Walking Through a Batch Process

Let's take a look at how you might tie together the ideas in this chapter. Suppose I'm approaching a handoff deadline for a book project, and I need to make sure all my images are in the CMYK color space of my publisher. I use Bridge to find out which files aren't ready yet and then send those straight through a Photoshop action. Here's how I do it:

1.	In Photoshop, I prepared a CMYK conversion action in advance, so that it will be available when I run the batch process. (For information about creating actions, see Chapter 17.)
2.	In Bridge, I navigate to the folder containing the images.
3.	I decide to open a second window to monitor the folder that will receive the completed images (Figure 6.19). Figure 6.19.
4.	Choose Edit > Find and enter the criteria (Figure 6.20). I want to find all images that are not CMYK, so I enter that criteria. No other folders are involved, so I leave the Look In menu at the current folder and don't enable Include All Subfolders. Figure 6.20.
5.	I want to see both my original window and the search results window, so I enable Show Find Results in a New Browser Window.
6.	I click Find. In a new browser window, Bridge displays four files that aren't CMYK (Figure 6.21). The search is based on knowing that if a file is CMYK, the Color Mode metadata will say CMYK color. Figure 6.21.
7.	I make sure none of the four files is selected (so that Bridge will send all files in the folder to Photoshop), and then I choose Tools > Photoshop > Batch. Photoshop opens and presents the Batch dialog box (Figure 6.22). Figure 6.22.
8.	In the Batch dialog box in Photoshop, I select the action I created to convert images to CMYK TIFF images for my publisher and verify that the other Batch dialog box options are correct. Then I click OK, and Photoshop processes the files sent to it by Bridge. (The Destination is set to None, which allows the destination recorded in the action to take effect.)
9.	I watch the destination folder (which I recorded into the action when I created it) and monitor the progress as Photoshop converts each file (Figure 6.23). Figure 6.23.
10.	Now I can run a Find on the original folder, but this time finding all CMYK images so I can drag them into the folder with the files I just converted to CMYK. Now all of the files are converted to CMYK and in the same folder.

Bridge works together with your desktop, so you can drag and drop files between a Bridge browser window to a normal Mac OS X or Windows folder window.

You don't have to leave Bridge to do basic file-management tasks. For example, there's a New Folder command under the File menu. You can also rename a file or folder; with a file or folder selected, press the spacebar, type the new name, and then press Return or Enter.