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By Root 1762 0

helps overcome any file naming irregularities that might otherwise trip up a web server and prevent any Web Output files from being uploaded. The ‘Preserve Embedded Color Profile’ option is best left unchecked. Normally, in a color managed workflow you would want to preserve embedded profiles. However, in this instance, preserving the embedded profile overrides the built-in ‘convert to sRGB’ procedure and keeps the images in their current profile spaces. Since very few web browser programs can actually read embedded profiles, you should leave this unchecked and let everything convert to sRGB. In the case of PDF outputs it can be more important to preserve the embedded profile, however it all depends on whether the output is mainly for print or for screen publishing (see page 619).

PDF Output

The PDF Output option was introduced at the same time as the Web Output option in Bridge, offering a replacement for the previous Contact Sheet II and PDF Presentation automated plug-ins. Conceptually, PDF Output has the potential to offer improved tools for PDF presentations and contact sheet layouts. Unfortunately, this new feature is badly compromised by a number of design flaws. As with the Web Gallery output, there is no image cache to store the output preview images. Bridge has to read the image data from the selected images in the Content panel each time you make so much as a small change to the layout settings and you have to follow this by clicking on the Refresh Preview button. Once again you are limited to previewing up to a maximum of 20 photos. If you intend to use PDF Output to print contact sheets, you'll also have to go through the additional step of opening the PDF output via a PDF reader program and print from there (rather than being able to print direct from Bridge).

Contact Sheet II alternative

The Contact Sheet II feature has also been removed from the default installation, but can still be installed into Photoshop CS5 (but not Bridge). To do this you will first need access to Photoshop CS3 or an older version of Photoshop in order to locate the ‘ContactSheetII.plugin’, which you'll find in the Photoshop application/ Plug-ins/ Automate folder. Once you have done this, copy this plug-in to the corresponding Photoshop CS5 Plug-ins/ Automate folder. Now, the important thing to realize here is that Photoshop CS5 is only able to read the ContactSheetII.plugin if it is running in 32-bit mode, so you will either have to switch the program to 32-bit mode (Mac) or run the 32-bit version (PC). On the Mac you need to select the Photoshop CS5 application program file at the system level, choose File Get Info and check the ‘Open in 32-bit mode’ box. Now restart Photoshop. Once you have done this, you will find that Contact Sheet II now appears listed in the File Automate submenu. This will then allow you to create contact sheets via the old Contact Sheet II interface, where you will find it quicker to preview the grid layout when setting out a cell grid structure for your contact sheets (although you won't be able to see the images previewed of course). Unfortunately, you won't be able to print out from selected photos in Bridge. Your only option will be to print direct from a chosen folder.

Another problem is that you can't create custom contact sheet layout presets. My advice is if you have Lightroom, you don't need Bridge output. This is because Lightroom does store a cache of the image previews and makes use of this in two ways. It can use the image cache to quickly build a preview of how the contact sheet will look and it also allows you the option to print directly in ‘draft mode’ from the preview data. The net result of all this is that Lightroom can generate contact sheet prints roughly 100 times faster than Bridge, which is quite a big difference in performance speed between these two programs. Lastly, the Output Preview panel is unable to color manage the images and is therefore a poor visual guide for what the finished prints should actually look like.

That said, for the sake of non-Lightroom users I