Thombar Loc: Hominy, OK

Being relatively new to pp I'm confused after taking several courses in using PS CC. Some of them recommend using Bridge as a link to PS CC, while some suggest using LR CC as the link.
Do you pros using one program exclusively or use both? Which would you recommend? I like Bridge as it seems easiest to use and will open in Camera Raw then PS. But LR CC seems to have more bells and whistles.
One of the problem I have with Bridge is I can't seem to find my files after the initial use. I'm doing a course thru Lynda.com and they have exercise files to use as you do the course. I can get them loaded into Bridge but then when I close out and/or load new files I can't find the old one again. Is this supposed to happen?
Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated with many thanks.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

I had the same question at one time.

Lightroom basically IS camera raw, so any edit done in Lightroom is pretty much editing in camera raw, Lightroom also excels at managing your library of images. Every image you want to work on with Lightroom you must IMPORT into its catalog (database).

There is no end to the organization capabilities within Lightroom - keywords, camera info, date taken, lenses used, time taken, etc. sort on anything, search on anything, almost instantly regardless of the number of images. With Lightroom you can also edit in Photoshop easily.

Bridge is a traditional BROWSER based program that will also allow you to edit in camera raw, or pass the image on to Photoshop.

You can keyword in Bridge, but Bridge is not a database, so searches are a tad slower.

In my opinion, if you use Lightroom you do not need Bridge, if you do not use Lightroom then Bridge is a front end to Photoshop.

Erik_H Loc: Denham Springs, Louisiana

Bridge is an organizational tool and not an editor. LR is an editor that has excellent cataloging features, it's essentially Camera Raw and Bridge combined. What I do - and I think most here as well - is to open the image in LR and do your basic adjustments, only sending it to PS for any pixel-level editing that needs to be done. A lot of time, I don't even need to send images to PS because I can do everything I need in LR.

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

I used to use bridge (camera raw), but I have since made the switch to LR (about 5 years ago) and haven't looked back.

mickeybob Loc: Harrisville, NH

I use lightroom, bridge and PS. when I download from my camera, they go to bridge, where I have all my files on external drives. I do a little checking out, make some sub files, then I import to lightroom, edit, make my collections,
then edit in PS (not much) and save as tif files. they open again where ever you want, run then through for the web.
get the best of all the programs, they can work as a team.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Right on :thumbup: I ha CC and did not even load bridge Just use LR

CaltechNerd Loc: Whittier, CA, USA

Both are good. I find the controls in Lightroom much more intuitive than Bridge, just a personal opinion. BUT, adjustments made in Bridge are not seen by Lightroom. Likewise, adjustments made in Lightroom are not seen in Bridge. They use different sidecar files to store adjustment information. So using both can be confusing/frustrating unless you really know what you're doing.

jmizera Loc: Austin Texas

I think confusion on this is totally understandable. Bridge came way before Lightroom, so some cross over functionality is understandable. Bridge can do many of the same operations by itself, but was always intended as a companion to Photoshop.

Lightroom on the other hand was designed to operate as a stand alone solution. I use it pretty much exclusively for large shoots, as it is so much more efficient way to do post on a large number of photos. There are also a few tools that unique to LR, and extremely useful.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Lightroom Lightroom Lightroom

MtnMan Loc: ID

Learn Lightroom fast and use keywords and collections so you can find your stuff. Bridge is old school software...don't get why the provide it with CC.

I never use it.

TheDman Loc: USA

Because some of us don't have any problems finding our stuff. :)

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Bridge is part of Photoshop. It works great, for low volume users. If you shoot relatively few images and aren't in a big hurry to proof and process them, it's just fine (and does pretty much the same thing as LR's RAW conversion process).

Lightroom is a high volume, batch processing program. It's a powerful cataloging, sorting, organizing tool, in addition to a basic RAW converter. It's designed for speed, not for high precision.

I use both.

I shoot 2000, 3000, or more images some days. I have to cull them down to the "keepers" and get proof copies of those up online as quickly as possible.

But later, when particular images have been selected and I know what the end use will be, I go back and use LR to retrieve them, so a little tweaking, then pass them off to Photoshop for much more exacting finishing than is possible in LR. This doesn't actually use Bridge most of the time, but if needed it's there and I will use it for an occasional, individual image or two.

This is a good workflow for me... and probably will meet some other peoples' needs as well. But some folks only need LR, while still others only need PS. Or they may use another program in combination with either LR or PS.