Chefneil

Does anyone out there use Adobe Bridge. What do you think? Is there any real competition?

thanks, olc

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Well, I use it. Like it fine for what it is. But I am using only Photoshop CS6 and not Lightroom. If I were using Lightroom I might not use Bridge at all. It allows me to view my PSD and PSB files and Windows can not view the image of.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

On1 Browse is a very powerful and fast browser, that respects color and star coding, pick/reject, keywording etc as Adobe has defined it. That is the real competition. PhotoMechanic does many of those things as well, but at $150 for a license, it can hardly be considered serious competition.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I have been using it extensively for about 5 years after reading a guy's online blog about the benefits of it and how it blows past Lightroom's cataloging system. My three main problems with Lightroom were:
(1) It wanted to spend days searching and cataloging all 6 TB of data on my computer and there was no way to turn that off or tell it just which drives to search/catalog;
(2) Once it had everything searched and cataloged, if you moved something using, say, Windows Explorer or any other file manager, Lightroom got lost. If you asked Lightroom to find it again, it would spend days re-searching and re-cataloging everything looking for just that 1 file;
(3) If you created a new directory for today's pictures using the camera's or the computer's file management system, Lightroom wouldn't see it.

The online blogger showed what Lightroom could do and then showed how Bridge could do it better. He had graphics and detailed instructions.
Well, I decided to take Bridge for a test ride and see if he was right. He was.
If you can do it in Lightroom, you can also do it in Bridge, and probably better, faster, or more intuitive. And you don't have to worry about losing a file or a directory. Bridge knows where they are at all times.
Learn how to use Bridge's Workspaces and set your own. You even can have multiple workspaces. Choose the workspace that is relevant to what you currently want to do. Learn how to use its panels, especially its Folders and Favorites panels.

At the time, I was an expert in using Lightroom and Above Average with Photoshop. I now use Bridge and Photoshop 100% of the time for my own needs, and then Lightroom, Paintshop Pro, Photo-Paint, onOne, Nic, Topaz, Redfield, Landscape Pro, and many others when my Clients need help with their problems. Quite often, I'll show them how to do it in Photoshop and Bridge, and they never go back to what they were using.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I use LR and PS. To me it's superfluous.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

I do use Bridge all the time and love it (to me its the best image handling application period)!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It's funny, but when I saw the title, I thought of a natural stone bridge out west.

No product is unique.

https://www.google.com/search?q=substitute+for+adobe+bridge&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS716US717&oq=substitute+for+adobe+bridge&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.6207j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

DaveC Loc: Illinois

I've used Adobe Bridge since it first was available. I can't make a direct comparison to Lightroom's catalog since, although I have Lightroom, I've never implemented the catalog. Maybe I'm missing something but I find Bridge to be easy to use and do everything I need.

ronichas Loc: Long Island

I started with Bridge before lightroom came out. While I have tried lightroom, I exclusively use Bridge, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop.
One of the things I like in Bridge is being able to see everything on my computer, my documents, not just my photos.

Meemz

I use LR,PS,and Bridge. Love them all. When you use Bridge w/LR you don’t have to go back into LR all the time for different pics. I always forget at least one when doing a composite. With Bridge you can just drag and drop right into PS and create new layer with it.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Lightroom is it's competition. But they are both made by Adobe so they are brothers. They both have the same DNA and are similar in many ways. Many old school Photoshop users still use Bridge, but most of the newer Photoshop CC users have migrated to LR.

JD750 Loc: SoCal

Yes and my impression is that since Bridge is a tool that integrates many Adobe tools it is intended for the graphics professionals, commercial artists, web designers, et. al., whereas LR is basically for photographers.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

I would have to agree with you here.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I use it in conjunction with PSCS6. It works incredibly well, especially with the filing system I've used for over 30 years.
--Bob

Barbcity Loc: Berkeley, California

The main difference between adobe bridge and adobe lightroom is that with bridge you don't import anything, you just use it as a search tool to see whatever image you want. In Lightroom to see anything, you have to import those images into a catalogue before you can see anything.