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Scroll down to a screenshot of Bridge, or click here.
Bridge is used in Mac versions of Photoshop Elements 4.0.
Windows versions of Photoshop Elements have the Organizer.
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.
To determine where a file is located, select the file and go to File > Reveal in Finder.
Go to a screenshot of Bridge.
Bridge has four panes.
There's a stack of three panes on the left, and a large pane to the right.
Full Mode displays everything, and Compact Mode displays only the View pane.
To switch between Full Mode and Compact Mode, click the mode icon in the top right corner of your screen, or use the View menu.
The large pane on the right side contains thumbnails of your photographs.
Use the slider at the bottom on the pane to change the size of the thumbnails.
You can hide the file names and dates by pressing Cmd + t, or use the View menu.
You can also select three other views, Details, Filmstrip and Slide Show.
Click the icon for the desired view in the bottom right of your screen, or use the View menu.
With Details view, more information is displayed about the photographs from their metadata.
With Film Strip view, you can see large thumbnails of your photographs.
To switch between a horizontal or vertical filmstrip, click the Switch Filmstrip Orientation button at the bottom right of the large thumbnail.
To navigate, click the small triangles, or press the left and right arrow keys.
Click and drag the thumbnails to arrange them in the desired order for a slide show.
To start a slide show, press Cmd + l (l as in Larry), or go to View > Slide Show.
To stop, press Esc.
Press the right arrow key to advance to the next photograph.
Press the space bar to automatically advance every five seconds.
Pressing the space bar again will pause the slideshow.
Press h, after starting a slide show, to call up a display of other slideshow commands.
Press o to open a photograph that you're viewing in a slide show.
You can assign ratings and color bars (see below) during a slide show.
| Press | Rating | Color Bar |
| 1 | 1 Star | |
| 2 | 2 Stars | |
| 3 | 3 Stars | |
| 4 | 4 Stars | |
| 5 | 5 Stars | |
| 6 | Red | |
| 7 | Yellow | |
| 8 | Green | |
| 9 | Blue |
This pane is similar to Finder, and has two palettes.
The Favorites palette, by default, contains Collections, Computer, Desktop, Documents, and Pictures folders.
Go to Bridge > Preferences > General to change the default favorites.
You can add more folders.
Click and drag a folder onto the Favorites palette, or go to File > Add to favorites.
The Folders palette is the pathway 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 in the Thumbnail View pane to the right.
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.
When you click a thumbnail, the photograph is enlarged in the Preview pane.
Move the divider to the right to enlarge the Preview palette.
The metadata for a selected photograph is displayed here.
To add information, select one or photographs, and go to Window > Workspace > Metadata Focus Workspace.
Enter the information, and click the black checkmark at the bottom of the Metadata palette.
The keywords for a photograph are displayed here.
To add a keyword, click the New Keyword button at the bottom of the Keyword palette.
Enter the keyword, and press Return.
You can create a keyword set.
To add a keyword set, click the New Keyword Set button at the bottom of the Keyword palette.
Enter the keyword set name, and press Return.
To apply keywords, select one or more photographs, and click the checkboxes for the appropriate keywords.
You can hide the three panes on the left by clicking the double arrow at the bottom left of your screen.
To make more space for the Preview palette, double click on the tabs of the other palettes to minimize them.
You can add ratings, from one to five stars, to your photographs.
Do one of the following.
• Select one or more photographs, and select the rating in the Label menu.
• Press Cmd + 1, for a rating of one star, and so forth.
• In Thumbnails view, click the dot representing the number of stars to apply.
You can add a color bar to your photographs.
For example, red could be family photographs, and yellow could be work-related photographs.
The color bar appears under the thumbnail.
Select one or more photographs, and select the color in the Label menu.
| Press | Color Bar |
| Cmd + 6 | Red |
| Cmd + 7 | Yellow |
| Cmd + 8 | Green |
| Cmd + 9 | Blue |
Purple doesn't have a shortcut.
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.
Press Cmd + f, or go to Edit > Find.
Choose a folder to search, and select from the choices under Criteria.
Click Find.
You can filter, or sort, according to the rating or color.
Click Unfiltered in the top right corner of your screen to filter your photographs.
Select a photograph or photographs.
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.
If you press Option while doing the above, the files are copied instead of being moved.
Select a photograph or photographs, and click the trash can icon in the top right corner of your screen.
Click the name of a photograph, enter the new name, and press return.
Press Tab to highlight the name of the next photograph in the folder.
To rename more than one photograph, select a group of photographs, and go to Tools > Batch Rename.
Use the arrow icons in the top right corner of your screen to rotate photographs.
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) 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 return to the collection, go to the Favorites palette, and click Collections.
When you open a collection, the search is performed again, so photographs not previously part of the collection will be included.
You can create collections without using 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.
