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a zero star represents an image that has been inspected but is rated neutral, a red label means it's yet to be rated, a yellow label means it's an out-take and a green label means ‘trash me’. Meanwhile, a wedding photographer might use color labels to quickly separate out shots according to the location they were shot in. It is a simple matter of selecting the individual or multiple images you would like to label and then choosing a color from the list in the Label menu. Or, you can use the keyboard shortcuts that range from for red, to for blue, plus you can also use right-mouse to apply label colors via the contextual menu. If you go to the Labels preferences in Bridge (Figure 11.35), you will note that you can edit the text descriptions given to each label color. You can rename these as you see fit, although this can potentially cause confusion where other programs (such as Lightroom) may use different text descriptions for the color labels.

Figure 11.35 The Bridge Labels preferences.

Universal rating methods

You are not limited to using the rating controls just within Bridge. The rating keyboard shortcuts described here work equally well when you are reviewing your images in the Camera Raw dialog or the Slideshow and Review viewing modes. Just to add to the confusion though, in the Slideshow and Review modes you only need to enter number keystrokes to add ratings or labels, where you can use 0–5 to apply a star rating and use 6–9 to apply a red, yellow, green or blue color label.

File Associations

The Bridge File Association preferences (Figure 11.36) list the default programs to use when opening specific files. Most of the time you can leave these as they are, but there are times when you may want to force certain types of files to open in a specific program. For example, some photographers may still use the EPS file format to save press-ready files. Bridge normally opens these using Adobe Illustrator, therefore you may in this instance want to change the File Association setting to Photoshop CS5.

Figure 11.36 The Bridge File Association preferences.

Sorting images in Bridge

You can change the order in which the images are displayed in the Content panel by going to the Sort menu shown in Figure 11.37. If you mouse down on the menu here you can choose from a range of different types of sort criteria and if you click on the arrow button next to this menu list (circled in Figure 11.37), you can choose whether you want to see the images displayed in an ascending or descending order. Normally the sort order is set to the ‘By Filename’ setting by default. However, if you were to select the ‘By Date modified’ option (and in ascending order) those files that had been edited most recently would appear first in the Content panel area.

Figure 11.37 The Bridge window Sort menu options allow you to arrange the displayed thumbnail images by ascending or descending order (by clicking on the button circled here). You can use any of the criteria listed in the Sort menu to rearrange the Content panel display.

Refreshing the view

If you alter the contents of a volume or a folder at the System level, outside Bridge, then the Bridge Folder panel and Content panel area won't always know to update the revised volume or folder contents. If you ever need to refresh the view in Bridge, you can choose View Refresh, or use the keyboard shortcut.

Earlier, in Figure 11.6, I showed how you can manually drag the thumbnails to rearrange their position in the Content panel. Just be aware that if you do this, the Sort option will then default to ‘Manually’ and you may have to revisit the Sort menu in order to restore the previously applied sort order rule (note that you can also access the Sort options by going to the View menu in Bridge). As we get to looking at the different methods that can be used for filtering the images displayed in the Bridge Content panel, you will see how combining the filtering with the Sort options is perfect for organizing how the thumbnail images are arranged in the Content