Lesson 1 - Objectives 1-4 (Monday)
- Roll call - answer questions about the course students may have before we begin. Roll call not required for online students.
- Introduce myself. (Who am I? Why am I teaching this course? What do I hope to achieve along with you?) If you're taking this lesson online, I introduce myself in the INSTRUCTOR/CONTACT section of this website.
- Class policies and procedures. (Attendance, Assignments, Class structure, Class website, Canvas, Syllabus)
Why aren't we jumping right into Photoshop first in this course? I have found through experience that understanding Bridge and Camera Raw will better prepare you for working in Photoshop. Bridge allows you full control over viewing, moving, creating collections, and tagging your images. It is the place where you open images into Photoshop or Camera Raw. Camera Raw has many powerful features that are also in Photoshop, but are non-destructive, and have an easier workflow to understand and use. Be patient, and eventually you'll understand why we began with Bridge and Camera Raw first in this course.
Please note that Bridge and Camera Raw are very similar to Adobe Lightroom. So if you are an experienced Lightroom user, these tutorials on Bridge and Camera Raw will be very familiar. We will be using Bridge and Camera Raw in this course, but you're welcome to use Lightroom if you're already familiar with that application.
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Adobe Photoshop has developed over the years into three basic parts or programs. Photoshop itself is the main program for editing pixel-based images. It's considered to be the most powerful pixel-based image editing program on the market.
Most Adobe products also ship with another program - Adobe Bridge - which acts mainly as a visual media manager that connects to all the Adobe applications such as Photoshop, inDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Acrobat, etc. Bridge has grown in power over the years and is a very capable application on its own. In conjunction with Photoshop, the two work together to give you incredible tools for working with images. Today, we'll be focusing on Bridge. Please note that if you've subscribed to Creative Cloud, you may have to install Bridge before you are able access it. Just open your Creative Cloud application and install it from there (see image at right). As digital cameras became more powerful, the ability to shoot and save raw data directly from the sensor became available. Adobe added Camera Raw into the suite as a plug-in to work with these higher resolution files in their native format. You'll find that you can do much of the same image processing in Camera Raw that you can do in Photoshop. In addition to working with Raw images, Camera Raw can also open JPEG and TIFF images and process them too. One advantage to Camera Raw is that all processing is done non-destructively - meaning that you don't actually change any of the pixels in the image. You can always go back to the original image anytime you want. Watch the four YouTube videos below to gain a basic understanding of each of these applications. Click the images to view the videos. |
Image: If you've subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud, Bridge will need to be installed. Click on the Creative Cloud app icon in the menu bar (Mac) or the System Tray (PC). Go to the Apps section, and click install on Bridge CC.
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Video: What is Photoshop? (1:00) Same video as on the home page. No need to watch a second time.
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Video: Watch: Adobe Bridge CC in One Minute (0:57)
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Video: Should I use Photoshop or Camera Raw? (3:51)
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Video: Photoshop Playbook: How to Use Adobe Bridge (6:51)
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Basically, all you have to do is get the photos on your hard drive. You don't have to use Bridge to do this, but Bridge includes a photo import function that will grab images directly from your camera, camera SD Card, etc. It also allows you to add metadata to your images as they import. Bridge lets you see all your photos at once, and allows you to organize them the way you want to.
Also note that Bridge also acts like the operating system. You can move files or folders from one location to another within the Bridge application. Let's learn how to import photos into Bridge. Watch the video at right... |
Video: Importing photos from your camera into Bridge. (9:57)
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Adobe Bridge, as you learned in the last objective, is Adobe's file viewer, with many added tools and file handling abilities. Once your files are imported from your camera, then you need to be able to locate them, view them, and work with them. The video, "How do I use Bridge to find my files and open them?" will help answer that question for you! Please watch it!
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Video: How do I use Bridge to find my files and open them? (7:15)
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Adobe Bridge has an interface that is completely customizable. It comes with several workspaces already developed, which you can tweak further to your liking. You can save your customized workspaces so you can always return to them. Watch the video at the right to learn more...
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Video: Become Familiar with the Bridge Interface (8:02)
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