Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [242]
Figure 11.2 The Photoshop Application bar with the Bridge button (circled).
Adding new folders
New folders can be added by choosing ‘New Folder’ from Bridge's File menu ( ), or you can right mouse-click in the Content area and choose ‘New Folder’ from the contextual menu.
Override JPEG Camera Raw settings
You can also edit JPEG and TIFF images via Camera Raw, but be warned that this added capability can also lead to confusion when opening images. Basically, you can use the Camera Raw preferences (page 166) to determine how JPEG and TIFF images are handled. Here, you can disable the ability to open JPEGs and TIFFs via Camera Raw, enable automatic opening of all supported JPEGs and TIFFs, or you can enable the automatic opening of only those JPEGs or TIFFs that have previously been processed via Camera Raw. To override these last two preferences, hold down the key as you double-click to open the image. If Camera Raw settings have been added to an image previously, these will be applied as you open. If there are no Camera Raw settings associated with an image, it will open directly in Photoshop as normal.
Rotating the thumbnails and preview
You can apply 90° rotations via the Rotate commands in the Bridge Edit menu or use the following keyboard shortcuts: rotates a thumbnail anti-clockwise and rotates a thumbnail clockwise. Alternatively, you can use the Rotate buttons in the top right section of the Bridge window. Note that this doesn't physically rotate the images in Photoshop just yet, the image rotation only takes place when you come to open the actual image.
Arranging the Bridge contents
You can customize the visibility and order of the various panels and rearrange the Bridge layout to suit your own requirements. For example, you can click on the Workspace settings buttons shown in Figure 11.5 to quickly switch between the different pre-configured Bridge workspaces. These include workspaces that have been designed for different types of Bridge tasks such as Filmstrip viewing or Metadata editing. Or, you can set about creating your own custom workspace layouts. To do this, go to the Window menu where you can highlight a panel item to toggle making it either hidden or visible. Now mouse down on the panel and try dragging it to a new position or grouping arrangement in either of the three main panel sections. The panel sizes can be adjusted in height by dragging the horizontal panel dividers. You can doubleclick a Panel tab to quickly collapse the panel contents to show the tab only and double-clicking the Panel tab expands the panel contents to its former size again. If you double-click on a panel divider (as shown in Figure 11.6) you can collapse all the panels in that section, plus if you hit the key, you can toggle collapsing or revealing both the side panels. When you have finished adjusting the Bridge layout, you can save it as a new custom workspace setting. To do this, go to the Window menu and choose Workspace New Workspace… This opens the dialog shown in Figure 11.4, where you have the option to include both the window location and sort order setting together with the workspace setting. The new workspace setting will now appear first in the list.
Figure 11.4 To create a new workspace setting, go to the Window menu and choose Workspace New Workspace…
Figure 11.5 This shows an enlarged view of the Workspace settings list. If the list is partially obscured, then mouse down on the divider line circled here and drag it out to the left to reveal the full workspace list options.
Figure 11.6 The panel arrangements in Bridge can be customized to suit your own preferred way of working, plus the thumbnails can be moved around within the content area, as if you were shuffling photographs on a lightbox. If you double-click on a Panel tab, such as I have done here with the Keywords panel (circled in blue), this collapses the panel to just a tab. The panel sizes can also be adjusted by dragging on the vertical and horizontal dividers, and if you double-click on the divider bar (circled