ABSTRACT
There was a time, not so long ago, when one would simply scan a few photographs, put them in a folder and doubleclick to open them up in Photoshop. These days most photographers are working with large numbers of images and it is therefore important to be able to import and manage those images efficiently. With Photoshop 7, Adobe introduced the File Browser, which was like an alternative open dialog interface that was built in to the Photoshop program. The File Browser offered a superior way to manage your images, allowing you to preview and manage multiple images at once. The File Browser was then superseded by Bridge, which was supplied as a separate program and included as part of the CS2 Creative Suite. As image browser programs go, Bridge’s main advantage is that you have ready access to Photoshop. You can open up single or multiple images and apply batch operations all directly from within Bridge. If you compare Bridge with other browser programs, it has enough basic functionality to suit most photographers’ needs, although it has to be said that Bridge has yet to provide the full functionality that professional photographers have come to rely on in other programs, such as those which are dedicated to the task of managing large numbers of photographs (such as Lightroom or Aperture).
