Adobe bridge is popular digital photo management software made by Adobe Systems. This digital media manager fast released with Adobe Creative Suite and part of the Creative Cloud. However, it is an optional component, and users can download via a Creative Cloud subscription. Adobe Bridge is bundled within all elements of Creative Suite except Adobe Acrobat.
As a photo organizer, Adobe Bridge can couple with Adobe Photoshop and execute Photoshop’s compatible automation plugins, scripts, and Adobe Camera Raw filters on a group of images.
Table of Contents
What is Adobe Bridge?
Adobe Bridge is a comprehensive file browsing program that is very popular with graphic and media designers.
The Bridge is a standalone program and is available for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. This program is only available when you purchase another Adobe program. It is packaged with other Adobe software and comes as free. If you own any Adobe program, you probably have Adobe Bridge with that software.
Adobe Bridge is a bundled program for Adobe Photoshop. The Bridge is often referred to as a digital asset manager for total digital content management. Adobe Bridge is often used to organize files by renaming a group of them at once. It can also assign colored labels and given files to star ratings from the respective Adobe software suite.
What is Adobe Bridge Used?
Adobe Bridge uses by the creative people who work with visual assets. You can use Adobe Bridge as a media manager. It helps keep work organized by locating assets in diverse storage places. It allows searches by various file attributes when needed. These attributes include file type, rating, or even camera settings.
Adobe Bridge helps graphic artists, photographers, and other creative professionals manage their visual assets quickly and efficiently. Moreover, keeping graphic files organized and help to find it easily. It also includes some additional fine management features. These include file uploads to Adobe Stock and Adobe Portfolio, thumbnail creation, and imports files from cameras and mobile devices.
Features and Functions of Adobe Bridge
Here we discussed the Adobe Bridge more in detail. Let’s quickly go through some of the great features and functionalities that Adobe Bridge has to offer as a digital media manager.
Bridge ASA File Browser
We can say Adobe Bridge is a file browser. This software is similar in many ways to the file browser you use with your computer’s operating system. As we know, Adobe Bridge can download our photos from the camera or memory card. But in many situations, we can use Bridge to find the images we’re looking into our computer hard drive. Adobe Bridge lets us move or copy images from one folder to another.
It can also perform operations like a copy or move the entire folders from one drive to another. The Bridge can create new folders, delete folders and images and rename folders and photo when you need. All the primary file browsing function that we can perform using our operating system’s file browser, we can also do with Adobe Bridge quickly.
Bridge can operate as a File Management System
Adobe Bridge is not just a file browser; it can operate as a file management system. You can consider Adobe Bridge is a complete file management system. For beginners, Bridge can display thumbnail previews of all the images in a folder where an operating system’s file browser can also display files’ thumbnails. But the Bridge thumbnails are fully customizable. You can adjust the size of the thumbnails in Bridge just by dragging a thumbnail slider. The Bridge can view more information about an image like the file name, date created, pixel dimensions, copyright info, etcetera.
The Bridge allows you to change the sort order of the images easily. You can order photos by file name, file size or dimensions, file type, the date each file created or modified. We can also tag images by your preference, like the star rating or some other criteria. You are also allowed to change the sort order just by dragging the thumbnails manually.
Better Image Previews
Adobe Bridge can give you bigger and better image previews and change the thumbnails’ size. Bridge also provides the other ways to preview your images. The Preview panel in Adobe Bridge has an option to display a larger preview of each photo that is selected. One of the cool features of Bridge is the Full-Screen Preview mode. It lets you instantly jump to a full-screen view of any selected image for a closer look.
Adding Ratings and Labels to Images
One of the best ways to sort your images in Adobe Bridge is by star rating them. Bridge lets you quickly apply ratings to the selected images using a one-to-five-star system. You can give your favorite photos as five stars, while another image may get a one-star based on your need and priority. Other images that are not important may get no leads at all. You can label an image as “Reject” marked if you no longer want to view the image.
Image Review Mode
The Review Mode in Bridge allows you to sort through a defined range or series of images. This image reviewing mode makes it easy to separate the keepers. Review Mode lets you quickly cycle through your favorite photos and only keeps those we like and ignores others.
Adobe Bridge also lets you apply color labels based on different image usage. A yellow label can indicate images that need to work with it. Green can use for the photos which are approved. You can define the meaning of each color by yourself so that you can better remember them.
Adding Important Keywords and Copyright Information
Bridge lets you add important copyright information to your photos. While you can view and edit a whole range of additional information as metadata about your images. You can create and apply keywords to your pictures with Bridge, making it easier to find those images when you need them.
Batch Renaming Files
The Batch Renaming feature in Bridge lets you quickly rename multiple files with a single operation. You can rename your files in the Photo Downloader while you are downloading them from your camera. But the Batch Rename command always saves your time, and it is a better way to do it. You may notice the batch rename is more powerful, and it lets you rename your files after you have deleted the ones you don’t want to keep.
Filtering Images and Creating Collections
The Bridge can filter images to show you just the photos that meet specific attributes. You can view images with a five-star rating. You can also classify them with a particular lens or at an exact focal length. The Bridge allows you to combine photos into collections that make it easy for you to group related images. Readers can also group shots that are placed across different folders or different hard drives. You can make a smart collection in Bridge, which acts like dynamic search results. Stylish collections tell Adobe Bridge to automatically add any images to your collection if you specify them.
Quick Access to Your Photoshop Images
Adobe Bridge makes it easy to open images into Photoshop. But Bridge also gives access to some of Photoshop’s powerful image processing commands. Photo merge, Lens Correction, Merge to HDR Pro and others are all available directly within Bridge. Adobe Bridge is also the best way to open images into Photoshop’s image editing plugin, Camera Raw. These are some of the main benefits and features of Adobe Bridge. Here we give you an overview of the Bridge interface. We tried to look more closely at some of Bridge’s key features and functionalities.
Like Photoshop, Adobe Bridge provides you a collection of panels. The Bridge interface is made of different panels. The Folders panel in the upper left corner of the window lets you navigate the folders and directories on your computer to find your images.
How Much Does Adobe Bridge Cost?
Adobe Bridge is free software, and Adobe subscription users can use this software along with the subscribed package free of cost. They don’t need to purchase Adobe Bridge as a standalone product. It includes the Adobe Creative Cloud Plans. These plans also include free cloud storage and one or more of the following apps: Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Lightroom CC, Illustrator CC, and XD CC. The subscription cost for Adobe creative cloud ranges from $9.99 to $52.99 a month, for a single to the entire software package. Adobe may offer discounts for students and the customers who pay the yearly cost at a time.
Conclusion
Adobe Bridge is a co-program for almost all the apps in the Adobe Creative Suite. You can use Bridge to manage not just your photos but also Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator files, audio and video files, and many more. Adobe Bridge can handle all the Photoshop files, and it can be the digital content manager. It can use different versions of a file that is part of an Adobe Version and gives us powerful ways to find, manage, and organize our growing collection of images. Adobe Bridge isn’t limited to just photos or just Photoshop. It can use to manage your organization’s entire digital media content.
