Skip navigation
gym4jim
gym4jim Calculating status...
Currently Being Moderated

Bridge CS4 assigning tags

Jul 1, 2012 7:34 AM

Tags: #bridge #tagging

I think I am in the right place to ask this question. I got Bridge, I guess as I stumbled upon it a few months ago, with Photoshop Elements 8. It is EXACTLY what I have been looking for as I have over 1000 photos to organize and scan in. They are old photos, not photos that will be transfered from a camera (as many of the titorials concentrate on).

 

Because I have so many photos that I have been working on over the years, I have photos scattered, many duplicate photos that are the same format, and many that are duplicates with both TIFF and JPG formats, over a few hard drives and folders. I realize that I may not be able to do what I am about to ask over differant hard drives but I but it can be done over images on the same drive.

 

As I take a folder and tag each photo, I find the same photo coming up in another fold that is the same or had been edited or is in another format. I don't really want to delete until I have everything tagged and make sure I don't need it before deleting. Is there any way to bring up all images on a hard drive, regardless of what folder it is, sort them by name, and then I can "group" tag them (except for such things as format and editted or not editted)? This way I wont have to tag them over and over each time I tackle another folder.

 

Hope this is clear and I would certainly appreciat any pointers anyone may have.

 

Thanks,

 

Jim

542 Views   8 Replies   Latest reply: gym4jim, Jul 1, 2012 10:33 AM
 
Replies
  • MichelBParis
    Currently Being Moderated
    1. MichelBParis,
    Jul 1, 2012 8:24 AM   in reply to gym4jim
    Report

    You are probably in the right place...

    I understand your point, since I had about the same problem last years with about 2 000 old scanned family pictures gathered from various family members. Unfortunately I cannot help you with Bridge, as I am a Windows and Organizer user.

    In your case, the original drive and folders organization seem to be more of a problem than a helpful tool.

    If you could move all your files to a single drive/folder, do you really think alphabetical sorting would help ?

    I rather think that to 'group'  similar photos you'll have to use content and visual similarity to use keywords.

    I could help you (or other people with the same problem) with the organizer, but I don't know if this would provide the pointers you are looking for.

     

    Things you can do in the Organizer:

    -  move all files to a single master folder in a chosen drive (via backup/restore)

    - stack (group) files even from different folders/drives

    - index by visual similarity

    - face recognition

    - export with renaming scheme (Windows)

    - smart tagging based on multicriteria searches

    ...

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Barbara B.
    Currently Being Moderated
    2. Barbara B.,
    Jul 1, 2012 8:35 AM   in reply to gym4jim
    Report

    You can point Bridge to your hard drive or your user account and turn on include subfolders to see all the photos. This will take a long time to generate thumbnails for them all.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • gym4jim
    Currently Being Moderated
    3. gym4jim,
    Jul 1, 2012 9:34 AM   in reply to Barbara B.
    Report

    If I choose my hard drive, the the upper left hand window that shows the structure of my hard drive, it shows all the folders of the hard drive and then when I go in them I see the image files. I would like to see all the image files on the whole hard drive at once if that's possible.

     

    I thought of putting all of the files in one folder, but they are in seperate folders now for a reason and it will really mess things up for me if that's what I ultimately have to do. I suppose I can put a tag option for what folder they come out of before I "marry" everything into one folder, and then put them back after I finish tagging them. Only thing is, it will mean I have to finish taggin over 1000 pictures before I can do anything else, perhaps, cause finding the pictures may be a chore...but maybe not. Got to think it through.

     

    Thanks for you both for your help!

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Barbara B.
    Currently Being Moderated
    4. Barbara B.,
    Jul 1, 2012 9:43 AM   in reply to gym4jim
    Report

    You need to look through the different possibilities for ways to customize the workspace. You should be able to see all the thumbnails by clicking on the outermost enclosing folder.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • gym4jim
    Currently Being Moderated
    5. gym4jim,
    Jul 1, 2012 9:58 AM   in reply to Barbara B.
    Report

    This is my tree. I have Kappy, the name of my hard drive highlighted and this is what shows up onthe right (have shown part of that frame but you can see the correlation).

     

    In the New Scans folder there are at least one hundred TIFS,as does the Photo Alias, and there are many folders further down that contain a tons of images but only the name of the top folders are showing up.

     

    HUmm. What am I missing?

     

    Thanks,

    JIm

    Tree.jpg

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • Barbara B.
    Currently Being Moderated
    6. Barbara B.,
    Jul 1, 2012 10:16 AM   in reply to gym4jim
    Report

    View menu. Turn off Show Folders, turn on Show images from subfolders. Does that do it for you?

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • gym4jim
    Currently Being Moderated
    7. gym4jim,
    Jul 1, 2012 10:19 AM   in reply to Barbara B.
    Report

    YES MA'AM!  That does it for big time!

     

    Thank you very very much. You had given me a lot of work to do but have saved me a TON!

     

    Thanks Again,

     

    JIm

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • gym4jim
    Currently Being Moderated
    8. gym4jim,
    Jul 1, 2012 10:33 AM   in reply to gym4jim
    Report

    BUT...

     

    After writing the last msg I went back and it crashed Bridge. I am restarting it and did the same thing and now it is going through the entire harddrive and creating thumbnails for every file on the hard drive. I am looking for where you can limit its search for image files only but am unsuccessful. It has search 99,9942 files and still going!

     

    ANy ideas?

     

    Thanks.

     
    |
    Mark as:
Actions

More Like This

  • Retrieving data ...

Bookmarked By (0)

Answers + Points = Status

  • 10 points awarded for Correct Answers
  • 5 points awarded for Helpful Answers
  • 10,000+ points
  • 1,001-10,000 points
  • 501-1,000 points
  • 5-500 points