Importing photos into bridge.

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 17, 2024
2 replies
2616 views

I'm trying to use bridge to organize my photos. Download from camera works well and I need to bring my old files into the same folder scheme (one folder per day in this case).
The only way I've found to do this is to copy the files to a USB memory stick (or card) and run "get photos from camera" using the memory card. Is there a better way to do this?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@michaela38849736

I use ExifTool for this task. Perhaps a Bridge script could be created, I usually create scripts for Photoshop, not Bridge, so my knowledge of what is possible is limited.

Presuming that you have "one root/top-level folder containing many loose images without any subfolders"...

exiftool '-directory<${directory}/${datetimeoriginal}' -d '%Y/%Y-%m/%Y-%m-%d' '/path to/source/images folder'

This command line code will create the following directory structure based on the shooting date, moving all files into the newly created sub-folders based on Year / Year-Month / Year-Month-Day:

This command line code is formatted for the Mac, Windows users would use straight double-quote marks.

One could also add the -r or -recurse argument before the path to the folder if there were sub-folders to process.

It's easy enough to create "droplet" type applications or custom contextual right-click commands in the Mac Finder or create "droplet" type shortcuts in Windows Explorer if you don't need to use the terminal.app or cmd.exe on a regular basis.

gary_sc

Community Expert

I think the problem you might be having is that you're making this too complicated, @michaela38849736

Bridge is a viewer of "things" in folders. Unlike Lightroom Classic, which relies upon a catalog (and you do need to import images into Lightroom Classic), Bridge does not. If you download your images into a folder and "point" Bridge to that folder, you will see all of your images. Simply, there is nothing to import into.

Can you let us know if you're on a PC or a Mac and we can supply some tips to help you along.

M

michaela38849736Author

Known Participant

I'm running Windows 11. I don't think I'm making things too complicated. Bridge can create a new folder structure that is better organized than my decade plus old collection of files. This new structure will make it easier to deal with the files going forward, but this can only be accomplished if the files are coming from an external source. I even tried an exfat formatted external drive and bridge does not recognize it on the device list. That drive is the one I would use if I was recovering pro-res video on my iPhone.

L

Lumigraphics

Brainiac

I've tried files on my local ssd as well as the external ssd I would use for pro-res video recording with my iPhone. I can't figure out what makes a drive become a camera, but that external ssd should qualify. I was hoping to use the photo downloader to take years of image files from 5 different cameras and move them to the same directory scheme I'm using when downloading new work. I found a suggestion to use batch rename, but that won't create the new target directories.

External devices can be accessed in different ways by a computer. Memory cards are handled differently than external hard drives. Photo Downloader doesn't work with hard drives.

I personally don't use it because its flaky and my workflow doesn't need it anyway. Just copy files with the Finder or Explorer.

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