Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [243]
Workspace shortcuts
You can also make different workspace settings active by using the through to keyboard shortcuts (where selects the ‘Essentials’ workspace). Note though that when you create a new workspace setting, this shifts the keyboard shortcut assignment along one in the order the shortcuts appear listed, so just be aware that the above shortcuts will update each time you save a new workspace setting.
You can also rearrange the thumbnails in the Content panel by dragging them to a new position. This changes the sort order to ‘Custom’ and the new sort order will remain sticky until such time as you change the sort order again. Or, if you click on the ‘Lock thumbnail grid view’ button (bottom of Figure 11.3) you can lock the thumbnail grid so that as you resize the Content panel area the number of columns always remains locked. Lastly, you can follow the instructions in Figure 11.7 for shrinking the Bridge window.
Figure 11.3 The Bridge interface.
Figure 11.7 To shrink the Bridge window size, click on the ‘Switch to Compact Mode’ button (circled in blue), and click on this button again to restore the window to the original view mode and size. If you click on the button to the left (circled in red), you can compact the window to ultra-compact mode. Note that in Compact mode Bridge windows remain in the foreground, in front of any documents or other programs. To change this behavior, go to the compact Bridge fly-out menu and deselect ‘Compact Window Always on Top’.
Customizing the panels and content area
Let's now step back a bit and look more closely at how the Bridge interface is structured. Essentially, the Bridge window interface consists of three adjustable sections and these are used to contain the individual Bridge panels, with a main Content panel in the middle that is always visible. The individual panels can be adjusted vertically as well as horizontally and placed in any section of the Bridge interface. Meanwhile, the Content panel has Thumbnails, Details and List viewing modes, and you can switch between these by going to the View menu, or by clicking on the buttons in the bottom right section of the Bridge window. By combining different panel layouts with these three Content panel viewing modes, it is possible to achieve a wide variety of workspace layouts. In Figure 11.8 you can see a bare bones layout of the Bridge interface, where only the Content panel is visible in the middle. In Figure 11.9, I have shown a Bridge layout where the Content panel area remains in the Thumbnails view mode and now the Folders panel is visible as well on the left. In Figure 11.10, I added a Metadata panel to the left panel section and switched the Content panel area view to Details mode.
Figure 11.8 Here is a basic view of the three panel sections that make up the Bridge interface, where just the Content panel is visible (you can't hide the Content panel).
Figure 11.9 One can make more panels visible by going to the Window menu in Bridge and highlighting the ones you wish to add (those panels that are already visible will have a tick mark next to them). Here, I made the Folders panel visible within the left panel section.
Figure 11.10 Here, I made the Metadata panel visible, adding it to the panel section on the left, plus I switched the Content area to the Details mode by clicking on the ‘Details’ view button (circled).
Bridge workspace examples
Let's now look at just some of the available workspace settings. The Light Table layout shown in Figure 11.11 is useful should you wish to maximize the Content panel size and have it fill the screen. The Filmstrip setting shown in Figure 11.12 ( ) is great for editing large photos as it uses a large preview panel size