Photoshop Bridge or Photoshop Lightroom

[freddiebear]

Which in your opinion is best to use for uploading digital pictures and why would you need both? You get Bridge with Photoshop and Bridge and Lightroom seem to do about the same thing. I have Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom 1.4, any help on this subject would be appreciated

[EOS_JD]

Lightroom without a doubt..... SPEED & ease of use.

[jfrancho]

Strictly for DLing? LR without a doubt. Bridge is quite a bit more than that though, and so is LR. LR is a better asset manager, while Bridge's strength is as a file manager. They both can use ACR, and they can both jump to Photoshop for other editing. Photoshop would be very difficult for me to use without Bridge, but if you aren't one to do much in Photoshop (filters, layers, etc.), LR is the answer since it does quite a bit.

[EOS_JD]

I never use Bridge at all. Lightroom and CS3 (when needed).

What do you do in Bridge JF?

[jfrancho]

Previewing, tagging, sorting, renaming, moving, ACR settings, conversion, batch processing (usually Dr. Brown's 1-2-3 Process, plus some of my own scripts). Since I kick off my raw processing all at once after setting up all the files from the shoot individually, I also use it to browse to the images I'm going to edit in Photoshop itself. If I spend 5 minutes on an image, 3 are from Bridge. I had Rawshooter, so I have LR too, but I hardly use it. To be truthful, I don't really like it for what I'm doing - it just didn't fit in to my workflow. If I didn't have Photoshop, I'd be all over it.

[EOS_JD]

I use Lightroom to preview, tag, sort, rename, convert (inc batch which is way quicker and easier than even Dr Brown's).

I also use Lightroom to browse any images I want to edit further. Easy to scroll through and flag or reject or score (1-5).

If you give LR a real workout you'll honestly wonder what you ever saw in Bridge.

JD

[jfrancho]

I have given it a real workout - I use it sometimes on onesy-twosy pictures. Its great, but I already do all of that in Bridge. I have even written customized panels for it where I've hijacked a few unused EXIF fields for security purposes. Only my view shows these, unless you actually go in and read the file header. Since there isn't any new or value added functionality that it adds, there is no reason for me to switch.

One thing I haven't figured out - can you run a batch process from LR that kicks off an action that points to a script?

[EOS_JD]

As I don't use scripts very often, that is not something I've looked at. I just find Lr so much quicker - especially for 1000+ wedding images. Knocks hours off my workflow.

[JonathanSQ]

Honestly I like LR. I don't have/use Bridge (I have Photoshop CS so...).
The only downside is it will just barely run for me. I haven't the $$$ to
upgrade the RAM in my laptop. So I'm stuck at 512MB, 1/2 the minimum for LR.
But, still, it cuts plenty of time from my workflow even with that problem.

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by EOS_JD

As I don't use scripts very often, that is not something I've looked at. I just find Lr so much quicker - especially for 1000+ wedding images. Knocks hours off my workflow.

I guess. I didn't see anything that expedited my work flow. I use keyboard shortcuts and filters to flag and rate in Bridge. The time you spend importing a collection, Bridge spends creating the cache. They both seem the same on my system. Also, its about semantics. I am used to Asset management on a file level. We use tools like VSS and Version Cue at work to keep from clobbering each others' work, track progress, and other things. That bit of process management costs a bit in time, but for repeatable consistency, it can't be beat. That mentality permeates my personal organization as well. We also use Bridge to shuffle assets around from Photoshop to Dreamweaver to Illustrator to .NET Studio, and other programs, while tracking who's checked what in Cue or VSS, so I probably use Bridge a little differently and I am more familiar with it.

[EOS_JD]

Now I see why Bridge is more important to you. I know that the integration with the Adobe suite and Vc is obviously better with Bridge as Lr does not have any!

[Mr. Pickles]

Plop down another vote for Lightroom. Easily.

I think if you do not have a grasp of Bridge, then Lightroom is the way to go. It offers more and is easier to use, in my opinion. Everything you may need to do is probably inside of Lightroom.

One would imagine that Lightroom will only get stronger as more and more plug-ins are written specifically for it. There are now a few powerful ones, and they should improve also. Hooks into SmugMug, Zenfolio and other sharing sites are now available, a new HDR-like plug-in is now available and should improve, and more.

Lightroom can easily be a one-stop tool for your photographic needs.

[jfrancho]

Here's how I see it. Photoshop is a state of the art image editor that comes with that Bridge thing. Bridge was the file manager, but Adobe Suite users were sick of a separate file manager (myself included) for for each app in the suite. So Adobe ripped it out of them and made it one single app itself. Bridge was born. They also bought Macromedia as well, adding their list of apps in the "Suite." Millions of "Photoshop only" probably didn't understand this, and shifted to using the OS file manager by using File > Open in Photoshop's menu. All the while missing out on the fact that Bridge has a lot of power. There is a lot to image editing, and Photoshop does it all, but that's really all it does.

Now Lightroom comes along, and tries to be a whole lotta things to a whole lotta new digital photographers, and does it well. Adobe buys Rawshooter, people are pissed, so that becomes part of LR. Many want the functions of Bridge, but not all that's in Photoshop. There is a huge market of digital shooters that do not want to invest financially and time wise into PS. Many of these shooters want a DAM. They also want to be able to bolt directly into web services, even make web pages and slide shows. They might even think its nice to order prints through one program. LR does all this, and most of these things it does really well. Oh, bye the way, LR is pretty reasonable priced and offers a quality work flow that a pro would use. I can dig it - I just don't need it.

Jeez, that almost sounds Microsoftarian.

[Mr. Pickles]

If you need to pixel edit, Photoshop is your tool. It is an editor, not a developer. Learn it and love it. Bridge comes with it. Love them both. Have fun.

If you are the type to edit your images without getting down to some tiny dot level, then Lightroom is your friend. If you need to find your images of Aunt Mary and actually tag them with appropriate keywords upon importation, Lightroom does that well. If you want to find all your images taken with that special lens of yours, Lightroom does that. If you want to print and make some slide shows, and upload them to your website, Lightroom does that. And it does more.

[jfrancho]

If you are the type to edit your images without getting down to some tiny dot level, then Lightroom is your friend. If you need to find your images of Aunt Mary and actually tag them with appropriate keywords upon importation, Lightroom does that well. If you want to find all your images taken with that special lens of yours, Lightroom does that. If you want to print and make some slide shows, and upload them to your website, Lightroom does that.

Photoshop does all this as well. Though not as elegantly as LR.

[Alfred D.]

Amazing that nobody here seems to be using Photo Mechanic for photo management, previewing, sorting, tagging, etc. etc. sofar. I do. And I'm very content with it. It's superfast. Drop a folder with a thousand multi-MB JPGs and RAW files on its icon and they pop up on the screen in 1 second flat!
Integrates seamlessly with CS3/PS10.
It's also half the price of LR...

Let me know if you want to try a permanent copy (for OSX).

[jfrancho]

Actually, I tried it and loved it. It is flat out the fastest and best in breed for those tasks. It was just too expensive at that time. I know there more than a few here that use it. Michael (cyclohexane) uses it.

[Mr. Pickles]

Originally Posted by Alfred D.

Amazing that nobody here seems to be using Photo Mechanic for photo management, previewing, sorting, tagging, etc. etc. sofar. I do. And I'm very content with it. It's superfast. Drop a folder with a thousand multi-MB JPGs and RAW files on its icon and they pop up on the screen in 1 second flat!
Integrates seamlessly with CS3/PS10.
It's also half the price of LR...

Hows does it do with RAW file developing or post processing? It doesn't? As a browser it is super fast and it has a following. So if one wants a browser that is very fast and functional, and another program to do any RAW developing, and maybe another to do other editing, then it is a very viable tool....

[brian.austin]

I started with PS Elements Organizer, moved to Bridge with the upgrade to CS2 and tried the trial of LR shortly after it came out. Shooting RAW at the time and not liking ACR much (from an interface perspective, not results), I stuck with Lightroom.

Once you make the decision and work with it, though, it's better just to stay with it than switch too often, imo. The newer version of Bridge is nice and I'd probably be happy with it now, understanding more about it and looking at the new features. The features in LR, though, outweigh trouble of going through a change for me. And LR is getting more and more customized with the SDK and new community contributions that are coming out, such as the ability to build a webpage (not gallery...PAGE) straight from LR using Turning Gates Page Builder.

[Mr. Pickles]

Originally Posted by brian.austin

And LR is getting more and more customized with the SDK and new community contributions that are coming out, such as the ability to build a webpage (not gallery...PAGE) straight from LR using Turning Gates Page Builder.

And this HDR one discussed here:

Lightroom - Blending Images (HDR-like)