dekeBytes: Introduction to a Bridge 2 (Far)

The top-left dock contains the familiar Favorites and Folders panels, which allow you to navigate inside the Bridge and around your hard drive and other media. Down-left (by default) is the Filter panel, which lists attributes associated with images in the current folder. This allows you to control which files you see in the Contents panel. For example, in the screen below I have one Camera Raw image, 15 JPEGs, 2 PSD documents, and 1 TIFF file. If you want to see PSDs by themselves, click in front of the Photoshop Document item in the Filter panel. You'll see a check mark in front of the words Photoshop Document and the large Content panel will show only the PSDs (along with any subfolders that live inside this folder). To add other types of files, click next to their file type entries. To return to seeing one category exclusively, Alt-click (on the Mac, Option-click) next to that entry. To see everything again, turn off all the check marks.

You can use this same technique for any of the other attributes, such as Date Created, Orientation, or Aspect Ratio. Note that Copyright Notices live here too, which is handy for designers, art directors, and people like me who are trying to keep one copyright holder separate from another in a large stable of artists and photographers.

On the right hand side of the interface (again, by default) are the Preview, Metadata, and Keyword panels. The Preview panel shows a large version the selected image. The others allow you to view and modify detailed information about your image file or other document.

If you search around a bit, you may find yourself wondering what in the world happened to that handy Filmstrip view, which had let you view a single-row or column list of thumbnails with a big preview in the center. The icon that used to live in the lower right corner of the Bridge window is mysteriously gone, as is the ability to switch between Horizontal and Vertical orientations. Not to worry: The 1, 2, and 3 icons located in the bottom-right corner of the screen allow you to access all of the familiar, predefined workspaces. For example, if you hover over the 2 icon, you'll see that it says Horizontal Filmstrip.

So if that's what "2" means, why don't they call it what it is, Horizontal Filmstrip, or at least give us a recognizable icon? Because you can switch that 2 icon to anything you want it to be. For example, if you prefer to have your thumbnails arranged in a vertical column, click and hold the 2 icon and choose Vertical Filmstrip, as below. From now on, just clicking 2 will get you the Vertical Filmstrip view.

You can also generate your own custom workspace in the Bridge. For example, here's a way to build your own custom vertical filmstrip view: Start by setting your workspace to the Horizontal Filmstrip, then "peel open" an empty dock by dragging out the hidden pane on the far right side of the Bridge window. (Hover over the far-right bar until you get a two sided arrow cursor and then drag to the left.) Open the Metadata and Keywords panels by choosing them from the View menu and drag each of their tabs to the bottom-left dock so they share space with the Filters panel. You can then add a vertical filmstrip by dragging the Content tab from the bottom of the screen to the right-hand dock. The Bridge automatically organizes the thumbnails into a tidy column as shown below

This do-it-yourself approach to customizing the Bridge replaces the old (and in retrospect, unsatisfactory) hard-wired options of previous version. Instead of being stuck with a particular Filmstrip mode, you can build your own and save it to a workspace. Choose Window > Workspace > Save Workspace and enter a memorable name in the dialog box. You can then assign this workspace to one of the number icons at the bottom of the screen.

The Preview area has a few new treats in store. For example, you can zoom in on a photo to check out the focus at 100 percent without having to open the image in Photoshop. You accomplish this by clicking on the image in the Preview panel (you'll notice that your cursor looks like the familiar Photoshop zoom tool), which brings up a magnified detail inside of a virtual loupe, as demonstrated below. You can move that loupe around, and wherever the sharp corner of the loupe is pointing becomes the center of the magnified area. (Note: If you move the loupe too close to an edge, the loupe rotates so that it remains inside the Preview panel.)

This takes you from 100 to 200, 400, and finally 800 percent. The minus (-) key lets you zoom out. Alternatively, you can zoom in or out by using the scroll wheel on your mouse. The label 1x, 2x, 4x, or 8x will appear next to the filename to indicate the active zoom level. To dismiss the loupe, just click in it.

The Preview panel also lets you compare multiple images side-by-side (as below) or above and below. Shift-click a thumbnail in the Content panel to add a range of images to the Preview panel. To add non-adjacent images, press the Ctrl key (Command on the Mac) and click a thumbnail. And you haven't lost your access to the loupe too, either. It remains available for any one of your selected images in the Preview area.

Another new feature in the new Bridge allows you to group images together. You can create stacks by selecting images and choosing Edit > Group as Stack or pressing Ctrl+G (Command-G on the Mac). To expand the group, click on the number in the upper left-hand corner of the group thumbnail (which shows a 6 in the figure below because there are six images in the group I created). Note that grouping them together still allows you to use the Loupe on the topmost image in the Preview window.

I've also come to love the new slideshow mode. Choose View > Slideshow to enter the slideshow and watch it play automatically. Or better yet, click in a slide to zoom in to 100 percent. Then drag it to scroll the image and examine other details. As with the Loupe function, you can zoom in and out by pressing the plus (+) and minus (-) keys or nudging the scroll wheel of your mouse. The difference is, you're not seeing a tiny detail of your image, you're seeing a large window into the whole thing. More than ever before, the revamped Bridge is a splendid way to preview and organize the images in your library.

Images by Pascal Genest and David Politi courtesy of iStockphoto.

If you'd like to see this feature explained in real time, check out my videos at lynda.com.