Adobe Bridge: How do you back up your labels/collections/keywords/etc?

[JuryDuty]

So I'm in an online class on Photoshop and the instructor has taught us a bit about Adobe Bridge. He's very enthusiastic about it. I see how you can include labels, build collections, add keywords, etc to your files for ultimate organization.

This all sounds great...but it looks to me that it's keeping all this info in its own database. How do you back that up?

I'm just concerned I could spend HOURS organizing then not have that info if something happens or if I were to load the same pictures/files on a Windows machine.

How do you backup Bridge...or do you choose a different program to organize things like thousands of files?

 

[MCAsan]

I would not begin to use ACR or Bridge for photography. Adobe specifically built Lightroom as the photography digital asset manager (DAM). LR creates a database called a catalog to track your images, the jpg previews, the edits....etc. LR will give you options as to when the catalog is backed up and to where. Personally I have LR prompt me to do a backup every time I exit LR. The backup is written to my external library drive which backed up in turn by Time Machine.

From Lightroom you invoke plugins (Photoshop, Nik, Topaz, DxO Optics, Perfect Photo Suite) as needed. And we needing PS less and less these days. In LR 6/CC we can now do HDR and pano merges and get DNG files

Here are links to a video made by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. Those two have made careers teaching PS and LR. The video is about 100 ways LR kids Bridge's arse.
http://scottkelby.com/2011/100-ways-lightroom-kicks-the-bridge-and-camera-raws-a/
http://kelbyone.com/100ways/

LR 6 overview: http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/09/review-adobe-lightroom-cc-6/

Do the free LR trial: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

 

[Anna Cary]

I would not begin to use ACR or Bridge for photography. Adobe specifically built Lightroom as the photography digital asset manager (DAM). LR creates a database called a catalog to track your images, the jpg previews, the edits....etc. LR will give you options as to when the catalog is backed up and to where. Personally I have LR prompt me to do a backup every time I exit LR. The backup is written to my external library drive which backed up in turn by Time Machine.

From Lightroom you invoke plugins (Photoshop, Nik, Topaz, DxO Optics, Perfect Photo Suite) as needed. And we needing PS less and less these days. In LR 6/CC we can now do HDR and pano merges and get DNG files

Here are links to a video made by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. Those two have made careers teaching PS and LR. The video is about 100 ways LR kids Bridge's arse.
http://scottkelby.com/2011/100-ways-lightroom-kicks-the-bridge-and-camera-raws-a/
http://kelbyone.com/100ways/

LR 6 overview: http://9to5mac.com/2015/05/09/review-adobe-lightroom-cc-6/

Do the free LR trial: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html[/QUOTE]


That's all well and good, but some folks are only able to use Bridge, so the question remains, IS there a way to backup keywords using Bridge?

 

[robgendreau]

I'm sorta surprised your instructor didn't go into how Bridge works, but maybe that's another class...

It's a wonderful thing, Bridge. It's like the browser version of Lr, in that it just browses files, it does NOT use a database like Lr does to store info. It rights it right into the files. Cool, no? That means if the file is backed up, the metadata is backed up. And it's usable in any Adobe appliction; Lr would read those keywords, labels and ratings. Other non-Adobe applications would be able to see at least keywords but maybe not the hierarchical keywords, but maybe not the labels and ratings. There are whole categories of stuff that there are standard storage schemes for; search on exif and IPTC and XMP metadata to see what. Or just do a get info within Bridge. And it's cross-platform.

For example, add a keyword like "test" to an image in Bridge. Then do a "Reveal in Finder," a "Get Info" in Finder, and under "More Info" in the window you should see dimensions, GPS info if any, colorspace and your keyword "test." If you do a Spotlight search you can even find that image, if it's one that Spotlight indexes (with RAW files the keyword is written to a sidecar XMP file, not the image itself, so you wouldn't find it there).

I disagree about using Lr instead of Bridge. In many ways I think a frequent Ps user is better off with Bridge, but that sorta depends what you do with your work after Ps. In any case, a Ps user should be familiar with it, especially if you intend to work in a place where Ps is used a lot.