Photoshop Elements > Bridge
Also go to
Organizing Your Photographs and
Deleting & Sorting.
Bridge is used in Mac versions of Photoshop Elements.
Windows versions of Photoshop Elements have the
Organizer.
Clean the House, First
Before you organize your photographs, you may want to find
and delete duplicate photographs.
Go to Duplicates:
Find & Delete.
Like a Card Catalog
Bridge is like a card catalog.
Bridge contains "cards," links to your photographs.
Your photographs are not located in Bridge.
Your photographs are sitting in the "stacks," your folders.
Thumbnails of files already on your computer are imported
automatically into Bridge.
To download files from your camera, go to File > Get Photos.
Where's the File?
To determine where a file is located, select the file and go
to File > Reveal in Finder.
From Photoshop Elements
To open Bridge from Photoshop Elements, go to File > Browse
with Bridge.
To Photoshop Elements
Double click on a file or thumbnail to open it.
Go to Bridge > Preferences > File Type Associations to change
the program that is used to open the file.
Bridge has workspaces.
The workspaces contain panels.
The panels in the Essential workspace are depicted below.
| Favorites /
Folders |
Content |
Preview |
| Filter
/ Collections |
|
Metadata / Keywords |
1 - Favorites
You can keep files, collections, and more, in Favorites.
Click and drag a folder or collection into the Favorites
panel, or go to
File > Add to favorites.
The Favorites panel, by default, contains Collections, Computer,
Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders.
Go to Bridge > Preferences > General to change the default favorites.
2 - Folders
The Folders panel is the path to other folders on your computer.
Click a folder to open it up.
When you do so, thumbnails for the photographs will start to
appear.
If you're going through several folders, and you don't want slow
your travel down by having thumbnails appear, click on the black
arrows next to the folders.
When you get to the folder you want, click the folder, rather
than its arrow, to open the contents.
3 - Filter
View images filtered by file format, keyword, star rating,
label (color bar), and more.
4 - Collections
Collections are saved searches, and are described below.
5 - Content
View folders and the thumbnails of your photographs here, along with star
ratings and labels.
Select Multiple Files to view more than one photograph.
6 - Preview
View your photographs here.
Click the image to zoom.
7 - Metadata
You can view a myriad of metadata here.
You can also apply descriptions, copyright information,
keywords, and more, to a single photograph or to batches.
Go to Tools > Create Metadata Template to apply metadata to
photographs when they're imported.
When importing, look for Apply Metadata on the bottom of the
Photo Downloader window.
8 - Keywords
Create, organize, and apply keywords to your photographs to
facilitate searching later.
To change from the Essential workspace, go to Window >
Workspace.
The other workspaces, besides the default one, are described
below.
• Filmstrip
You can select a vertical or horizontal view.
In the vertical view, thumbnails appear in a column on the right side, with a
single image enlarged in the Preview panel.
In the horizontal view, thumbnails appear in a column on the bottom, with two images,
side-by-side, in the Preview panel.
• Metadata
Thumbnails are displayed on the left side, with their
metadata displayed to the right.
• Output
Output includes sections for creating PDFs, web galleries,
documents (prints), and layouts.
• Keywords
• Preview
• Light Table
The screen is filled with thumbnails of your files.
• Folders
You can create your own workspaces, as well.
Collections in Bridge are saved searches.
To create a collection, do the following.
1) Press Cmd + f, or go to Edit > Find.
2) Choose a folder to search.
If needed, select Include All Subfolders, and then select
from the choices under Criteria.
3) Click Find.
4) Then, do one of the following.
• Click the Save as Collection icon in the top right corner
of your screen
• Click the Save As Collection button at the top right of the
Search Results window.
5) Enter a name for the collection.
To go to the collection, go to the Favorites panel, and click
Collections.
When you open a collection, the search is performed again, so
photographs not previously part of the collection will be
included.
Manual Collections
You can create collections without doing a search.
1) Create a folder with the name of the collection.
2) Select the photographs for the collection.
3) Create aliases (shortcuts) for them by pressing and
holding both the option and command keys as you drag the
selected thumbnails to the collection folder.
As you begin to drag the thumbnails, curved arrows will
appear at the bottom left of the thumbnails.
These arrows indicate you've created aliases.
Stars
You can add ratings, from one to five stars, to your photographs.
Do one of the following.
• Click the dot, below the thumbnail, representing the number of
stars to apply.
• Select one or more photographs, and select the rating in the
Label menu.
• Use the keyboard shortcuts below.
| Cmd + 1 |
1 Star |
| Cmd + 2 |
2 Stars |
| Cmd + 3 |
3 Stars |
| Cmd + 4 |
4 Stars |
| Cmd + 5 |
5 Stars |
Labels
You can add a label to your photographs.
The label is a colored bar under the thumbnail.
For example, red could be family photographs, and yellow could
be work-related photographs.
Do one of the following.
• Select one or more photographs, and select the rating in the
Label menu.
• Use the keyboard shortcuts below.
| Cmd + 6 |
Red |
| Cmd + 7 |
Yellow |
| Cmd + 8 |
Green |
| Cmd + 9 |
Blue |
Purple doesn't have a shortcut.
Label Text
The labels may have default text, such as No Label, Select,
Second, Approved, Review, and To Do.
To delete or change the text, go to Edit >
Preferences > Labels.
Let's say you photographed three restaurants in Seattle.
The photographs are in a folder called Seattle.
You can stack the photographs for each of the three
restaurants in a stack.
Select the photographs of one of the restaurants.
Go to the Stack menu, or press Ctrl + g.
Stacks can be expanded and collapsed repeatedly.
To make more space for the Preview panel, double click on the
tabs of the other panels to minimize them.
Move
Select one or more thumbnails.
Open a second Bridge window, go to File > New Window.
Navigate to the destination folder for your selected photographs.
Click and drag the selected photographs onto the destination
folder.
Copy
If you press Option while doing the above, the files are copied
instead of being moved.
Rejection
In Bridge, you can reject the thumbnail of a
file.
The file is not deleted from your computer.
Do the following.
1) Select a one or more thumbnails.
2) Press Delete or click the trash can icon.
3) The thumbnail is rejected when you select Reject in the
window.
You can retrieve rejected thumbnails.
Go to View > Show Reject Files.
Deletion
To delete the file from
your computer, do the following.
1) Select one or more thumbnails.
2) Press Delete or click the trash can icon.
3) The files are
deleted from your computer when you select Delete in the
window.
A short cut is to press Ctrl (not Cmd) + Delete.
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