Chapter 6: Managing Images

Figure 6-6: Entering data into the File Info window.

As you click through each page of the File Info window, adding or viewing data, you can always click OK to save your added information (or click Cancel to quit).

The different File Info metadata pages include these:

U* Description: You can add general information about your image here.

U* Camera Data 1: Displays information provided by your digital camera.

U* Camera Data 2: Displays more information provided by your digital camera (some models are just pickier about details).

U* Categories: You can enter information based on Associated Press categories.

U* History: Displays Photoshop history information if the image was previ­ously edited in Photoshop.

U* IPTC Information Pages: You can enter information about the photo­grapher and images per IPTC standards.

U* Adobe Stock Photos: Provides information for images obtained through Adobe Stock Photos.

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I^ Origin: Here you can enter additional information for images targeted to the news media.

I^ Advanced: Here you can view EXIF data about the image you’re working with. The camera information includes zoom setting, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, and even the type of lens you used.

For the most part, the File Info and Metadata fields were built around IPTC standards, which cater to the international press community. (Hey, why not — they’re one of the largest groups of professional photographers around the world!) Take advantage of the standards that IPTC has put forth and increase the manageability of your growing image library. You can visit the IPTC (International Press Telecommunications Council) site at Www. iptc. org.

While you’re busy implementing a workflow to manage your images, take time to organize some of your older images as well. If you’re like me, you have years of valuable photos that need to be organized and archived. Not only is going back and viewing older images fun, it can be productive.

Currently, I’m in the process of scanning my older 35mm slides. Some of those photos match or exceed my quality expectations today, but were never processed and printed for a variety of reasons (but none of them very good excuses!). The same story goes for some of my early digital photos. It’s a long process, but with a solid image-management strategy, you can probably identify many of your older images to add to your portfolio.

Go ahead and start digging for lost treasures; Bridge makes it fun and easy!

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ORgAnizing images in folders

After setting up folders for storing your digital images, you can get down to business organizing your images into those folders. You may have many fold­ers already, in various areas of your hard drive, but take this opportunity to move those folders into the new structure you’ve set up for image manage­ment. Organized folders are great for peace of mind. As I’ve demonstrated, I set up three basic areas to store my images. Here’s how:

1.  Copy your original images to your Original Image folders.

I always leave my original images As Originals. I don’t like to make changes to these files; I want to keep them intact, as you would a film negative. I simply download images from memory cards, each one into its own subfolder in my Original Images folder, and then back up the new image folder to DVD.

Give each folder a name that combines chronological sequence with a few descriptive words so you have a clue to its contents (as with the folders shown in Figure 6-4). Such folder names make it easier to recognize folder contents later when you view them in Bridge. When your number of original image folders grows to the hun­dreds, the chronology and descriptions included in folder names will come in handy.

2.  If you have some unfinished “images in progress,” save them to your “working” image

Folders.

Create your working image fold­ers to match the targeted pur­pose of your images. If (for

Figure 6-4: Assigning chronological and descriptive folder names to your original image folders.

Example) you do mostly personal work such as pictures of family, nature, or pets, then create a working folder for each category. If you’re taking photos professionally, create a separate folder for each client or job you’re working on.

When first you open images in Camera Raw and Photoshop, get into the habit of immediately saving the image file to a working image folder, in Photoshop’s PSD format. That way the saved image becomes the one you’re working on, and resides in the working folder. The original stays intact, and you eliminate the risk of altering the original accidentally.

Part II: Image-Management Workflow with Adobe Bridge__________________

3. If you have images you want to print or publish, save them to “output” image folders.

When you’ve finished adjusting and editing your images, you’ll want to save specialized versions of them to specific output folders — say, for print, Web, or publication — with each version sized differently and quite possibly assigned a different color space. (I cover creating output images in more detail in Chapter 12.)

In Chapter 5, I show you just about every menu, command,

Panel, and change to workspaces and preferences to Bridge, now it’s time to put this software to work managing images. As with every process covered in this book, I take the same approach: setting up and using a work­flow (in fact, the same one mentioned in Chapter 4) for image management.

Here’s the image-management workflow you can implement with Bridge, step by step:

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1.  Navigate and create image folders.

You can view photos that you download directly from your digital camera or card reader. This is a lot better than the old light tables that used to be used to view those little negatives and slides.

2.  Organize images.

Organize your images into Original, Working, and Output folders. Use the Folders panel and the Edit menu (Copy and Paste commands) to move images into their designated folders — or drag and drop images from folder to folder.

3.  Add information with the Metadata panel.

You can view the information provided by your digital camera — in par­ticular, technical data for each photo — and add information about each image in the Metadata panel.

4.  Apply labels and ratings.

You can color-code your photos for easier retrieval later — and rate your photos (from one to five stars) and save the ratings so you can get to the best ones quickly.

5.  Sort and rename photos.

By adding keywords, labels, and ratings to your photos, you can easily sort files later. Renaming files is a snap using Bridge: Double-click the file­name and then type a new name.

6.  Load images to Camera Raw or Photoshop.

After You’ve properly organized your image files (and viewed their thumbnails in the Content area) is the time to load your raw images into Camera Raw or your other images directly into Photoshop.

Navigating and creating image folders

Using the Bridge Folders panel is just like navigating folders via Windows Explorer, My Computer, or the Mac Finder. The Folders panel gives you an Explorer-like view of your com­puter and your storage devices (such as a CD-ROM drive or an external hard drive). Figure 6-1 shows how you can view folders using the Folders panel.

Figure 6-1: Viewing folders in the Folders panel.

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Another way to view folders and their contents through Bridge is to use the Look In menu on the Option bar, as shown in Figure 6-2.

Look In menu

Figure 6-2: The Look In menu.

The Look In menu gives you a hierarchical view of the folders contained in your Desktop, Favorites, and most Recent folders. Click a folder in the Look In menu, and the contents of that folder are displayed in the viewing area.

Creating folders

If you haven’t yet created your Original, Working, and Output folders, here are the steps that create these folders using Bridge:

1.  Using the Folders panel, select the drive where you want to create the new folder.

2.  Create a new images folder.

Choose FileONew Folder or press Ctrl+Shift+N (86+Shift+N on a Mac). You can also click the Create New Folder icon on the Bridge Option bar.

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3.  Name the folder.

Figure 6-3 shows you the newly created folder in the Content area. Type a folder name over the highlighted text New Folder. This is where your creativity comes into play; you can name the images folder anything you want. Just don’t get Too Silly. (Personally, I call my main images folder by the boring but prac­tical name “Images.”)

4.  Create working and output folders.

Click the new Images folder just created and repeat Steps 2 and 3, creating subfolders within this folder. You’ve just taken a huge step toward getting control of that unruly horde of images!

Figure 6-3: Naming a new folder.