Using the Adobe Bridge

Topics covered in this Photoshop tutorial:

Navigation, Renaming files, Deleting files, Rotating images

Exercise Overview

We have a collection of files from a photo shoot. We need to choose our top picks to present to a client. Adobe Bridge is a program that comes with Photoshop and will help us in our project.

Navigating to a Folder

1. Launch Adobe Bridge using one of these two ways:

   • In any Creative Cloud program (such as Photoshop), choose File > Browse in Bridge.
   • Directly launch the Adobe Bridge application.

2. To make sure we’re looking at the same thing, go to Window > Workspace > Reset Standard Workspaces.

3. At the top left of the window, you should see a Favorites and a Folders tab.

4. You should already be viewing the Favorites tab, so in the list of favorites click on Desktop.

5. The icons are fairly small. To make it easier to read longer names, let’s make the icons bigger. At the bottom of the window, drag the zoom slider (illustrated below) a little to the right.

   

6. In the middle section of the window, find the Class Files folder and double–click it to open it.

7. Double–click on the Photoshop Class folder.

8. Double–click on the Collection of Files folder (NOT the Collections tab you may see on the left). If you don’t see the folder, you may need to scroll to find it.

9. Now that you see the collection of files, play with the zoom slider to see how the thumbnail sizes change.

Organizing Some of the Files

1. Go to View > Sort > By Filename to properly order the files.

2. Make sure View > Sort > Ascending Order is checked so the files you are looking at are sorted in A–Z order.

3. Several of these files belong to the same project. It would be nice to put them all together in a folder. Go to File > New Folder.

4. Name the new folder Australia Ad.

5. Click once on the thumbnail of the InDesign file named australia ad-started.indd.

6. Hold Shift and click on the thumbnail of the Illustrator file named australia dot com logo-white.ai.

   All four Australia files should now be selected: one InDesign layout, one text file, and two logos.

7. Drag any of the selected thumbnails into the Australia Ad folder.

8. Double–click on the Australia Ad folder to go into it. The files are there!

9. At the top of the window, notice that the file path is displayed. Click on the Collection of Files folder to go back to it (you can click the folder or the name).

   

Rotating Images

1. Some of the images need to be rotated. Click once on the image named _MG_0134.jpg. (It’s one of the night shots.)

2. Hold Shift and click on the image named _MG_0136.jpg. The image in between should have been selected as well. Three images should now be selected.

   NOTE: To select images that are not in a continuous row, you can hold Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) when clicking on the images.

3. To rotate the images, press Cmd–] (Mac) or Ctrl–] (Windows).

Deleting the Worst Images

1. Some of the images are too bad to even keep. To judge them better, we want to see larger previews. Go to Window > Workspace > Preview.

2. To make sure we’re seeing the same thing, go to Window > Workspace > Reset Workspace.

3. Flip between images by clicking on a thumbnail or hitting the Up/Down Arrows.

4. Arrow up/down to (or click on) the fourth image (_MG_0132.jpg), which is a picture of a fence with the Chrysler building in the distance.

5. Hit the Down Arrow to see the next picture, which is very similar, but the background is more out of focus.

6. Flip between these two images a couple of times by hitting the Up/Down Arrows to quickly compare the differences between the images.

7. We don’t like the second, more blurry image so we can delete it. With that image selected (_MG_0133.jpg), hit Delete.

8. A message will probably ask if you want to reject or delete the file. Click Delete.

9. You may also be asked to confirm the deletion. Just click OK.

   NOTE: In the future, it’s easier to hit Cmd–Delete (Mac) or Ctrl–Delete (Windows).

Renaming Images

1. At the top of the window, click the Essentials button to switch back to that view.

2. Adjust the thumbnail size so you can nicely see all the images by dragging the slider at the bottom of the window.

   

3. We want to rename the third image _MG_0113.jpg. Click on it once to select it.

4. Click directly on the filename (not the thumbnail), and after a moment the name will become editable.

5. Type in the new filename: noble desktop (leave the .jpg after the name).

6. Select the Sydney Opera House image (named 2005-10-08 20-56-23.jpg).

7. Click on the filename and after a moment you can type in the new filename: sydney opera house (leaving the .jpg after the name).

8. Click on the thumbnail of the first image _MG_0075.jpg to select it.

9. Hold Shift and click on the second image _MG_0076.jpg so both images are selected.

10. Go to Tools > Batch Rename.

    A Batch Rename dialog appears. Don’t click Rename until we say so!

11. Under Destination Folder, leave Rename in same folder selected.

12. Under New Filenames, go into the leftmost top menu and choose Text.

13. To its right, type in grand central (and type a space at the end).

14. If there’s not a second row of options below, click the plus button to the right.

15. In the second row, from the left-hand menu, choose Sequence Number.

16. Make sure the Sequence Number is set to 1.

17. Make sure the menu to the right of Sequence Number says One Digit.

18. If there’s a third row or more, click the minus button to the right of each row and remove all additional rows.

19. Click Rename.

20. Click on the first koala picture.

21. Hold Shift and click on the last koala image.

22. Go to Tools > Batch Rename.

23. Most of the previous options are correct, but change the text to koala (with a space at the end).

24. Make sure Sequence Number is set to 1.

25. Click Rename.

26. We’re done with Bridge, so quit out of it:

    Mac:	Go into Adobe Bridge menu and choose Quit Adobe Bridge.
    Windows:	Go to File > Exit.

27. Go back to Photoshop. And that’s how Adobe Bridge complements your workflow!