| 7.
Introduction to Adobe Bridge
Article
7 of 100
Is
it Goodbye to Adobe Bridge and Hello to Lightroom for Photographers?
This is a question being asked every day by photographers
who have been using Adobe Bridge and are now testing Adobe
Lightroom Beta. The answer is of course both yes and no.
Adobe
Bridge is intended to be what it's name implies, a bridge
between different Adobe (and non Adobe) graphics and multi-media
applications. Adobe Bridge includes a lot of file formats
that the average photographer will never use. Multi-media
studios and advertising agencies will continue to need Adobe
Bridge to organize their graphics and multi-media content
driven projects.
Adobe
Bridge does have more Metadata input choices for photographers
at this point in time but I am going to assume that the final
version of Lightroom will also have a wider range of Metadata
input choices. I can't really fault Adobe Bridge in any way
it is a very powerful tool for sorting, naming, batch processing,
etc. but it is hard to believe that any of the features of
Adobe Bridge that are of use to photographers will not be
integrated into Lightroom.
Aside
from Metadata and Keyword functions one of the great features
of Adobe Bridge for photographers has been the ability to
open Adobe Camera RAW from Adobe Bridge without opening Photoshop
(as long as Photoshop is installed on your computer.
If
you compare Adobe Camera RAW and Lightroom Develop Module
side by side though, it is fairly easy to see which one is
going to win out in the hearts of photographers. All the basic
and most of the advanced RAW settings are already in place
and the addition of cropping tools and presets for custom
looks in the Develop Module make Lightroom even more powerful.
All
in all it looks like the Adobe Lightroom developers are taking
the best elements of Adobe Bridge, and all of Adobe Camera
RAW, plus a little bit of Photoshop CS and rebuilding them
(from scratch) into a more effective and ergonomically more
pleasing package for photographers.
So
the answer to the original question is yes for photographers
and no for graphic artists, multi-media artists, art directors,
and creative directors. Adobe Bridge lives on.
P.S.
Please do not get upset if your personal experience and views
are different from my own. These opinions are mine exclusively
and do not reflect the views or policies of any of the manufacturers
mentioned in this article...... George
Mann |
