Should I use Lightroom or Bridge?

[♪ Music ♪] [Adobe TV Presents] [The Complete Picture with Julieanne Kost] Hi, and welcome. My name is Julieanne Kost. And in today's episode of The Complete Picture, we're going to take a look at which workflow is right for you, the Bridge + Photoshop workflow, or the Lightroom + Photoshop workflow. So, before we get started, I just want to take a short trip down memory lane. Going in the way back machine, before there was Lightroom and before there was Bridge, there was Photoshop, and as photographers and designers needed to work with more images, we needed some kind of way to view those assets. And so we created the file browser with Photoshop. I think that was around Photoshop 7's time frame. Well, that grew into Bridge because not only did people who used Photoshop want to manage all these assets, but people who used other products in the Creative Suite. So, Bridge became kind of this hub or the bridge between each of the other Creative Suite products for photographers and designers, especially designers, whether they were print or web or motion graphics. They were people who had to work with a lot of different file formats, not just photography file formats. What ended up happening is we had Bridge + Photoshop now, but then Bridge became this hub, and all of these different products and all of these different types of users needed different features. You had people like Illustrator customers who wanted to create maps, and they wanted to view certain things like the swatches that they used in their files. And we had people who were using Premiere, Dreamweaver, and they wanted more web-based formats, or they wanted audio and video formats. So, every single one of these applications from Adobe wanted different attributes or new features from Bridge. Well, what happened is that I think we really felt that one, photographers were shooting just way, way, way more images then they ever had before, and on top of that, they needed a more structured workflow in order to process all of these files in a timely manner. And because we were just one small application, I mean, you can see from this illustration that Photoshop was really only one application that needed features in Bridge, and we weren't getting enough features for the professional photographer. That's why Adobe created this Lightroom + Photoshop workflow. Now, it sounds like I'm just telling you if you're a photographer you should just move to this, but I think we should actually ask some important questions because first of all, the question I always get is should I use Lightroom, or should I use Photoshop? And that's not really what we're discussing. I just want to be clear that in both of these workflows, we're going to use Photoshop to do things like do your retouching, multiple layers, special effects, things like that. But what do you want to use as your digital asset management program? Do you want to use Lightroom, or do you want to use Bridge? And that depends on a lot of different things. More specifically, I just want to cover a few of the basic questions. If you're a beginner--because I can answer this question in a very simplistic manner, or we can go into depth. In a simplistic manner, if you're new to photography, I think the place to start is Lightroom because it is so much easier to learn. The learning curve is much smaller. It's very well laid out for photographers so that it carries you through this workflow. It helps you import your files and assign your metadata. And then you develop your images, you make them look better, all in one place, and then you can output them all from one application, and it's very, very easy and directed. If you already know Bridge and Photoshop, though, I just want to be clear that there's nothing wrong with that workflow. There are plenty of photographers who are using it. And in fact, there's some photographers who have to use it. We'll talk about that in a minute. When we cover these questions, when I'm finished with this, we'll actually go into specific tasks, and I'll show you why you would want to use Bridge versus Lightroom. My next question is are you a large or a small studio? The reason that I ask this question is if you are a small studio, you're the photographer, you're doing all the image editing and all the image processing. You're going to be doing all the retouching and all the ordering. Then again, I would stick with the Lightroom and Photoshop workflow. However, if you're in an enormous studio where you have multiple photographers who are all kind of contributing to multiple photo shoots, and you have more than 1 editor or more than 1 retoucher that have to have access to those files, the same set of files--for example, there's 3 photographers covering the wedding and 1 editor is going to edit that, but a retoucher might also need to access those files at the same time. If that's the kind of workflow in your studio, I would consider that a larger studio. Probably you're going to want to go with the Bridge to Photoshop workflow because the main issue there is that Lightroom cannot be accessed, the database cannot be accessed by more than 1 person at a time. So, the next question. Are you a high-volume shooter? Well, I don't have a magic number as to what high volume is, and in the past I would say if you photograph more than a roll of film a day--so for those of you who have never photographed a roll of film, that's 36 images or maybe even only 24 or 12-- I think you know if you're a high-volume shooter. If you are, I think Lightroom is probably the way to go for you because it helps you manage and view your images more quickly than something like Bridge because Lightroom has these different views that you can see multiple images at one time, and you can help compare 2 images, even at full screen. If you have a lot of images to go through, then Lightroom + Photoshop would be the way to go. The next question is are you a designer or a photographer or both? The reason that I would ask this question is because if you're a designer, you're probably going to need to work with more file formats than what Lightroom supports. For example, a designer might be working with Illustrator logos or PDF documents, in which case they would need to use Bridge because Lightroom does not support those file formats. Lightroom supports--basically there's 5 categories. There's raw files. We all know there's hundreds of different raw file formats. But basically, Lightroom supports raw, DNG, TIF, JPEG, and PSD files. So, you can't look at your Illustrator logo, your .ai file in Lightroom. So, what I see a lot of designers actually doing today is when they have to work with clients and they have to work with these other file types like Illustrator, PDF, DICOM, they're going to be using Bridge to tackle those projects, but if they've got a large photographic library that they usually draw from, like that they're using images from, they'll go ahead and store that in a Lightroom catalog. And finally, are you comfortable with computers? This really just kind of goes back to the first question. Are you new to photography? Are you new to the computer? I just think that Lightroom is a much easier tool to learn. It just makes more sense to photographers because it was designed for the photographic community, not the designer community. All right, excellent. Let's move into some more specifics here. I want to talk about the advantages of the Lightroom + Photoshop workflow. I've already mentioned that I think it's easier to use. Lightroom is easier to use because it is logical, and it's modular based. You actually go through the different workflows in Lightroom. They've streamlined the tools and interface. One of the biggest kind of hurdles if you are learning Bridge is in what order do you do things? There are all these features available in Bridge, but it's not clear what the workflow should be for photographers. In Lightroom, it's very easy. You start in a library module. It's where you import, and you add your keywords, and you refine your images, and you make collections, and you add star ratings and stuff. And then you jump over to the Develop module and develop your images. In the Bridge workflow, there's just a lot of features there. Some you'll use, some you won't. Some are for designers, some are for photographers. It's just finding all those features. If you have been using Bridge and Photoshop for years and you know where all those features are, great. I'm just saying that it's more difficult for a novice, for someone just entering the industry, to learn those tools. Okay, because Lightroom is a database program which is somewhat transparent to the user, it has this huge advantage of being able to instantly find images. For example, if I keyword all my images and I've got 10,000 images, and I want to find all the images that have a cloud in it or a red barn, it's instantaneous to find those images. I just do a search on that keyword. On Bridge, that can be a lot more cumbersome, and it can take a lot more time. In addition, you can work with offline files in Lightroom. Even if a hard drive is not connected, if you have made Lightroom aware of the files on that external hard drive, you can still see those files, you can still make collections, you can add metadata to them, even if they are offline. Another huge advantage of Lightroom is the ability to create virtual copies and collections. Now, I know that Bridge has collections, the ability to create collections in smart collections. But depending on how many of your images are indexed in Bridge, that can actually be a very slow process. And there's no such thing as virtual copies when you're in Bridge. A virtual copy is actually taking--like let's say I've photographed a senior portrait, and I want 2 copies of that photograph, 1 in black and white and 1 in color. Well, in Bridge, in the Bridge and Photoshop workflow, I'd actually have to duplicate that file on disc and then process it 2 different ways or use snapshots. In Lightroom, because it's a database, I can have 1 file on disc and then create what's called a virtual copy where I actually have 2 kind of thumbnails and sets of instructions for processing that file differently so that if I wanted to print them both on the same page, it's very easy to do so in Lightroom, and I'm not taking up any extra hard disc space. Okay, another thing that I think is great in Lightroom is it keeps track of everything you do. When I'm changing color balance and changing tonal and color values in the Develop module, it keeps track of everything. Just like Photoshop has multiple states, a History panel, in Lightroom, you also have a History panel that's keeping track of everything. But when you quit Lightroom and you come back into it, the history is still there, so that's not the same in Photoshop. In Photoshop, when you close the file, the history goes away. That's a huge advantage to me. I like to be able to see. Maybe next month or next year I want to be able to see what it is that I've done to an image. We also have some interactive previews. Before I even want to apply a preset in Lightroom, I can actually see what that preset is going to look like, so if I want to see and preview what a sepia tone image would look like or what a dark vignette would look like versus a light vignette, I can quickly just roll over those panels and see those options in Lightroom where I can't preview that without actually applying that in the Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw Workflow in Photoshop. Plus, almost anything you do in Lightroom you can make either a template or a preset so that you don't have to continuously repeat the same tasks, so that can really, really influence and speed up and make your workflow a lot more efficient. Printing also is another big plus in Lightroom. Batch printing is super easy. You select the 20 images you want. You set up everything once, all of your color management settings, everything. Your templates, you can put more than 1 image on a page. You only ever have to set that up once because you can save that template. The template will save all of your printer settings, the print driver settings, and then you just hit "Print" once, and it will print all 50 of your images. And then I prefer--although Photoshop and Bridge do have some web and slideshow creation utilities in the output module, I just prefer the ones in Lightroom. I think that they have a few more features, and they're easier to use. So, those are the advantages of the Lightroom and Photoshop workflow, but there are 2 sides to every coin. We need to take a look at the advantages of the Bridge and Photoshop workflow. So, the biggest one. If you own Photoshop, you own Bridge. Bridge comes with Photoshop, so you don't have to purchase anything. If you already own it, you've got it. That's a huge advantage. But it's a little bit more difficult to use. So, what else? The file browser architecture. When you use Bridge, Bridge is great. You point it at a folder, it shows you the contents of the folder, shows you everything in the folder, text files, PDF files. We already talked about that. You don't need to actually import anything into Bridge because Bridge is just a file browser. It's not a database program, which is good, but again, because it's not a database program, it's going to be slower when you're doing things like searching for images or making collections. Bridge has an extended support of file formats. We already mentioned that one. Bridge has the multi-user workflow. Remember when I talked about are you a small or large studio? If you have multiple people that have to access the same files at the same time, Bridge might actually be a better solution for your studio. And then there's one last one, but it is important, and that is numerical values. What is that? Well, when you're in Lightroom, and you've picked your hero images, and you go to the Develop module, and you want to change things such as your exposure or you want to change your black point or you want to increase your midtones, all of the values that we give you are going to be percentage based because in Lightroom, you don't actually have to tell Lightroom where the file is going to go. Is it going to go to an 8-bit image or a 16-bit image? Is it going to be an sRGB or Adobe RGB? What color space is it going to? In Lightroom, you don't actually have to define that until you export the file, whether it's exporting using the export dialog box or the slideshow or the web photo gallery or the Print module. But because of the fact that you don't have to tell it where it's going, we can't give you the exact numerical numbers. So, on the other hand, if you're looking at the Bridge through Photoshop, which if you're looking at your raw files in Bridge, you double-click on them, they come up in Adobe Camera Raw. In that Adobe Camera Raw dialog box, even though it is the same technology, the same underlying technology to actually process the file, there's this small little link at the bottom of the ACR dialog box that says "Workflow Settings." And in there, you actually have to tell Camera Raw in Photoshop where the file is going, what bit depth, what color space. And because you have to define it there, it's very easy for us to give you the numerical value so that when you are changing your exposure or your black slider, it will show you exactly the numerical values that you're going to get. So, important. It seems small, but for the people who want numerical values, it's very, very important for them to have that technology. Therefore, they're more apt to go with the Bridge and Photoshop workflow. Okay, well, if that's not enough for you, let's just look at this in a little bit different layout. So, what I did here is I just put down some common photo editing tasks, and we do not have to read through all these. But I just wanted to make sure when I go through both workflows, I wanted to point out where some of these advantages take place for you guys. So, this is the most specific that we'll get, and this is the last slide here, but I just wanted to show you up at the top the advantages of the Lightroom and Photoshop workflow. Just generally, I think Lightroom is easier to use. It has a more elegant interface, and it's very centered for the photographic community. All the features in Lightroom have to do with photography. As you organize your images, in Lightroom, because it's database driven, it's going to be faster. You can compare your images in a compare mode as well as the survey view, which is multiple images up at a time. Therefore, I think if you're doing something like editing a wedding, and you've got 6 or 7 images of one scene, very easy to look at them all, pick the best one and move on. The keywording, in my opinion, is better in Lightroom. We have keyword suggestions. You can make keyword sets, which are lists of keywords. Very easy to use, although with that said, you can hand back and forth your keywords between Bridge and Lightroom, so you can go back and forth. Because of the database, again, it's very efficient. Lightroom is very efficient when you filter images, searching for those red barns, or when you're making collections, maybe a portfolio to send to a certain client. And you can view those offline files. In the Develop module, I like to crop and straighten my images. I think it's more elegant in Lightroom. It's easier. You actually are moving the photo underneath the crop. You can save more than 1 custom crop, so there's some advantages there. The virtual copies and snapshots like I talked about before, the virtual copies, being able to have 2 images or 2 views of an image but only 1 on the hard drive, and the snapshots, which will remain there just as the history would remain there next time you open it. We have those interactive preset previews in Lightroom, and we have some before and after views like 2 up right next to each other. You can even split the screen, which I think is very, very useful. As far as enhancing, what I really meant by that is moving over to Photoshop. The advantage there is that in Lightroom, you can create all these presets, making the ability to take an image in Lightroom and, say, edit in Photoshop in a variety of different formats very, very easy. As far as output goes, there are a lot of third party plug-in manufacturers that are actually extending some of the functionality in Lightroom such as the web photo galleries. We've got that batch printing that is much easier in Lightroom as well as having it be template driven with multiple images on a page. I think that the ability to create the PDF slideshow and the video slideshow is a huge advantage. Again, some of these things you can do in Bridge in the Output module. They're just more elegant, and therefore, they're more efficient and save me time in Lightroom. Finally, the publishing to the web galleries, which I've already mentioned. Okay, those are kind of the advantages as you go down the workflow for the Lightroom and Photoshop workflow. Now, the advantage for the Bridge and Photoshop workflow, in general, it's that multi-user workflow. If you need multiple people looking at the same set of files, you're going to want to go with Bridge and Photoshop. They're design-centric features. If you're doing more than just photography, absolutely, Bridge and Photoshop is the way to go. As far as organization goes, you're not dealing with a database. You can just use it as a file browser. You can go and look anywhere you want and not have to load those files up into your application. And as far as batch renaming, I know this is small, but it's a much requested feature, and it is in Bridge, and that is the ability to do a string substitution when you're renaming files. In the Develop module, I mentioned the numeric adjustments, having those exact values, which is very important to a certain number of photographers. As far as output, I did run across that you could save as a PDF file, and you can actually save that with Security from Photoshop. So, that's quite convenient because you can save those files. Well, I guess in theory, you could open the files from Lightroom into Photoshop and do the same save, but it's quite nice for the people who want to password protect their documents. I'm sure this is not a complete list. I'm sure that you guys can come up with many more things that are an advantage or a disadvantage to you, but since I get this question all the time, I thought I would just answer it in a very general way in the beginning and then go into some more specifics. I hope that wasn't too much information, but thank you for joining me. My name is Julieanne Kost, and I hope to see you again on another episode of The Complete Picture. [Adobe TV Productions]