BR1-01

[Damien Symonds]

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Welcome to The Bridge Class

Everyone who knows me knows how much I adore Bridge. Thank you for joining the class so I can show you why I’m such a fan.

Bridge, and a Bridge-centred workflow, can be as complex or as basic as you wish to make it. In this class I will give you glimpses of the complex side, but mainly I’m here to show you the basic side. I know you’ll fall in love with its power, yet its blissful simplicity, as you manage and edit your files in a straightforward no-fuss way. From there, I hope you’ll be encouraged to explore its more advanced features that pertain to your own needs.

Bridge is most commonly discussed as the alternative to Lightroom, but in fact it’s the alternative to every one of those programs on the market that controls your files by way of catalogues. With Bridge, you can do whatever you want with your files. If photo software can be likened to the Korean Peninsula, Bridge is South Korea.

For the longest time, we had to pay for Bridge. Well, it came bundled with Photoshop, and you know how expensive that was. And people with Elements missed out But a few years ago Adobe made it available for free - hooray! I don’t know why they did it, but who cares? Software this powerful, for free, is a wonderful gift. And now everyone can enjoy it, no matter which version of Photoshop or Elements you have.

Next: About this class >>

[pbziegler]

Is there any reason to keep Lightroom on my computer now that I use Bridge exclusively? I have my old photos catalogued in Lightroom and used it for most of my processing—rarely used Photoshop until now. Don’t want to lose anything but if zi can uninstall Lightroom without losing anything I fix on my images with it I will uninstall it

[Damien Symonds]

6 hours ago, pbziegler said:

Is there any reason to keep Lightroom on my computer now that I use Bridge exclusively? I have my old photos catalogued in Lightroom and used it for most of my processing—rarely used Photoshop until now. Don’t want to lose anything but if zi can uninstall Lightroom without losing anything I fix on my images with it I will uninstall it

Just to check, have you done this?

[pbziegler]

Yes. My catalogue settings shows that my files are converted to XMPs

[Damien Symonds]

And if you actually go to a folder on your hard drive?  In Finder, I mean?  Can you see xmp files beside each raw file?

[pbziegler]

They appear next to some of my raw files but very few. They also appear next to my PSD files

Edited June 16, 2018 by pbziegler

[pbziegler]

My method of transferring images from my card to my computer is to create a folder on my back up drive with an identifying name--date and place. Then I used to open Lightroom and import the photos in that folder. So I have all of my images stored in files on my back up drive. I also have a second back up drive where I periodically save all the images on that first backup drive so I have two places where my images are stored. It might be that I only recently checked the box creating xmp files and that's why there are only a few. But that box is checked now. Also I seem to have xmp files for those few raw files and also for some of my psd files as well.

 

I can see, looking at other folders, that all of the raw files in those folders do have xmp files for each raw file. Not sure why some raw files don't have xmp files unless I didn't have that box checked for periods of time.

Edited June 16, 2018 by pbziegler

[Damien Symonds]

Is this your first, or subsequent, read-through of the class?

[pbziegler]

I am still reading but eager to clear out some of the programs on my computer that I no longer intend to use--Lightroom being one of them. I just didnt' want to do it and find I lost something important. So my question wasn't really in reference to the course material as I get it Lightroom isn't going to be my RAW editor going forward. I have others as well and I don't have a lot of room on my computer hard drive at this point and moving programs to a back up and uninstalling some would be great. Just figured you would be able to tell me how to do it safely.

[Damien Symonds]

Well, this part definitely is in reference to the course material:

39 minutes ago, pbziegler said:

My method of transferring images from my card to my computer is to create a folder on my back up drive with an identifying name--date and place. Then I used to open Lightroom and import the photos in that folder. So I have all of my images stored in files on my back up drive. I also have a second back up drive where I periodically save all the images on that first backup drive so I have two places where my images are stored.

 

[Damien Symonds]

40 minutes ago, pbziegler said:

I can see, looking at other folders, that all of the raw files in those folders do have xmp files for each raw file. Not sure why some raw files don't have xmp files unless I didn't have that box checked for periods of time.

XMP files will only exist if you've actually done some editing to the photos.

51 minutes ago, pbziegler said:

They appear next to some of my raw files but very few. They also appear next to my PSD files

The ones next to PSD files are bollocks, of course.  You must NEVER edit PSD files in Lightroom.

[pbziegler]

I am so sorry I didn't run into you a long time ago. I have done lots of stuff to my images I would never do now.

[Damien Symonds]

Your original question is quite fair.  No, don't remove Lightroom just yet.  Let's get you comfortably settled into your new home before we stop paying rent on your old one, if you know what I mean.

[pbziegler]

I can tell this is going to be an amazing relationship. Hope I survive it.

[seepea]

I've read through the entire class and am going back now with questions I've had.  First, I have been using FastStone Image Viewer, which I first heard about from you.  I see many benefits that Bridge has over FastStone for culling photos, but I'm wondering if you still use FastStone for anything?  Is there anything it does better than Bridge?  Also, Bridge is running frustratingly slow for me.  I'll ask questions on the relevant slides as I go through this class a second time, but in the meanwhile is it worth sending Brian information about my computer and asking if he sees any reason why it is running slowly?

[Damien Symonds]

8 hours ago, seepea said:

I'm wondering if you still use FastStone for anything?  Is there anything it does better than Bridge?

I keep FastStone on my computer for one reason only - in case I ever want to strip metadata from a whole set of jpeg files at once.  Oddly, Bridge doesn't yet have this feature.

Otherwise, Bridge is for everything.

8 hours ago, seepea said:

Also, Bridge is running frustratingly slow for me.  I'll ask questions on the relevant slides as I go through this class a second time, but in the meanwhile is it worth sending Brian information about my computer and asking if he sees any reason why it is running slowly?

Yes, I think that would be worthwhile. First, can you do this for me?

[Kellie W]

Thank you for this class Damien. I must admit I read it over many times and gave up Lightroom in steps. Then a few months ago I rethought my processes from the beginning and gave up Lightroom after 8 years of using it and haven't looked back. Bridge/Raw and PS are where its at.

For anyone deciding whether or not to take this class and Raw, they are a must. (As are all Damien's other classes.)

[SharonD!]

Hi Damien,

I've searched Google and can't find an easy answer to my question so thought I'd ask you.

I teach photography to 16 year olds and plan to move all my students to a Bridge and ACR/Photoshop workflow. They have previously used Lightroom. The only thing I can't work out how to do is a contact sheet with exif data. This is really important early on in the course so that I can scan their shots quickly for errors and explain where they are going wrong in terms of manual settings.

I can see that Bridge and Photoshop can make contact sheets but can't see anywhere where I can add aperture, ss, ISO, lens data like in Lightroom? Is it possible or am I stuck with using Lightroom for that?

[Damien Symonds]

I don't know, sorry @SharonD!. I assume there's a script for it.