Bridge not synchronizing with Lightroom

[JordanBeckett]

I'm working between Bridge and Lightroom. I cull photos in Bridge, make minor edits and give ratings to selects, and the edits get stored in XMP sidecar file. Next, I import them into Lighroom for further editing.  I finish them, give them ratings, and save the metadata to XMP.  I then load Bridge, and Bridge does not synchronize the edits.  

How do I know?  

There should only be 289 photos with a 1-star rating or highter.  I load into bridge and it shows 294 photos with ratings.

Which 5 photos did not sync?  This is maddening!

I've purged all cache in Bridge and it wont update. It still shows 294 photos. Which makes me think Lightroom isn't actually saving the metadata to XMP files for all the images.  

PLEASE help. This is so frustrating.  

What am I missing here?

[gary_sc]

Hi @JordanBeckett, what your missing, you will probably not want to hear: These are two different applications that appear to be doing the same thing but work COMPLETELY differently. I use both, but I use them for the appropriate purposes. If I have any images that I want to keep in my collection, I place them in LR Classic. If I have some images that I need to review and do what's needed to be done, and I'd never look at them again, I use Bridge. 

But most of all, LRC is Adobe Camera Raw with a database. The database knows where every image is stored and what has been done to it, and it keeps all of the keywords and metadata. Bridge only looks at images. That's it.

When you move or change ANY image outside of LRC, LRC doesn't know about it. Period. Admittedly, the mental transition from Bridge to LRC took me a while, and I wasted a lot of my time trying to figure out what was happening. But, once I convinced myself that if I wanted to move a file to a different folder, it had to be done inside of LRC. If I wanted to change the name of a file, I had to do that within LRC.

As far as making edits in LRC and not seeing them in Bridge is because you have not set LRC to embed the changes in the file. This is done from Metadata section in the Catalog settings. I do this as a backup on the possibility that something happens to my Catalog, the image adjustments will still be part of the image. 

For your piece of mind, if you have images that you want to stay in LRC, start and end with LRC. You are only giving yourself grief by trying to use two applications that really have no reason to be used together. 

I hope this makes sense, good luck!

[JordanBeckett]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed reply.  I do understand the functional differences between Bridge and LightRoom and agree how LRC is basically just a database-collected version of Bridge, with frills. (This is actually why I avoid LRC for most of my session edits -- except for rare cases where I choose to suffer the performance cost of using LRC in order to utilize the Loupedeck+ controller in the finishing process.)

And great thinking about catalogue settings, but again, not applicable here, as I have it set to save to XMP rather than within image.  (And I regularly use the Save Metadata to File dialogue.) 

But I totally agree, using both is a huge (and avoidable) headache.  I stay in Bridge most of the time. 🙂

I greatly appreciate your input -- it's certainly going to be helpful anyone struggling to make heads/tails of the differences between Bridge/LRC.

Thanks again!

[gary_sc]

Hi Jordan,

OK, apparently, you have a better understanding of the differences between LRC and Bridge than most who try to use both on the same images. However, I would emphasize that LRC is ACR with a database, NOT Bridge with a database. This is a big distinction.

Let me give you a "use" case where I have to break the LRC overall UI to make things work for me for ONE thing I have to work around. It might give you some ideas to work around the issues that you mentioned. 

Several years ago, I wanted to digitize just under 10,000 slides I had taken with my film camera over the years. I use an Epson V800 scanner, and I can scan 12 slides at a time. However, for adjustments and all, it can take about 5 minutes per slide to get a good-quality image. (Later updates to SilverFast Scanning software can reduce this to about 3 minutes per slide, but that was not available to me back then.) After reviewing a variety of options, I decided to photograph my slides. [You can read my process here if you're interested: 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/adobe-community-professionals/digitizing-your-slides-by-photography/t...]

Part of my reasoning is there was a pretty good chance that not every slide I had taken was a real "keeper." (Shocking, yes!)

I tethered my Canon 7Dm2 to Lightroom and shot away. The process was mostly straightforward, and I could finally look at my images without having to set up the slide projector. (Yeah!) But also, I could then look at the images and decide that this one, or that one, would benefit from the quality that one gets with a proper scan. So, here's how I work this with LRC.

I scan the images into TIF format. I locate the original image in LRC and have it show me the file in the Finder. I copy its name (let's say "Germany_1234.TIF" and rename the new file "Germany_1234b.tif."). I now manually place this new file into the same folder as the original photographed image. Now, back in LRC, in Library mode, I right-click on the folder that has the new image and select "Synchronize folder." This will now import that one image into the catalog. Now I have to go back to that folder (still in Library mode), go find the new file that should be following the original photographed file, and compare the two. 99.9% times out of a hundred, the scanned image was worth the effort, and I delete the photographed file. 

At that point, I can then make any final adjustments to the file using LRC's Develop abilities. 

That's a lot of work to simply add an image to an application, and I do wish it was easier, but the way that LRC was designed and engineered, that's the package that you get. It was NOT designed to easily slip in an image here or there; it was designed to import a day's shoot. It was built for photographers doing lots of work.

As far as LoupDeck, I've no experience with it one way or the other so I cannot comment on it at all. I am aware that a number of folks love it.

Hopefully that might give you some ideas to working in and out of LRC. Bridge is obvously straightforward, you got that.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention before, LRC and Bridge do not have the same code for Labels. Even ratings are not well communicated back and forth. Again, since the two are to be used for different purposes, there was no reason to match communication between the two. And, if you customize Bridge's Labels, you'll see only white in another copy of Bridge becuase this was customzied on your copy, not the other copy. 

Good luck!

[JordanBeckett]

Hi Gary,

It sounds like you have a LOT of photos on slide. That's so awesome!  And I'm sure your walkthrough will be helpful to someone looking to tackle a big import like that.  Nice work, and thanks for sharing.

I get why you chose to photograph them rather than waiting 5 minutes per slide, but I'm not sure why you chose to use LRC at all. My experience leads me to believe that it would be MUCH faster to cull 10,000 photos in a program that doesn't have to import an identical copy into a database just to edit -- as is the  default workflow in LRC.) But that would be a discussion for a different thread. 🙂

Like you said, Bridge "was built for photographers doing lots of work."  Totally agree. I would gently disagree that it's not designed to easily slip an image though -- personally, I find it's much quicker to work through large sets, make a quick adjustment here or there, and render down in Bridge.

Shooting for the largest footwear company on the planet, the work is fast-paced and high-volume.  LRC just doesn't cut it for me.  I dont have time to import a duplicate copy for every image I want to edit. 

And it would sure be nice to not have features stripped down that could easily be added to Bridge to make it (in my eyes) the perfect all-in-one editor.

Ultimately, I never figured out why Bridge would import 99% of the metadata, but leave out 4 files.  There's clearly a conflict that isn't getting resolved. But it's okay... I finished the photos in LRC and exported them there. 

Thanks for all the interest and support, Gary.  Much appreciated.  Happy shooting!

[gary_sc]

Hi @JordanBeckett, let me explain why I brought the images into LRC: it's a fantastic DAM program. Its organization capabilities are as solid as YOU want (since you build that structure), and keywords are stellar. It has the Map ability to show you EXACTLY where the image was shot (assuming your camera has GPS data.)

I'm not fully sure I understand what you mean about "have to import an identical copy into a database just to edit," When one imports images into LRC, you can either "Add," which links the images to the database wherever the file is currently sitting; "Move," which moves the file to a location you determine during the import process; "Copy," which does make a copy of the file from the original location to a place you determine during the import process; and "Covert to DNG," which also moves the created DNG to a location you determine during the import process." Are you sure you've been using the four options correctly?

As far as any editing, when one goes from the Library mode to the Develop mode, yes, there is a insignificant pause when going back and forth, but once either mode is in use, walking from image to image is as fast as your fingers can walk. At least it is on my computer.

Oh, and please read my comments again; I stated that LRC was built for photographers doing a slew of work, not Bridge. That's not saying that Bridge cannot do that, but IMHO, I'd rather be working with 10,000 images in LRC than Bridge — especially if I was in a pressure situation. But again, that's my opinion and observation. 

So, do you talk much with Earth now? (and I'm assuming you mean the footwear company up in Washington.)

[JordanBeckett]

Yes, I hear you, but I would say that Bridge has the capability to both handle an entire day's work AND inline edit efficiently, without the performance cost of database management and UX frills.

For me, a client would never ask for access to, or ask me to cull through 10,000 usable photos that are held and tagged exclusively in an Adobe catalogue. Anything that critical, that massive, they will have copies of and I dont have to worry.  (And very good guess -- I mean the footwear company in Oregon.)

I appreciate you eagerness to educate on the different import options -- how some options link to the source files while others make a copy --  however, we're splitting hairs and have gone off topic as this post is not about LRC performance. It's about settings not making it into the XMP sidecar file. And in my case, my catalogue settings are set to "Automatically write changes into XMP" and I regularly use the "save metadata to file" command.  

All good though -- I simply worked around it by simply finishing this set in LRC. 

Thanks for all your efforts.