Bridge is a Better Finder Renamer

There are lots of file renamers out there, Better Finder Renamer being one of the, well, better ones. But since Bridge included a rename function, I often just end up using Bridge instead. And it’s actually not bad, for instance, it can do string substitution, with regular expressions too!

This is what Adobe’s help file says:

String Substitution
Allows you to change all or part of a filename to custom text. First, choose what you want to replace: Original Filename replaces the string from the original filename. Intermediate Filename replaces a string that is defined by preceding options in the New Filenamespop-up menus. Use Regular Expression allows you to use regular expressions to find strings based on patterns in filenames. Replace All replaces all substrings that match the pattern in the source string.

In this case, I need to find and delete a bunch of sequenced numbers generated by Photoshop’s Export layers to files script. so I need the expression to find any number repeating zero or more times that’s sandwitched between two underscores…

Well, okay, but I don’t really know how to write regular expressions… But I know InDesign has a Grep Search, which allows me to do regular expressions with dropdown menus. So I’ll let InDesign do it.

Then a quick google to find how to do an underscore, and i’m ready to go.

Here’s what it ended up looking like [_\d?_] and it found them. Bingo!

Bridge File Type Associations

Bridge has its own set of File Type Associations that are not the same as what your computer system’s file type associations. You can tell bridge to open up files in a certain program, while your OS may want to open it up in another. To set up Bridge’s file type associations, go to Edit > Preferences > File Type Associations.

Adobe Bridge CS5: Export Panel

New in Bridge CS5 is the Export Panel, where you can drag and drop photos (raw images as well) and have it automatically exported out to Flickr, Facebook, Photoshop.com, or to your hard drive!

Better Batch Rename in Bridge CS5

Better Watermarks in Bridge CS5 Output

Adobe Bridge: Reveal All Recent Files

If you regularly work in a lot of different folders across a large number of projects, this should be a big time saver. In Bridge CS4 and up, the Path Bar, has an icon that looks like a clock with a backwards arrow on it. Click on that, and you can get bridge to display all the recent files you worked on through adobe applications. Hurray for saving time!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to display non-adobe file formats (like text files or excel files) even though bridge is able to see them regularly.

Bridge/Mini Bridge + InDesign Integration: Show Me the Links

Bridge + Mini Bridge does better previews with InDesign files. Now you can specify it to show multiple pages of the file in the preview. You can also ask Bridge to show you all the files that are linked to the InDesign file. This is especially great if your links are in multiple locations!

Applying Metadata: Filtering White Color Labels in Lightroom and Bridge

The real evidence that labels really are text descriptions as opposed to colors can be seen when you try to filter your images. Even if you don’t have ANY matching text descriptions and all the colors show up as white, Bridge and Lightroom will see the text descriptions of the label and allow you to sort by the text label.

Filter by Labels in Bridge

Filter by “Color” Labels in Lightroom

Applying Metadata: Changing/Customizing Label Descriptions in Bridge

To use custom label descriptions instead of the Bridge default, go into Bridge Preferences, Labels and type your own description.

When you change the Description Label, any existing labels that don't match the current color/description set is displayed as white.

Treat the Description as the primary component of the labels, not the color. That is, the color only indicates the current description, otherwise it is colored white. Here, I named all the color labels "To Do", and Bridge will only 'color' the photos red regardless of which label I try to apply.

Applying Metadata: Labels in Bridge (Color and Description)

In Addition to star ratings, each photo can be tagged with a label. Labels come in 2 parts, which I’ll call the Color Label, and the Description Label.

Photos tagged with a label display the label’s color. With the default bridge description, Select is Red, Second is Yellow, and so on.