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!

Lightroom Photo Metadata Attributes: How it Applies in the Catalog

Lightroom seems pretty inconsistent about what kind of metadata attribute can be applied to what, so I thought I’d make a chart. [Also, thanks, WordPress. I havn’t had to hand code a table in a looooooong time.]

Attribute	Is a Part of the…	What it means
Star Ratings	Individual Photos	The photo gets a rating that’s part of its metadata.
Color Label	Individual Photos	The photo gets a color rating that’s part of its metadata. The color rating may change to white depending on the text in the “Color Label Set”
Pick/Reject	Folder/Collection	The same photo may be a Pick in one collection but a Reject in another.
Stacks	Folder	Can only be applied when in Folder view. What gives?
Quick Collection	Catalog Data	Lightroom’s temporary collection.

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: Custom Label Descriptions in Lightroom

"Custom" labels are white. When the File's embedded text descriptor doesn't match Lightroom's current setting, it is considered "custom".

Just like in Bridge, if the current Text Label doesn’t match the color label, the color is displayed as white, for “custom” or “other. This can happen when you edit a Label Set, Switch to another Label Preset, or anytime where the current Text/Color Label combination from the file doesn’t match what Lightroom’s current setting is.

Applying Metadata: Changing/Customizing Label Descriptions in Lightroom

Despite being called “Color Labels”, Lightroom Labels are text descriptor based as well. It just so happens that the text descriptors happen to be colors. The Text Labels can be edited, and the edits can be saved as different presets.

The Bridge Default Set has matching descriptions to Bridge’s Labels

The Lightroom Default set has colors as the text description

To create a new label set, or switch to another label set, go to Metadata> Color Label Set>

Applying Metadata: Labels in Lightroom

Lightroom calls Labels “Color Labels”, but I still think it’s better to treat them as text labels with a color indicator. Go to Photo > Set Color Label to apply.

In Lightroom, you can also tint the grid with your color label

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.

Disappearing Bridge Metadata for RAW Files!

Has this ever happened to you? You apply some ratings to some RAW files in Bridge, take the files to another machine, and the ratings disappear! Most likely, Bridge was writing the metadata into the Camera Raw Database instead of into an XMP sidecar file.

• You can’t really add data to a RAW image file, that includes applying ratings or image adjustments.
• Bridge can save this data either as a sidecar XMP sidecar file, or write to the local Camera Raw Database.
  • The Camera Raw Database sits on the computer in this location:  Settings/[user name]/Application Data/Adobe/CameraRaw (Windows) or Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences (Mac OS)
  • The XMP sidecar file will be appear next to your raw files.
• If you ask Bridge to write XMP files, you can take your XMP files with you, along with your settings.
• Go to [Edit> Camera Raw Preferences] to change settings.
  

 

Applying Metadata: Synchronizing Metadata Across Applications (Bridge and Lightroom)

Even in an all Adobe work-flow, we’ll probably be using both Lightroom and Bridge to tag our images and files. Especially if you are taking photos for other people to review.

Bridge is just a browser, it’ll just read and display whatever the settings are from the file (or XMP sidecar file), so there is no problem there. Lightroom, however, is a catalog, and has already imported the metadata into its own catalog. Lightroom 3 seems to be pretty good at detecting a mismatch between the file and its internal database, and will prompt you to synchronize the data (either write over the file metadata with the database metadata, or vice versa).

For files with mismatching metadata, Lightroom displays an icon on the photo thumbnail and prompt you with one of the following:

The metadata for this photo has been changed in Lightroom. Save the changes to disk?

The metadata for this photo has been changed by another application. Should Lightroom import settings from disk or overwrite disk settings with those from the catalog?

The metadata for these one or more of these photos has been changed by both Lightroom and another application. Should Lightroom import settings from disk or overwrite disksettings with those from the catalog?

In any of these cases, despite Adobe’s confusing language, your choices are pretty simple. Either to

1. Overwrite Settings/Save (Changes to Disk): Apply Lightroom settings to file
2. Import Settings From Disk: Apply file settings to Lightroom

Use Dropbox and Lightroom to Use Your Catalog Across Multiple Machines

One of the limitations of a Lightroom catalog is that it can’t work from a network drive. So you can’t easily share the catalog between multiple computers. To get around this, store youre catalog in a Dropbox folder. Now you have a synchronized local copy on all of your machines! It’s so easy!