ABSTRACT
Working with Bridge and Camera Raw The mechanics of how Photoshop and Bridge work together are designed to be as simple as possible so that you can open single or multiple images or batch process images quickly and efficiently. Figure 2.11 summarizes how the file opening between Bridge, Photoshop and Camera Raw works. Central to everything is the Bridge window interface where you can browse, preview or make selections of the images you wish to process. To open images, select the desired thumbnail (or thumbnails) and open using one of the following three methods: use the File ➯ Open command, use a doubleclick, or use the Co (Mac), Lo (PC) shortcut. All of the above methods can be used to open a selected raw image (or images) via the Camera Raw dialog hosted by Photoshop. If the image is not a raw file, it will open in Photoshop directly. Alternatively, you can use File ➯ Open in Camera Raw… or use the Cr (Mac), Lr (PC) shortcut to open images via the Camera Raw dialog, this time hosted by Bridge. This allows you to perform batch processing operations in the background without compromising Photoshop’s performance. If the ‘Double-click edits Camera Raw Settings in Bridge’ option is deselected in the Bridge General preferences, S doubleclicking allows you to open an image or multiple selections of images in Photoshop directly, bypassing the Camera Raw dialog. Opening single raw images via Photoshop is quicker than opening them via Bridge, but when you do this Photoshop does become tied up managing the Camera Raw processing and this in turn will prevent you from doing any other work in Photoshop. The advantage of opening via Bridge is Bridge can be used to process large numbers of raw files in Camera Raw, while freeing up Photoshop to perform other tasks. You can then toggle between the two programs. For example, you can be processing images in Camera Raw while you switch to working on other images that have already been opened in Photoshop. Regarding JPEG and TIFF images, Camera Raw can be made to open these as if they were raw images, but please refer to page 142 for a fuller description as to how JPEG and TIFF files can be made to open in Camera Raw.
