Why use bridge?

[dheaton]

Peter, why do you use bridge in your workflow instead of going right to iview or idimager?  Is it so you have a way to convert the images to DNG?  I know in your book you say that you do your ratings and labeling there but wouldn't it be easier to do it in your cateloging software and not worry if iview is synced with bridge and back?  A little confused I guess.

David

[peterkrogh]

I can do everything I need to do to my RAW files in iView except make Camera Raw adjustments.  And since I pretty much always need to make some adjustment, I bring everything through Bridge.

If I got it all perfect in-camera, there would be no real need for Bridge.  You could convert to DNG with the DNG converter.
Peter

[dheaton]

I can do everything I need to do to my RAW files in iView except make Camera Raw adjustments.  And since I pretty much always need to make some adjustment, I bring everything through Bridge.

If I got it all perfect in-camera, there would be no real need for Bridge.  You could convert to DNG with the DNG converter.
Peter

Thanks for the quick response.  Almost 80% of my work is now landscape and I do use photoshop on most of my images to some extent.  Mostly in camera raw as you said, so I do understand now why you use bridge.  Thanks for clarifing that for me.  I am just trying to make this as simple as possable so I can keep up with the workflow and someone in the idimager forum asked me this and I couldn't give them a good answer.

Still a little confused about how to take care of the originals and derivative files.  I download my CF card to a directory called New Camera Raw.  From there I do what needs to be done with each files then when I convert to DNG I have the converter send the files to the permenant home like you explain on page 69 of your book.  Lets say I have a sunset with a 3 star rating in the DNG format and in the Raw folders.  I open up that one sunset file in photoshop and maybe make a watercolor image or something.  Then when I am done I will save the derivative file as a tiff and save it in a DRV folder with the same filename as the raw file with the exception of WC (watercolor) and Tiff extension. However maybe I like this one for my portfolio and give it a rating of 4 stars.  Is this correct acording to your workflow?  Now let's say a year from now I want to look at some of my sunsets images.  I do a search in my catelog software (who knows what that will be) for sunsets with a rating of 3 stars of more.  Does this search look in both the original and derivative folders or just one or the other.  What if I look in the DRV folder but maybe I dont see what I am looking for so I do another search in the raw folders, see an image I like work with a file and save it to the DRV folder again.  Am I keeping this all straight?

David


David

[peterkrogh]

David,
That's pretty much right.  If everything is in a single catalog, then the out of sync star ratings are less of a problem and easier to fix.  Ultimately, it would be nice to have some kind of version tracking that would automate this, but we're not there yet.

For most people, there will be many fewer derivative files that go through photoshop than originals.  The ratings are much more important in RAW files, since there are so many more of them.  Ideally, you would boost the star rating before making the derivative file.  And if you wanted everything to be in sync perfectly, then anytime you change metadata on a derivative, you would also change the RAW.  As I said, it's not ideal yet, but getting closer.
Peter

[dheaton]

David,
That's pretty much right.  If everything is in a single catalog, then the out of sync star ratings are less of a problem and easier to fix.  Ultimately, it would be nice to have some kind of version tracking that would automate this, but we're not there yet.

For most people, there will be many fewer derivative files that go through photoshop than originals.  The ratings are much more important in RAW files, since there are so many more of them.  Ideally, you would boost the star rating before making the derivative file.  And if you wanted everything to be in sync perfectly, then anytime you change metadata on a derivative, you would also change the RAW.  As I said, it's not ideal yet, but getting closer.
Peter

I guess this is the reason I am looking at a $60 program (idimager) as opposed to a $200 program (iview) because things are just not there yet and I hate to spend the money and learn a program just to have to switch later to a different one.  Some day I hope this gets easier.
So you feel that the DNG format is really the wave of the future?  I get nervous deleting all  my NEF files.

David

[dheaton]

I can do everything I need to do to my RAW files in iView except make Camera Raw adjustments.  And since I pretty much always need to make some adjustment, I bring everything through Bridge.

If I got it all perfect in-camera, there would be no real need for Bridge.  You could convert to DNG with the DNG converter.
Peter

Peter, another question for you.
If you are using bridge really for the camera raw adjustments then after the adjustments why not go to the dng converter then to iview.  Do all your labeling and keywords there.  The reason I am asking this is because that is the area that I am having the most problems with other programs (idimager) seeing the keywords etc.  If I just made all ratings, labels, etc in the catalog software and only use bridge for the raw adjustments that should work wouldn't it?  Instead of trying to keep two peices of sowtware constantly talk together and stay straight I could use the catalog software for everything.  Tell me if there is a hole in this thought.  I would like your opinion.

Thanks

David

[peterkrogh]

The only hole there is that by rating the files earlier (like in Bridge) you can better decide on which files too spend the most time doing Camera Raw adjustments to.  If you were to adjust EVERYTHING, and then go to catalog software to rate, then I would suggest you are going to waste time adjusting files that do not deserve that attention.

I suggest bulk metadata only inn Bridge (except Rating) and all custom keywording should be done in Catalog software.
Peter