Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [248]
Figure 11.27 Here, you can see a Bridge window view where I had selected the Auto-Stack Panorama/HDR command and the panorama candidate photos were automatically gathered into stacks.
The auto-stack feature generates a hidden XML file that is added to the folder and this stores the ‘how-to-process’ information. The processing can be done later by choosing Tools Photoshop Process Collections in Photoshop (Figure 11.28). In actual fact, you can carry out this step directly, without applying an auto-stack first. When you apply this command, the images that have been auto-collected into stacks are automatically processed in Photoshop. Now, the plus sides of this feature are that it will benefit large volume panorama or HDR shooters (especially the ability to group photos into stacks). On the downside, there is no interface that can be used to modify, say, the time frame period from anything other than 18 seconds. There is also no interface that allows you to choose specific options when generating the Photomerge composites. The reliability with which auto-stack manages to successfully detect the images is also rather hit and miss. When it works well it has the potential to be a powerful tool, when it doesn't, you'll just have to redo the work manually. Overall, it's an interesting innovation that is bound to be improved upon in future Bridge updates.
Figure 11.28 Here you can see the same folder after I applied ‘Process Collections in Photoshop’. This generated three HDR files and saved them as PSD files. I was then able to open these and apply HDR Toning image adjustments to each.
Bridge panels
Let's now take a look at some of the other panels in Bridge and what they can do.
Folders panel
The Folders panel (Figure 11.29) displays an expandable list tree view of the folder contents for all the drives that are currently connected to the computer. When you highlight a folder in the Folders panel, all the files in that folder will be displayed as thumbnails in the Content panel area on the right (note that Bridge is only able to create previews of image files it already understands or has a file import plug-in for). While this is happening, Bridge writes a folder cache of all the image thumbnails and previews, which is stored in a central folder location; although, as was pointed out on pages 581–582, you can configure the Bridge preferences so that the cache information is exported locally to the image folder as well. This saved cache should make the thumbnails appear quicker the next time you visit a particular image folder. If a folder contains a cache that was exported from Bridge CS5 or earlier, Bridge will be able to read it, but earlier versions of Photoshop will not be able to interpret Bridge CS5 cache files. Figure 11.31 shows how you can also use the file path directory to quickly navigate to alternative folder destinations.
Figure 11.31 You can also use the file path name for folder navigation. If you mouse down on the arrow icons, this calls up a menu list for all the other, alternative folders that are available at the same root level.
Figure 11.29 The Folders panel displays a complete list tree view of all the folders on your main hard drive and any other mounted disks. Bridge allows you to drag and drop folders with ease within the Content panel area and folders panel areas, as well as drag directly to external folders.
Favorites panel
The Favorites panel (Figure 11.30) provides a set of shortcuts to various folder locations, such as the Desktop or Pictures folder. The items that appear in the Favorites panel are determined in the Bridge General preferences (see page 569), but you can also add your own Favorites by dragging a folder from the Content panel across to the Favorites list.
Figure 11.30 The Favorites panel contains a list of commonly-accessed folder locations.
Preview panel
The preview panel (Figure 11.32) displays large previews of the selected images and as you will have seen already (such as in Figure 11.12), the Preview panel can be adjusted to