updated to Bridge 2020 but it won't open files as it's looking for Bridge 2017 which I've deleted

Question

Recently I belatedly registered on Photoshop CC 2020 from CC2017 and a lot of updates were actioned, including to Bridge 2020.  But now, when I try to open pics I took yesterday from Bridge, it won't open them because it says it can't find Adobe 2017.  Not surprising, as I deleted it after the upgrades.  Is there any solution to this?

gary_sc · Accepted Answer

Hi Gary I am really sorry to be so stupid, but no, I can't fix it. I have gone to Bridge. Then to Edit - Preferences. Then to File Type Associations. I then see a long list on the left, starting with Alas(.pix) and ending with XML(.xml). Photoshop Document is the only thing in the list referring to Photoshop. In the right hand column is a box for each item in the list, and each box says "none". Each box has an arrow, which, if I click on it, says "browse". There is no browse button or any other button at the bottom of this screen. When I click on browse in the box opposite Photoshop Document it takes me to the Cdrive where I select Photoshop 2020. I then click Open, and nothing happens. I ha\ve also tried going into Start Up Scripts instead of File Type associations and clicked on: Adobe Bridge, which says "This script enables other applications to communicate with Adobe Bridge" and on Adobe Photoshop 2020 which says "This script enables other applications to communicate with Adobe Photoshop 2020." Again, when I click OK, nothing happens. I don't recognise the screen you posted. You must wish you had never tried to help me - I don't blame you!! PS it's jpgs it won't open. If I right click on the raw files and say open in camera raw, it does.

Hilary

Hi Hillary,

No problem we are very close to getting this to work. Really.

Go to the JPG option in that list of file types, then go to dropdown menu and then to that Browse button, select it and look for your copy of PS. I do not know a thing about Windows so I can't help you on how to find it or what drive it might be placed in, for that I have to let your expertise do what needs to be done. Once you find the Photoshop application, select it.

Then when you go to the jpg option in file types, you should see your copy of PS. Subsequent to that, when you double-click on a jpg, it should open up in your copy of PS.

We are almost there.

gary_sc · Answer

Hi Hilary,

Something is missing in your question because Bridge doesn't make any changes to an image (by itself) and thereby can't "imprint" a version like (say) various versions of Indesign. Even with Photoshop, you can open a .psd document you created 20 years ago and open it just fine with Photoshop today.

Also, there's no such application as "Adobe 2017," it doesn't exist.

One other possibility is that under a court ruling that showed up about a year ago, Adobe is only allowed to let users keep "n-1" applications currently running (where "n" is equal to "year"). So, if you were using 2017 and replaced it with 2020, than the only versions you had on your computer that would have been allowed is 2019 and 2020. Both 2017 and 2018 would have been uninstalled for you. It's possible that either your system was referring to the 2017 and/or one of Bridge's Preferences was tagging* back to the 2017 version and since they were not there, the warning was popped up.

To resolve this, you've sort of already did part of this by removing all the new stuff. Now what to do is to uninstall the rest of your Adobe items (be sure to delete Preferences as you are asked if you want to keep them or not), and then re-install the new stuff.

If something like this shows up again, do a "delete preferences" action to again, cleans the preferences. Alternatively you might need to simply tell your computer and/or Bridge what applications to call upon. So, for example, select any jpg, psd, tif, or raw image you have on your computer, and (on the Mac) press Command-i. That wil bring up a popup window on the left side of the screen and toward the bottom you'll see Open With... and a dropdown window to select which default application you want to open that kind of file with. You might have to repeat this with the other kinds of files. [Sorry I do not use Windows and do not know how to do this on Windows but there is something very similar.]

Similarly, in Bridge, in the Preferences, in the File Type Associations tab you can set which application Bridge will default to when you try to open any given kind of file. Yes, you may need to do this separately between your computer and Bridge, unfortunately they do not talk to each other as much as we'd like them to.

* What I mean by "tagging" is that while we'd like to think that our computers are very smart machines, they are dumber than dogs and only do what they think they've been told and sometimes to not know what we expect them to understand. In this case, if they last used (say) Photoshop 2017, even though it's been replaced by Photoshop 2020, it may not automatically default to 2020 and will be trying to find 2017 even though it's been removed.

Sorry this was so long, good luck!

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