Adobe® Bridge Appendix Revealed Series Barbara Clemens

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Adobe® Bridge Adobe Bridge is an Adobe Creative Suite 2 program that lets you organize, view, and select the many assets, such as images and documents, that you may want to use in CS2 programs. Bridge acts as the CS2 file-management hub, allowing you to manage assets so you can use them easily and efficiently in Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, or InDesign. In InDesign, for example, you can use Bridge to browse files that you might want to use as placed graphics. When you find the file you want to use, you can simply drag it from Bridge and drop it into your InDesign layout. In Photoshop, you can locate an image using Bridge, and then drag it into your Photoshop workspace to open it as a Photoshop file. In GoLive, you can open Bridge and drag in any graphic you want to use in your Web site. Bridge lets you view and locate your assets using a variety of views, including thumbnails, filmstrip, details, and slide show. You can also classify assets into categories using color labels and 1- to 5-star ratings. You can use this classification to display, for example, all assets to which you have assigned 5 stars or green labels. But the real power of Bridge rests on built-in XMP metadata support, a technology that lets you add a broad range of informational data to an asset—data that you can then use to search, sort, and categorize assets. (XMP stands for Extensible Metadata Platform, a labeling technology that allows files to contain informational data.) For example, you can browse assets that were created before a certain date, or whose description contains a specific word. You can search for assets with common metadata attributes, such as files that call for a certain font or a specific Pantone color. Ratings and color labels are stored as XMP data with the asset, so you can easily search on them as well. You can even embed additional metadata into an asset in Bridge—without opening the asset file itself.

Starting Bridge You can start Bridge from the All Programs menu, or you can open it from within the individual programs using the Browse command on the File menu. You can work with the full Bridge window, or a reduced view called Compact mode. The Bridge work area gives you many ways to view your assets. Figure 1 shows the full Bridge window.

Panels

Figure 1: Adobe Bridge window in The Bridge Workspace The left side of the Bridge screen contains panels yoand to view and add metadata. The Look in menu atthrough your folders to locate an asset. The shortcutyou filter, or display subsets of, assets according to tassigned. These buttons also let you rotate and deletMode. The content area in the center of the screen di

Look in menu

Thumbnail slider

View buttons

Thumbnails

Shortcut buttons

Thumbnails view

u can use to navigate and preview assets, the top of the screen lets you navigate buttons at the top right of the screen let he ratings and/or color labels you have e items, and display the window in Compact splays your assets.

Viewing Assets in Bridge By default, Bridge shows assets in Thumbnails view, which lets you preview each asset to help you select the right one. You can change the view using the view buttons and thumbnail slider in the lower right corner of the screen. Drag the Thumbnail slider to the left to show thumbnails at a reduced size, and to the right to enlarge them. Use the buttons at either end of the slider to go to the smallest or largest thumbnail size. The smallest and largest thumbnail sizes are shown in Figures 2 and 3.

Smallest thumbnails

Thumbnail slider at leftmost position

Figure 2: Smallest Thumbnails view

Thumbnail slider at rightmost position

Largest thumbnail

Figure 3: Largest Thumbnails view

Click the Filmstrip view button to view thumbnails in a scrolling list and also to display the selected item as a large thumbnail, as shown in Figure 4. Use this view if you need a more detailed preview than a smaller thumbnail would afford.

Figure 4: Filmstrip view

Click the Details view button to show both thumbnails and the details of each asset, such as filename, date created, file type, and file size. See Figure 5.

Selected graphic in filmstrip is displayed as a large thumbnail

Filmstrip

Asset details

Figure 5: Details view

You can use commands on the View menu to show only selected folders and file types:

• Show All Files displays files created in Adobe programs and other files as well. • Show Graphic Files shows files in graphic file formats, such as EPS or TIFF. • Show Vector Files displays only files created in Adobe Illustrator or other drawing

programs. • Sort lets you sort assets according to filename, document type, file size, date created or

modified, resolution, label, or rating. Applying Metadata and Keywords to Assets Metadata is information that helps to identify a file, such as its file type, creation date, or creator. Some metadata is automatically assigned to a file when you create it. Keywords, another type of metadata, are special identifying terms that you can assign to an asset to help you find it later. For example, you might have created several Illustrator files of dogs. If you assign the keyword "dog" to each file, you can later find all your illustrations of dogs, regardless of their filenames or location, by opening Bridge and searching for files that have "dog" in their metadata. You can view metadata for any selected asset in the Metadata panel (as shown in Figure 6) or in the File Info dialog box.

.

Metadata panel shows metadata for selected asset

Figure 6: Metadata for selected flower picture

Some metadata, such as the file type, creation date, or digital camera information, cannot be changed. However, you can add other types of metadata, such as captions or copyright information, in the IPTC Core area of the Metadata panel, shown in Figure 7. (IPTC Core is a data storage technology that specifies a standard set of file properties. It was developed by Adobe Systems, Inc., the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), and IDEAlliance, and was designed to give photographers and news media services a streamlined way of managing job processing and rights management.)

Pencil icon

Apply button

Editable metadata items in IPTC Core area

Figure 7: IPTC Core area of Metadata panel To add or edit metadata, click the Pencil icon to the right of the metadata area to display the blinking cursor. Type text or edit existing text, pressing [Tab] to move to other fields. When you have finished, click the Apply button at the bottom of the Metadata panel. You can also add or edit metadata in the File Info dialog box. Click File on the menu bar, and then click File Info. The file info for the selected graphic opens. Click a category in the list on the left and enter new data or edit existing data in any white area. If you need to apply the same metadata to many other files, you can save time by creating a metadata template. You create a metadata template only once, but you can then apply it to any other file at any time. To create a metadata template, create a file with any CS2 program; this creates a file without metadata. Select the file in Bridge, click File on the menu bar, and then click File Info. Enter any metadata you wish. Click the menu in the upper-right corner of the File Info dialog box, click Save Metadata Template, and then name the template. To apply the template, select the file to which you want to apply the metadata template, click the Metadata panel list arrow, point to Append Metadata, and then click the template name. The metadata information in the template is applied to the selected file

You can use keywords to describe a file's content. Then later, you can search for files with common keywords. To apply keywords to a file, select the file in Bridge, and then click the Keywords panel, which is behind the Metadata panel. Check any existing keywords, or add your own, and then click the New Keyword button in the lower-right corner of the Keyword panel, as shown in Figure 8. In the Untitled Key text box, type a new keyword, and then press [Enter]. Add whatever keywords will help you locate the file later on. To apply more than one keyword to a group of files, click the New Keyword Set button in the lower-right corner of the Keywords panel. Enter a name for the new keyword set, and then press [Enter].

New keyword button

Figure 8: Adding a new keyword

Type keyword here

Synchronizing Creative Suite Color Settings Color is an important feature of any published document. Different devices, such as printers, scanners, or software, may have different color ranges, and images from different sources may not display color consistently. In its role as the "hub" of CS2, Bridge lets you synchronize color settings across the CS2 programs. When colors are synchronized, the colors you use in one program appear the same in another.

Before you work on a new project that uses more than one CS2 program, make sure your colors are synchronized. To do so, open Bridge, click Edit on the menu bar, and then click Creative Suite Color Settings. Select a color setting, or click Show Expanded List of Color Setting Files to see more settings and then select a setting. To see a description of a setting at the bottom of the dialog box, select it and hold the pointer over the name. After you have selected the desired setting, click Apply. You can also select Edit/Color Settings from any CS2 program to set the colors in that program only.