete Bridge application, not the Mini Bridge that is available as a panel in your Photoshop workspace.

You can use Bridge to access documents such as images, text files, and even non-Adobe documents, such as Microsoft Word or Excel files. Using Adobe Bridge, you can also organize and manage images, videos, and audio files, as well as preview, search, and sort your files without opening them in their native applications.

Once you discover the capabilities of Adobe Bridge, you’ll want to make it the control center for your Photoshop projects. With Bridge, you can easily locate files using the Filters panel and import images from your digital camera right into a viewing area that allows you to quickly rename and preview your files. This is why the recommended workflow throughout this book includes opening and saving files in Adobe Bridge. Reading through this lesson will help you to feel more comfortable with Adobe Bridge, and will also make you aware of some of the more advanced features that are available to you for your own projects.

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  Adobe Bridge contains more features when installed as part of one of the Creative Suites. The tools and features demonstrated in this lesson are available in both the single product install and the Suite install, unless otherwise noted.

Navigating through Bridge

In order to utilize Adobe Bridge effectively, you’ll want to know the available tools and how to access them. Let’s start navigating!

1 Choose File > Browse in Bridge to launch the Adobe Bridge application. If you receive a dialog box asking if you want Adobe Bridge to launch at start-up select Yes.

2 Click on the Folders panel to make sure it is forward. Click on Desktop (listed in the Folders panel). You see the br01lessons folder that you downloaded to your hard drive. Double-click on the br01lessons folder and notice that the contents of that folder are displayed in the Content panel, in the center of the Adobe Bridge window. You can also navigate by clicking on folders listed in the Path bar that is located in the upper-left corner of the content window.

You can navigate through your navigation history by clicking on the Go back and Go forward arrows in the upper-left corner of the window. Use the handy Reveal recent file or go to Recent folder drop-down menu () to find folders and files that you recently opened.

3 Click on the Go back arrow to return to the desktop view.

4 Click on the Go forward arrow to return to the last view, which is the br01lessons folder.

Using folders in Adobe Bridge

Adobe Bridge is used for more than just navigating your file system. Bridge is also used to manage and organize folders and files.

1 Click on the tab of the Folders panel in the upper-left corner of the Bridge window to make sure it is still forward. Then click on the arrow to the left of Desktop so that it turns downward and reveals its contents.

2 Click on Computer to reveal its contents in the center pane of the Bridge window. Continue to double-click on items, or click on the arrows to the left of the folder names in the Folder panel, to reveal their contents.

3 Click on Desktop in the Folder panel to reveal its contents again.

4 Click on br01lessons to view its contents. You’ll now add a new folder into that lessons folder.

5 Click on the Create a new folder icon () in the upper-right corner of the Bridge window to create a new untitled folder inside the br01lessons folder. Type the name Apple Picking.

You can use Adobe Bridge to organize images. Since you are able to see a preview of each file, you can more easily rename them, as well as relocate them to more appropriate locations in your directory system. In the next step, you will move files from one folder to the new Apple Picking folder you have just created.

6 Click once on the image named IMG_0902.JPG, then hold down the Shift key and select image IMG_0910.JPG. All the images in between are selected.

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  You can easily reduce and enlarge the size of your thumbnails by pressing Ctrl+plus sign or Ctrl+minus sign in Windows or Command+plus sign or Command+minus sign in Mac OS.

7 Click and drag the selected images to the Apple Picking folder. When the folder becomes highlighted, release the mouse. The files have now been moved into that folder.

8 Double-click on the Apple Picking folder to view its contents. You see the two images that you moved.

9 Click on br01lessons in the Path bar to return to the br01lessons folder content.

Making a Favorite

As you work in Photoshop, you will find that you frequently access the same folders. One of the many great features in Bridge is that you can designate a frequently used folder as a Favorite, allowing you to quickly and easily access it from the Favorites panel. This is extremely helpful, especially if the folders that you are frequently accessing are stored deep in your file hierarchy.

1 Select the Favorites panel in the upper-left corner of the Bridge window to bring it to the front. In the list of Favorites, click on Desktop. Double-click on the br01lessons folder to see the Apple Picking images. Since the Apple Picking folder is going to be frequently accessed in this lesson, you’ll make it a Favorite.

2 Place your cursor over the Apple Picking folder in the center pane (Content), and click and drag the Apple Picking folder until you see a horizontal line appear in the Favorites panel. Be careful not to drag this folder into a folder (highlighted with a blue box) in the Favorites panel. When a cursor with a plus sign () appears, release the mouse. The folder is now listed as a Favorite.

3 Click on the Apple Picking folder shown in the Favorites panel to view its contents. Note that creating a Favorite simply creates a shortcut for quick access to a folder; it does not copy the folder and its contents.

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  If your Favorite is created from a folder on an external hard drive or server, you will need to have the hard drive or server mounted in order to access it.

Creating and locating metadata

Metadata is information that can be stored with images. This information travels with the file, and makes it easy to search for and identify the file. In this section, you are going to find out how to locate and create metadata.

1 Make sure that you are viewing the contents of the Apple Picking folder in the center pane of Adobe Bridge. If not, navigate to that folder now, or click on the Apple Picking folder in the Favorites panel.

2 Choose Window > Workspace > Reset Standard Workspaces. This ensures that you are in the Essentials view and that all the default panels for Adobe Bridge are visible. Alternatively, you can click Essentials in the Application bar at the top-right of the Bridge workspace. You may need to maximize your Bridge window after you reset the workspace.

Note that if you click and hold on the arrow to the right of the workspace presets, you can choose other workspaces, and even save your own custom workspace.

3 Click once on IMG_0902.JPG, and look for the Metadata and Keywords panels in the lower-right area of the Adobe Bridge workspace.

4 If the Metadata panel is not visible, click on the Metadata panel tab. In this panel, you see the image data that is stored with the file. Take a few moments to scroll through the data and view the information that was imported from the digital camera that was used to take the photo.

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  Click and drag the bar to the left of the Metadata panel farther to the left if you need to open up the window.

5 Select the arrow to the left of IPTC Core to reveal its contents. IPTC Core is the schema for XMP that provides a smooth and explicit transfer of metadata. Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is a labeling technology that allows you to embed data about a file, known as metadata, into the file itself. With XMP, desktop applications and back-end publishing systems gain a common method for capturing and sharing, valuable metadata.

6 On the right side of this list, notice a series of pencils. The pencils indicate that you can enter information in these fields.

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  If you are not able to edit or add metadata information to a file, it may be locked. Make sure that you are not working directly off the Lesson DVD, and then right-click on the file (in Adobe Bridge) and choose Reveal in Explorer (Windows) or Reveal in Finder (Mac OS). In Windows, right-click on the file, choose Properties, and uncheck Read-only; in Mac OS, right-click on the file, choose Get Info, then change the Ownership and Permissions to Read and Write.

7 Scroll down until you can see Description Writer, and click on the pencil next to it. All editable fields are highlighted, and a cursor appears in the Description Writer field.

8 Type your name, or type Student.

9 Scroll up to locate the Creator: City text field. Click on the pencil icon () to the right of the Creator City text field, type the name of your city, and then press the Tab key. The cursor is now in the State text field. Enter your state information.

10 Check the Apply button (), located in the bottom-right corner of the Metadata panel, to apply your changes. You have now edited metadata that is attached to the image, information that will appear whenever someone opens your image in Bridge or views the image information in Adobe Photoshop, using File > File Info.

Using keywords

Keywords can reduce the amount of time it takes to find an image on a computer, by using logical words to help users locate images more quickly.

1 Click on the Keywords tab, which appears behind the Metadata panel. A list of commonly used keywords appears.

2 Click on the New Keyword button () at the bottom of the Keywords panel. Type Apple into the active text field, and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

3 Check the empty checkbox to the left of the apple keyword. This adds the Apple keyword to the selected image.

4 With the Apple keyword still selected, click on the New Sub Keyword button (). Type Picking into the active text field, then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

5 Check the empty checkbox to the left of the picking keyword. You have now assigned a keyword and a sub keyword to the IMG_0902.JPG image.

Notice that the keywords you added appear at the top, under Assigned Keywords.

6 Select the Apple keyword, and then click on the New Keyword button () at the bottom of the Keywords panel; a blank text field appears. Type New England and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS). Then check the checkbox next to New England to assign the keyword to this image.

7 Right-click (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac OS) on the New England keyword, and choose the option Rename. When the text field becomes highlighted, type Fall, press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

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  You can also enter information directly into the image by opening the image in Adobe Photoshop, and then choosing File > File Info. The categories that appear on the top include Description, Camera Data, IPTC, and IPTC Extension, among others. Once it is entered in the File Info dialog box, the information is visible in Adobe Bridge.

Creating a Metadata Template

Once you have added metadata to an image, you can easily apply it to more by creating a metadata template. In this exercise, you apply the metadata template from the IMG_0902.JPG image to some others in the same folder.

1 Make sure that IMG_0902.JPG is selected in Adobe Bridge.

2 Choose Tools > Create Metadata Template. The Create Metadata Template window appears.

3 In the Template Name text field (at the top), type Fall Apple Picking.

In the Create Metadata Template window, you can choose the information that you want to build into a template. In this exercise, we will choose information that already exists in the selected file, but if you wanted to, you could add or edit information at this point.

4 Check the Checkboxes to the left of the following categories; Creator, Creator Email(s), Description, Keywords, and Description Writer, then press Save.

You have just saved a template. Next, you will apply it to several other images in this folder.

5 Select the IMG_0903.JPG image, and then hold down your Shift key and select the IMG_0907.JPG image. All the images in between are now selected.

6 Choose Tools > Replace Metadata and select Fall Apple Picking. Note that you can also choose Append Metadata if you are adding metadata to files that already have existing metadata. The same metadata has now been applied to all the images at once.

Opening a file from Adobe Bridge

Opening files from Adobe Bridge is a great way to begin the work process in Adobe Photoshop. Not only is it very visual, but important data stored with the files also makes it easier to locate the correct file.

1 In the Favorites panel, click on the Apple Picking folder, and then double-click on image IMG_0910.JPG to open the file in Adobe Photoshop.

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  Sometimes you will find that double-clicking on a file opens it in a different application than expected. This can happen if you are working in generic file formats such as JPEG and GIF. To avoid this problem, you can right-click (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac OS) on the image, and choose Open With to select the appropriate application.

2 Choose File > Close and Go to Bridge to close the file in Photoshop and return to Adobe Bridge.

3 You can also click once to select an image and then choose File > Open, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+O (Windows) or Command+O (Mac OS).

Searching for files using Adobe Bridge

Find the files that you want quickly and easily by using the Search tools built directly into Adobe Bridge, and taking advantage of the Filter panel.

In this example, you have a limited number of files to search within, but you will have the opportunity to see how helpful these search features can be.

Searching by name or keyword

What’s the benefit of adding all this metadata if you can’t use it to find your files later? Using the Find dialog box in Adobe Bridge, you can narrow your criteria down to make it easy to find your files when needed.

1 Click on br01lessons in the Path bar to return to the br01lessons folder content.

2 Choose Edit > Find, or use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac OS). The Find dialog box appears.

3 Select Keywords from the Criteria drop-down menu, and type apple into the third text field (replacing Enter Text.) Then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS). Because you are looking within the active folder only, you get a result immediately. The image files, IMG_0902.JPG through IMG_0907.JPG appear.

Using the Filter panel

If you have ever been in the position where you knew you put a file into a folder, but just couldn’t seem to find it, you will love the Filter panel.

Using the Filter panel, you can look at attributes such as file type, keywords, and date created or modified, in order to narrow down the files that appear in the content window of Adobe Bridge.

1 Select the Apple Picking folder from the Favorites tab. This is the favorite that you added earlier in this lesson. Notice that the Filter panel collects the information from the active folder, indicating the keywords that are being used, as well as modification dates and more.

2 Click to turn down the arrow next to Keywords in the Filter panel, and select Apple from the list to see that only the image with the Apple keyword applied is visible. Click on Apple again to deselect it and view all the images.

3 Press the Clear filter button () in the lower-right of the Filter panel to turn off any filters.

Saving a Collection

If you like using Favorites, you’ll love using Collections. A Collection allows you to take images from multiple locations and access them in one central location. Understand that Adobe Bridge essentially creates a shortcut (or alias) to your files and does not physically relocate them or copy them to a different location.

1 If your Collections tab is not visible, Choose Window > Collections or click on the tab next to Filter. The Collections panel comes forward.

2 Click on the New Collection button in the lower right of the Collections panel and type Fall Images into the new collection text field.

3 Click on Apple Picking in the Favorites tab and drag two images (it does not matter which ones) to the newly created Fall Images collection.

4 Using the navigation features at the top of Adobe Bridge, click back on br01lessons, to return to that folder.

5 Take two random soccer images and drag them to the Fall Images collection as well.

6 Click on the Fall Images collection folder to see that even though you selected images from two different folders, you can easily access them at once in this collection. The files also remain intact in their original location.

Automation tools in Adobe Bridge

Adobe Bridge provides many tools to help you automate tasks. In this section, you will learn how to access and take advantage of some of these features.

Batch renaming your files

You may have noticed that in the br01lessons file there are many files that contain iStock in the filename. These images were downloaded from iStockphoto.com, and instead of changing the names immediately we have opted to change them simultaneously using the batch rename feature in Adobe Bridge.

1 Press the Go back arrow in the upper-left of the Adobe Bridge window to go back to the br01lessons folder.

2 Choose Edit > Select All, or press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac OS.) All the images are selected.

3 Choose Tools > Batch Rename. The Batch Rename dialog box appears.

In this instance we want a simple uncomplicated name. If you look in the Preview section at the bottom of the Batch Rename dialog box you can see that the Current filename and New filename are pretty long strings of text and numbers. You will simplify this by eliminating some of text from the filenames.

4 In the New Filenames section, type Soccer in the text field to the right of default criteria of Text.

5 For the next two criteria, click on the Minus sign button () (Remove this text from the file names) to remove them. The New filename in the Preview section becomes significantly shorter.

6 In the Sequence Number row, change Four Digits to Two Digits. The New filename is a very simple Soccer01.jpg now. Press the Rename button. All the selected files automatically have their name changed.

Automated tools for Photoshop: Web Photo Gallery

If you want to share images online, you can use the Web Photo Gallery, which creates a web site that features a home page with thumbnail images and gallery pages with full-size images. You select the images you want to include in the site and Adobe Bridge does the rest, from automatically creating navigation images, like arrows, links, and buttons, to creating Flash files. This is a fun feature that you can take advantage of quickly, even if you have no coding experience. If you have coding experience, or if you want to edit the pages further, you can open the pages in Adobe Dreamweaver or any other HTML editor to customize them.

1 Make sure that you are viewing the contents of the br01lessons folder, and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac OS) to select all the images.

2 Hold down the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and click on the Apple Picking folder to deselect it. If it is easier, you can leave the folder selected, you will receive a warning that some of the selected files are not supported image files, but it will not cause any errors.

3 Click and hold down on the Output drop-down menu in the Application bar, and choose Output; the workspace changes to reveal an Output panel on the right.

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  If you cannot see all the options in the Output panel, click and drag the vertical bar to the left of the panel to increase its size.

4 Press the Web Gallery button at the top of the Output panel.

5 Click and hold on the Templates drop-down menu, and choose HTML Gallery. As you can see, there are a lot of options to choose from, including Lightroom Flash Galleries. In this example, you will keep it simple.

6 From the Styles drop-down menu, if it’s not already visible, choose Lightroom.

7 In the Site Info section of the Output panel, type a title in the Gallery Title text field; for this example, you can type My First Web Gallery.

8 You can also add photograph captions if you like, as well as text in the About This Gallery text field, to include more information. In this example, those are left at their defaults.

9 Using the scroll bar to the right of the Style Info section, click and drag to scroll down through the rest of the options. Note that you can add additional contact information, and define colors that you want to use for different objects on the page, including text.

10 Press the Preview in Browser button that is located in the upper half of the Output panel; your web site is automatically created.

Note that if you had your Apple Picking folder selected, you will get a warning that some of the files are not support image types, Press OK.

11 Note that the preview is in a browser window. You will want to close that window before you move to the next part of this lesson.

Saving or uploading your Web Gallery

So now you have an incredible Web Gallery, but what do you do with it? The Web Photo Gallery feature creates an index page, individual gallery pages, and images, and so you need someplace to put them. You have a couple of options available if you click the scroll bar to the right of Site Info and drag down until you see the option under Create Gallery for Gallery Name. Note that you can choose to save your Gallery to a location on your hard drive, or input the FTP login information directly in Adobe Bridge to upload your file directly to a server. In this example, you will save the Web Gallery to in your br01lessons folder.

1 Scroll down in the Output panel until you see the Create Gallery section. Click the Browse button to the right of Save Location. Navigate to the br01lessons folder on your desktop, and click Open.

2 Click on the Save button at the bottom of the Output panel. A dialog box appears, indicating that you have successfully created a Gallery; press OK.

You have successfully saved your Web Gallery. Use Adobe Bridge to navigate and open the contents of this folder to see that a folder named My First Web Gallery is inside your Adobe Web Gallery folder. Open the contents to see that your components are neatly organized so that you can open them in your web editor and customize them, or send them to your web site administrator for uploading.

Automated tools for Photoshop: PDF contact sheet

By creating a PDF contact sheet, you can assemble a series of images into one file for such purposes as client approval and summaries of folders.

1 To make it easy to select the images you want, click on Essentials to change the Adobe Bridge workspace back to the defaults. If you do not see the contents of the br01lessons folder in the content window in Bridge, choose the Favorites panel and click on Desktop. Double-click on the br01lessons folder. If you stored the lesson files elsewhere, use the navigation tools in Bridge to locate your lesson files.

2 Click on the first soccer image you see and then Shift+click on the last, selecting all the soccer images, but neither of the folders inside the br01lessons folder.

3 Select Output from the upper-right of the Adobe Bridge workspace.

4 In the Output panel, click on the PDF button, then from the Template drop-down menu, choose 5*8 Contact Sheet.

5 In the Document section of the Output panel, choose U.S. Paper from the Page Preset drop-down menu.

Scroll down and notice that you have options for final size, document quality, and even security in the Output panel. You will leave these items at the default and scroll down to the Playback section of this panel.

6 At the bottom of the Output panel check the checkbox to View PDF After Save; then press the Save button. The Save As dialog box appears.

7 In the Save As dialog box, type contact, and then browse to save the file in your br01lessons folder; press Save.

A dialog box appears, indicating that you have successfully created a PDF contact sheet; press OK. The contact.pdf file is saved in your br01lessons folder and your contact sheet is launched in Adobe Acrobat for you to view.

8 After examining your contact sheet in Adobe Acrobat, choose File > Close to close the contact.pdf file, and return to Adobe Bridge.

Changing the view

You can work the way you like by adjusting the look and feel of Adobe Bridge. Changing the view can help you focus on what is important to see in the Content section of the Bridge workspace. Whether you need to focus on content or thumbnails, there is a view that can help you.

1 Before experimenting with the views, make sure that you are in the Essentials workspace by selecting the Essentials button located in the upper-right in the Bridge workspace.

2 Click on the Click to Lock to Thumbnail Grid button () in the lower-right corner of the Bridge workspace. The images are organized into a grid.

3 Now click on the View Content as Details button () to see a thumbnail and details about creation date, last modified date, and file size.

4 Choose the View Content as List button () to see the contents consolidated into a neat list, which you can easily scroll through.

5 Click on the View Content as Thumbnails button () to return to the default thumbnail view.

6 Experiment with changing the size of the thumbnails in the Content panel by using the slider to the left of the preview buttons. Don’t forget, you can also change the thumbnail size by pressing Ctrl++ (plus sign) or Ctrl+- (minus sign) (Windows) or Command++ (plus sign) or Command+- (minus sign) (Mac OS).

Self study

As you work with Bridge, create some new Favorites of folders that you frequently use. You might also want to practice removing Favorites: highlight the Favorite and choose File > Remove from Favorites. Also, explore creating a PDF slide show when in the Adobe Media Gallery workspace. By turning on the Playback options in the Output panel, you can create a full-screen presentation of the images in the Content panel of Adobe Bridge.

Review

Questions

1 How do you access Photoshop automation features from within Adobe Bridge?

2 Where do you find the metadata for an image, and how do you know if the metadata is editable?

3 Which panel in Adobe Bridge enables you to organize your files on your computer?

4 Which panel allows you to create Web Galleries, PDF presentations, and contact sheets?

Answers

1 You can access automated tools for Adobe Photoshop by choosing Tools > Photoshop.

2 You find metadata information in the Metadata and Keywords panels in the lower-right corner of the Bridge workspace. Metadata is editable if it has the pencil icon next to it.

3 You can use the Folders panel to organize your files.

4 You must be in the Output panel to create Web Galleries, PDF presentations, and contact sheets.

Congratulations! You have finished Bridge Lesson 1, “Using Adobe Bridge.”