donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

Hi all,

I've been watching a training course I bought from Adobe called Master Adobe Photoshop CC A Definitive Guide that was dirt cheap ($19) for Black Friday. It's a great course and the part I'm on now is about Bridge which I actually hadn't even installed before taking this course.

I'm a long time Lightroom user and had THOUGHT that LR was the end all be all for organizing images but it appears that Bridge has all and maybe even more options for organizing (rating, smart collections, keywords, and much much more) and was wondering what others thought. Has Bridge improved that much over the past few years? He doesn't mention Lightroom and seems to do everything in PS.

Just wondering what the consensus in UglyHedgehog land is about this.

anotherview Loc: California

Adobe had to market LR as a great photo-editing program, without specifically mentioning worthy alternatives, like Bridge.

Yes, Bridge can do it all, if not more.

Note as well the number of photographers who do preliminary photo-editing in LR but then go to PCC to finish their photo-editing.

As best I understand, LR does present a useful approach to batch-processing of photographs. This capability appeals to photographers who shot numerous photographs under the same conditions with the same camera and lens settings. The photographer can then apply the same adjustment to all of his or her photographs at once, shortening the time for writing an invoice to get paid.

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

I'm one of those who always did everything I could in LR and then went to PSE as necessary. I felt it was about time I learned the full PS program. BTW, just after I typed that he hadn't mentioned LR he said good things about LR but also continued to highly praise everything that Bridge can do. Thanks for your input.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

It appears to me that Bridge is a tool that can help weave the full set of Adobe tools together. It makes a lot of sense for graphic artists, designers, web developers, etc. If you are just a photographer, it does not appear that Bridge offers much that Lightroom does not.

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

I can see that reasoning, Bill - ie documents, graphics, and more in one handy place - Favorites. One thing I liked is that I can open multiple images in Bridge, each on its on separate layer. Since my goal is learn compositing that's a very handy thing. Thanks for your input.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Unless Bridge has changed recently, it is still a file browser while Lightroom is a database, so how can Bridge compare to the speed of a database for sorting, organizing and searching?

Yes, Bridge will act as a front end for Photoshop, and it will surely add keywords to EXIF, but can it find a collection of images out of 30,000 instantly?

Lightroom for me quite easily and quickly manages all my photos, gives me ACR editing and yes, acts as a organizing and management front end for Photoshop, Picasa, Darktable, and other editing tools which can all be connected to Lightroom easily to round trip photos.

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

According to this training yes it can find a collection of images out of 30,000 instantly and much more. I'm not looking for an argument - just wondering if these are new developments within PS. I'm new at PS. Only knew PSE before so I'm just asking. It simply appears to me that the organizing capabilities are similar now.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

I will admit that I have not used Bridge for a long time, so it would be worth it for me to give it a try at search speeds....I have kept it updated with my CC connection ;)

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

Good idea. I'll be interested in what you discover.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I had thought that LR was the master of picture organizing but then I wanted to become an expert with PS so that I wouldn't have to keep updating all the programs I typically used (LR, PSE, PSP, Photo-Paint, Corel Draw) since I knew that PS could do everything that all the other programs did. During my yearlong, 8 hours a day, learning the ins and outs of everything PS, I also discovered Bridge and all that it can do. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion through lots of experimentation, that Bridge blows LR away when it comes to organizing my photos. However, learning Bridge and all it can do is not as easy at learning LR. Tutorials seem to focus on PS and LR, mostly ignoring Bridge.
I read one of the comments stating that Bridge is not a database. Not sure what that means, but it can do pretty much everything that a pure database can do.

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

That's what I'm learning, Russelray. And yes, I used LR for years because it was easier. Now I'm putting in the hours/days/year???? to learn everything PS and I'm impressed. Thanks for your input.

Oh, I used to work as an ad rep for a newspaper and one of the graphic artists was also a photographer who playfully harrassed me constantly for only having PSE (which I also RARELY used). Once I have a better grip on PS I'll have to Facebook message him to say I finally did it! (-: He's now a musician entertainer at Disney in FL.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

What I have found, as recently as only a few minutes ago....

LIGHTROOM is a database, when you import photos into it all you are doing is adding a record to the database that tells Lightroom what and where the file is, along with some metadata about the image. As you work on the image, edits are added to the database and to XMP files or directly into the image file that affect how the image is viewed, the original image remains untouched.

BRIDGE can "index" images, so it builds a database of EXIF metadata about the images that it finds - remember Bridge is like Finder /Explorer, it browses files and folders. The indexing is optional, without it it does not do well at searches for metadata from what I have seen. And indexing can take a very very long time. (I chose to index my 2015 folder, and it has been running for 10 minutes so far.)

While it may have some new features of late, I am still not seeing where it is better than Lightroom, since the database entries happen automatically during import it is a very pain free process. And with Lightroom really being ACR, most edits can be done within Lightroom, and for those edits that cannot be completed in Lightroom, there are easy hooks to other programs, like PSE/Photoshop, just as easy as calling them from Bridge.

Most of the people that have issues using Lightroom are the ones that cannot seem to break away from a file browser system, like Bridge, and then they cannot get used to the fact that Lightroom will manage photos, WHERE they are kept and how they are moved - it is when people go in and feel the need to move files manually that they have trouble with Lightroom's database.

I am still experimenting with Bridge, I have for at least a year now, and so far have not found why it is better than Lightroom, but I have always wanted to for some reason ;)

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Apparently, YES it can IF the folder/pictures are INDEXED.... which is what importing images into Lightroom does on the fly...

so I guess I am not seeing a definite advantage of Bridge over Lightroom yet...

I can go from Lightroom to Photoshop, Lightroom to Picasa, Lightroom to GIMP, Lightroom to Topaz, and most anything and will successfully round trip an image back into Lightroom, which is added to the database in real time.

I only indexed one folder in Bridge and it took quite some time - be interesting to know how it handles reindexing as versions are added on the fly.

donnahde Loc: Newark, DE

Thanks for your analysis, Don. The instructor did say that in order for Bridge to know where your files are any moves need to be done within the program. Much of what you said is a bit over my head at this point but thanks for your input.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Gotta be for indexing. I will keep looking - for some reason I want to find that Bridge is as good if not better to how I use Lightroom - and I don't really know why ;)