Adobe bridge vs photos

[andrew1964]

Just starting out in doing some photo editing. Recently got a Mac mini. Some one recommended using Adobe bridge to organize photos. I purchased affinity photo for Mac as my editor when they had a sale. When I open Adobe bridge it won’t show the photos in my library. Only the photo app. Then read that photos kind of does the same thing as an organizer. I’ve never really organized my photos as always just have them by date taken. No labels really except maybe a few so I’m looking to get my library organized better. Is the photo app in apple Mac and phone an organizer like Adobe bridge. Why can’t I get bridge to see the photos in my library.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Bridge can only see photos in Finder folders. It can't see into Apple Photos Library. You can browse your photos in Bridge but it will not actively analyse and manage them them as Apple Photos does, eg by people, places events. I don't believe there is any AI search capability in Bridge.

Bridge will not sync between devices, like Apple Photos does. The Adobe product which closely matches Apple Photos is Lightroom (Cloudy not Classic) but it is not free like Bridge.

Editing in Bridge is via Camera Raw, but I think you need a paid version. Not sure how much editing you can do free in Bridge.

 

[Tom_N]

Just starting out in doing some photo editing. Recently got a Mac mini. Some one recommended using Adobe bridge to organize photos. I purchased affinity photo for Mac as my editor when they had a sale. When I open Adobe bridge it won’t show the photos in my library. Only the photo app. Then read that photos kind of does the same thing as an organizer. I’ve never really organized my photos as always just have them by date taken. No labels really except maybe a few so I’m looking to get my library organized better. Is the photo app in apple Mac and phone an organizer like Adobe bridge. Why can’t I get bridge to see the photos in my library.

If you're using iCloud Photos to synchronize photos between devices (like a Mac and an iPhone), you need Photos preferences set to "Copy items to the Photo Library."

If you're not synchronizing photos via iCloud, you can turn off this setting, and keep the original photo files outside of the library.

Caveats:

• If you move files outside of Photos, it may not be happy about that. The tools available in Photos to fix or to prevent broken links may not be as good as the ones in Aperture and Lightroom Classic.
• Photos may store edited files in the library, even if you keep the original photo files outside.

 

[andrew1964]

So basically use apple photos and do all my organizing and import into affinity for editing. I don’t plan on doing a time of editing as not a professional but would like to finally organize photos for ease of finding them. May just take me a while. Any other program recommendations or does apple do a good job.

 

[andrew1964]

So I need to keep my photos from my fz 300 separate from apple photos to use Adobe bridge. Have not started using fz 300 a lot yet. Wanted to get computer set up. I guess I can import them from camera into bridge and then edit in affinity once labeled and organized.

 

[ChrisLumix]

So basically use apple photos and do all my organizing and import into affinity for editing. I don’t plan on doing a time of editing as not a professional but would like to finally organize photos for ease of finding them. May just take me a while. Any other program recommendations or does apple do a good job.

Yes, you can keep your pictures in Photos and set a Preference to use Affinity as the editor - that means anytime you click Edit in Photos it will launch Affinity and open that image file; then when you save it it will get saved back to Photos (or you can save a copy externally if you choose).

 

[Mike Boreham]

So basically use apple photos and do all my organizing and import into affinity for editing. I don’t plan on doing a time of editing as not a professional but would like to finally organize photos for ease of finding them. May just take me a while. Any other program recommendations or does apple do a good job.

You may want to give Apple Photos built in editing tools a go before jumping in with Affinity. They are quite capable and if your needs are not demanding may be plenty good enough. Editing with the Photos' own tools is a more seamless experience than using external editors.

If you do use Affinity it is probably better to launch it from within Photos than "importing it into Affinity"...as Chris said.

 

[andrew1964]

Will give it a shot.

 

[ChrisLumix]

So basically use apple photos and do all my organizing and import into affinity for editing. I don’t plan on doing a time of editing as not a professional but would like to finally organize photos for ease of finding them. May just take me a while. Any other program recommendations or does apple do a good job.

You may want to give Apple Photos built in editing tools a go before jumping in with Affinity. They are quite capable and if your needs are not demanding may be plenty good enough. Editing with the Photos' own tools is a more seamless experience than using external editors.

If you do use Affinity it is probably better to launch it from within Photos than "importing it into Affinity"...as Chris said.

Good idea - the main thing to be aware of is that Photos' tools are all global; you can't create layers, use masks, add text, do different blending modes, or even simple selection. If you don't actually need any of that, then Photos may indeed meet your needs. And if you do occasionally need those, then why not try Seashore, which is best described as "GIMP lite" - and best of all, it's free .

 

[Tom_N]

So basically use apple photos and do all my organizing and import into affinity for editing. I don’t plan on doing a time of editing as not a professional but would like to finally organize photos for ease of finding them. May just take me a while. Any other program recommendations or does apple do a good job.

You may want to give Apple Photos built in editing tools a go before jumping in with Affinity. They are quite capable and if your needs are not demanding may be plenty good enough. Editing with the Photos' own tools is a more seamless experience than using external editors.

If you do use Affinity it is probably better to launch it from within Photos than "importing it into Affinity"...as Chris said.

Good idea - the main thing to be aware of is that Photos' tools are all global; you can't create layers, use masks, add text, do different blending modes, or even simple selection. If you don't actually need any of that, then Photos may indeed meet your needs. And if you do occasionally need those, then why not try Seashore, which is best described as "GIMP lite" - and best of all, it's free .

One thing for which Photos is very handy is preparing photos that you want to print. You can duplicate a photo, edit the copy, and tell the Crop tool to constrain a crop to a specific aspect ratio like 3:2 (for 4"x6" prints) or 8:10 (for 8"x10" prints).

This way, you don't have to gamble as to whether a store's photo printing kiosk will handle an aspect ratio mismatch by, oh, say, cropping off the tops of people's heads.