Adobe Bridge

Way back when Version 7 was released, Adobe added a feature to Photoshop called the File Browser, which enabled users to quickly find the files they needed by using a visual interface. This feature was greatly enhanced in Photoshop CS2, and now, in Adobe Creative Suite 2, Adobe has pulled the file browser out of Photoshop completely and turned it into its own application, called Bridge. The benefits of Bridge are truly spectacular because now all the applications in Adobe Creative Suite can take advantage of visual file browsing.

By the Way

Even though Bridge is a standalone application, I've decided to cover it in this chapter because of the focus on integration. Even though you can launch Bridge on its own, the intended use for Bridge is to help access and work with files while using the other applications in the suite.

That alone would probably be enough to make Bridge a hot item, but Adobe didn't stop there. Bridge acts as a hub for all the applications in the suite and goes far beyond simple image browsing. Adobe Bridge can perform complex searches, view and edit the metadata of files without opening them, perform time-saving scripts and functions across multiple files, and also expose Version Cue functionality.

Bridge also features an innovative Stock Photos service that enables you to browse and search several leading royalty-free image libraries, download watermark-free comps, and even purchase high-resolution images. Bridge offers links to a new comprehensive Adobe Help Center and offers quick access to recently used files and even RSS newsfeeds.

By the Way

RSS, which stands for RDF Site Summary, is an XML-based method of describing newsfeeds for use on the Internet. RSS feeds are becoming more widespread. As you visit common sites, you might see links or buttons to access these RSS feeds. For example, www.nytimes.com and www.yahoo.com have several free RSS feeds available. Look for little yellow or orange XML icons on websites for these feeds. Being able to access RSS newsfeeds from Bridge means that you can now bring information from the Internet right into your Adobe application.

You can launch Bridge as you would any other application, or you can launch it by clicking on the Go To Bridge button that appears in each of the suite applications (see Figure 4.46).

Figure 4.46. The Go To Bridge button as it appears in the Tool Options bar in Photoshop CS2.

Bridge Center

Bridge is made up of several different panels that can all be resized or shuffled around to best suit your needs. We talk about how to do that shortly, but first I want to point out the Favorites panel that lists several icons, or shortcuts, to different functions, services, and locations (see Figure 4.47). For example, clicking on Version Cue enables you to access files in Version Cue projects right from Bridge (we talk more about this in Chapter 11, "Using Adobe Version Cue 2"). Items that appear below the divider line in the Favorites panel are specific folders that you access frequently. You can add your own favorites simply by dragging any folder between existing favorites (dragging a folder on top of an existing favorite moves that folder into the favorite). To delete a favorite, either drag it to your system trash or choose File, Remove from Favorites. You can also specify what does or does not appear in the Favorites panel in the General panel in Bridge Preferences (see Figure 4.48).

Figure 4.47. The Favorites panel in Bridge.

Figure 4.48. The General panel in Bridge Preferences offers the capability to determine what appears listed in the Favorites panel.

At the top of the Favorites panel is the Bridge Center icon, and clicking on it takes you there. Bridge Center is this cool place where you can access recent folders and files, and even create groups of files. Scroll down the Bridge Center window, and you'll find even cooler stuff (see Figure 4.49). An RSS Reader enables you to access live XML feeds over the Internet. Click on the little plus sign to add URLs for custom feeds that you find on the Internet. There are also tips and tricks on all the individual suite applications, which is always useful.

Figure 4.49. The lower half of the Bridge Center.

At the bottom of Bridge Center are three buttons. We cover Version Cue in detail in Chapter 11, so we cover the remaining two here: Color Management and Help.

Consistent Color (Right)

You've heard people say it before: "Never trust your monitor." Getting consistent color on your desktop has always been an issue with designers, and, at some point, we've all believed in all the gadgets and plug-ins and utilities that promised to deliver computer color nirvana (like those emails I get that promise you can lose weight by eating chocolate).

So here comes Adobe saying that, with one click of a button, you can get consistent colors on your screen. Why should you believe them? First, let's take a quick look at what the feature actually does. Clicking on the Color Management icon in the Bridge Center opens the Suite Color Settings dialog box (see Figure 4.50). You can then choose a color setting that will be synchronized across all your suite applications. And that's the key concept to focus on: consistency across the suite. The way I see it, there are two levels to color management. The first level is having what you see on your screen match perfectly to proofs, press sheets, and anywhere else your files need to go. This first level is the most complex when you consider that so many different devices and technologies exist, in addition to all the external physical factors.

Figure 4.50. The Suite Color Settings dialog box.

I was once working on an ad for a client, and there was a photo of a woman's face on it. I sent a color proof to the client to review, and his response was that the woman's face was too redcould I please fix that? I opened the file in Photoshop, made an adjustment, and sent a new proof to the client. His response was that the image was still too red. After pulling even more red out of the image (and paying close attention to Photoshop's Info palette), another proof was sent to the client, who was still unhappy with how red the image looked. At this point, my only choice was to have the client come over to my office to see the proof onscreen so that I could show him that there was hardly any red in the image at all. A short time later, the client showed up at my door wearing a bright red sweater. The red he had been seeing was a reflection of his sweater in the proof!

This has really been bothering designers the most: "Why is it that when I create art in Illustrator and then place it into InDesign, the colors look completely different?" You would think that all Adobe applications would be capable of displaying a particular color value consistently across the entire suite. The truth is, Adobe applications do share a single technology for displaying color (called ACE, which stands for Adobe Color Engine), but for several reasons, each Adobe application has always shipped with different settings. Photoshop, which has a large user base of photographers, was optimized for color settings best for those photographers. Illustrator used settings that were best for illustration work, and so on. The second level of color management is consistency across the applications that you use. I don't care as much about how close my screen is to my press proof. I do care that my colors look consistent among Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Acrobat.

Adobe promises this second level of color management with the Color Management setting in Bridge. With one click, you can synchronize your color settings across the entire suite, ensuring that a color displayed in Photoshop will look exactly the same when displayed in Illustrator, InDesign, or Acrobat. Overall, that makes me happy.

Help Is on the Way

Help is a good thing, for the most part. In the past, online help systems weren't very helpful because they were difficult to use and didn't really offer much information. Additionally, help was always focused on individual products. Yet with the Creative Suite on our desktops, we're using all of these products together as a whole.

So it's refreshing to see that Adobe has included a brand-new help system called Adobe Help Center. You can access it by clicking on the Help icon in the Bridge Center, or by simply choosing Help from the Help menu in any Adobe Creative Suite 2 application.

In a single window, you can access help across all suite applications, bookmark areas or topics so that you can easily return to them, and perform searches as well (see Figure 4.51). Adobe also provides access to Adobe Expert Support, which is a pay service that Adobe offers. Finally, Adobe Help Center offers additional resources that are extremely helpful, and even lets you enter your own personal friends or the contacts whom you always go to for help.

Figure 4.51. The Adobe Help Center.

Previewing and Searching for Files

As I mentioned earlier, Bridge evolved from Photoshop's file browser, so it should be of no surprise that one of the main uses and strengths of Bridge is the capability to browse files. It actually goes way beyond just browsing files, as you'll soon see. First of all, there are three main views for previewing files in Bridge. At the bottom right of the window are buttons to toggle among Thumbnail view (see Figure 4.52), Filmstrip view (see Figure 4.53), and Details view (see Figure 4.54). (There's really a fourth, but that's specific to Version Cue, which we cover in Chapter 11.) Each view offers a different way to preview files. You can drag the slider at the bottom of the Bridge window to dynamically scale the size of the thumbnails.

Figure 4.52. Viewing images in Bridge with the Thumbnail view.

Figure 4.53. Viewing images in Bridge with the Filmstrip view.

Figure 4.54. Viewing images in Bridge with the Details view.

You can change the color of the background in Bridge (it's light gray by default) in the General panel in Bridge Preferences.

One of the main uses for Bridge is using a whole folder of images to find the files that you want. When you click on a file, five small dots appear beneath the image thumbnail. Clicking on the dots enables you to rate the images with anywhere from zero to five stars. You can then click on the button at the top of the Bridge window to filter what files are or are not displayed in the Bridge window (see Figure 4.55).

Figure 4.55. Choosing to filter your view in Bridge.

A cool way to quickly step through and rate large collections of images is to use Bridge's slideshow feature. Choose View, Slide Show to see images in full-screen mode. Press the H key to view all the keyboard shortcuts for the things you can apply to images as they appear on your screen (see Figure 4.56), such as rating them.

Figure 4.56. Using the Slide Show feature in Bridge.

Choose Edit, Find to run a search within Bridge. Use the Criteria section of the dialog box to specify exactly what you're looking for. But that's not the best part of it. After you perform a find, you can click the Save As Collection button (see Figure 4.57). This creates what Bridge calls a collection, which you can access by clicking on the Collections icon in the Favorites panel. Collections are like live searches and can be very useful when you need to perform functions on the same kinds or groups of files.

Figure 4.57. Saving a collection in Bridge.

Adobe Stock Photos

For those who use royalty-free stock photos, Adobe has added a new service that enables you to search through stock libraries right from Bridge. Adobe doesn't have its own library of images; instead, it has partnered with stock photo giants Photodisc (Getty images), Comstock, and others that makes managing the process of using stock photos easier and more efficient.

You can access the Adobe Stock Photos service by clicking on the Adobe Stock Photos icon in the Favorites panel (see Figure 4.58). You can then perform searches (across all partners simultaneously) and download watermark-free comps without having to even launch a browser or log into a site.

Figure 4.58. Accessing the Adobe Stock Photos service in Bridge.

Adobe Stock Photos actually embeds metadata into each comp that you download that contains the image ID, the partner site the image came from, and other important information. This means that you can change the name of a downloaded comp (they always have meaningless names such as AA45900012.jpg anyway), and InDesign or Illustrator will still be capable of identifying the image as a low-resolution comp. In fact, from either of those two applications, you can select the comp image and purchase the high-resolution version of the file right from the Links palette.

Adobe makes purchasing stock photo images easy because you can set up a single shopping cart account (accessible right from within Bridge) that enables you to purchase images all at once, even if they are from multiple partner libraries. Adobe has also negotiated with all the partners to offer a single consistent license agreement for all images.