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Samoreen
Inspiring
October 17, 2020
Answered

Permanently filtering out non image files

  • October 17, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 2974 views

Hi,

When browsing in Bridge, I'd like to only see RAW files, JPEG files, TIFF files and that's it. I don't want to have to set these filtering options each time I open a folder or after I relaunch Bridge. This is an obvious feature that I can find in many other viewers. I can't believe that Bridge is unable to make this filtering settings sticky.

What did I miss ?

 

Thanks in advance.

Correct answer Lumigraphics

 

As for filtering other types of files, you would need to write a custom filter extension in Extendscript.

3 replies

whcressall
whcressall
Known Participant
November 12, 2022

I have the same question. And I found the functional solution - albeit not the literal solution.

Right-click in the "Content:whateveryounamedyourfolder" window and select "sort>by type". Yes you still have to scroll down to the .RAW section but there they are. All together in an alphabetical list.

It isn't perfect but it allows Bridge to at least organize your file ecosystem and makes finding what you want easier.

It does seem silly to me that once Bridge does its primary job (bridging access for all file types in the adobe ecosystem) it doesn't take the next logical step (now that I see everything, let's focus on the specific reason I opened Bridge in the first place: using the .xyz file). Although simply sorting by type goes nearly all the way to doing exactly this.

 

Hope this is even kind of what you were looking for.

L
LumigraphicsCorrect answer
Brainiac
December 29, 2021

 

As for filtering other types of files, you would need to write a custom filter extension in Extendscript.

    gary_sc
    gary_sc
    Community Expert
    December 29, 2021

    Thanks Lumigraphics,

     

    Because I tend to keep the contents of what I'm working on in the folder that I'm working with, I completely forgot about Bridge's tremendous filtering capability. 

     

    I just created a folder with many different file types of things I had sitting on my desktop to see how varied the Filtering would go. Worked like a charm. If you want an option to combine several of these options into one checkbox, it might be possible to have that scripted for you, but with your background, that shouldn't be too hard.

     

     

    As far as Adobe not listening to its users, that's an interesting subject: It's been my experience with over 25 years of using Adobe products, the advanced users claim they do not listen to them, and the beginners claim they do not listen to them. I think that Adobe looks at upcoming trends and tries to satisfy new users at the sacrifice of current users. For example, Adobe has been going all out on Cloud services to help get those who take pictures with phones and not as aggressively helping those with an SLRC.

     

    But that's just been my observation which is partial and skewed. 

    gary_sc
    gary_sc
    Community Expert
    October 17, 2020

    Hi Samoreen,

     

    Can't be done and here's why: Bridge is designed (intentionally) to show you all the files in a folder. It was designed this way so that you could see Word files, FileMaker files, Illustrator files, InDesign files, Photoshop files, etc. It was intended to be the "bridge" between applications and for some part it has remained that way (admittedly not as well as originally intended).

     

    Think of Bridge as an extended "viewer of files" as one finds in Explorer or Finder. So if you open a folder that has Word files, FileMaker files, Illustrator files, InDesign files, Photoshop files, etc, it will show you Word files, FileMaker files, Illustrator files, InDesign files, Photoshop files, etc. If you only want to see certain types of files you will have to either filter them or keep your images all in one folder.

     

    So, here's one thing I do that helps me: Each month I do the newsletter for my woodworking club. I get sent Word files, web links, photos, and occasional other files as well. All of these files go into a folder for the upcoming newsletter (2020-11(Nov)). If you were to send me an article and some photos I'd put them into a folder (Samoreen) and inside that I'd have "Samoreen.docx" the images. That way all I'd see is the article you wrote and the images. But inside the issue's folder I'd just see a bunch of folders.

     

    My point is to that I avoid have lots of mixed file types by organization, not filtering. 

     

    Let me add that Bridge works WONDERFULLY for me for these kinds of tasks. When I'm JUST working on images, I use Lightroom Classic because that way I only see images because LRC cannot see other file types AND the structural organization of LRC doesn't mix file types.

     

    Hope all that makes sense.

      S
      SamoreenAuthor
      Inspiring
      October 17, 2020

      Thanks for the explanation, Gary. Very clear.

       

      I understand the purpose of the software. However, it should not prevent me from deciding to filter out everything that's not an image. Usually, who can do more can do less. This is not the case here. Anyway, there is some inconsistency in the program's behavior : the folders I'm browsing with Bridge generally only contain images and their sidecar files. Bridge automatically filters out the XMP files but is not aware of the other sidecar files generated by other software (e.g. DxO Photolab generates .DOP files and Capture One generates .COS files). I should have a way to add these extensions along with XMP.

       

      So, it seems that Bridge is not what I need. I'll have to resort to something else. Not a problem.

      Greetings from Fontainebleau, France.

      --Patrick
      gary_sc
      gary_sc
      Community Expert
      December 29, 2021

      Oh, sorry, I see it was Samoreen who started the discussion.   If you come up with any other ways of making 'sticky' filtering, let me know


      To both Kurt and Samoreen, 

       

      Yes, there are other applications that can do what you want but please consider that Bridge was written to "bridge" all of Adobe's applications. In fact, it's the ONLY application in all of Adobe's applications that can "bridge," or unify the color settings in all of Adobe's applications (Edit (menu) -> Color Settings…).

       

      If you're working on a number of files that include Photoshop, Illustrator, TextEdit, Word, InDesign, etc, you can find and access them very easily in Bridge.

       

      As Kurt has shown, there are ways to get to what you want but do consider that it's BECAUSE of the way that Bridge was designed, it's doing what it does.

       

      Let me add that for years I was using Photomatrix to do my HDR photography and didn't use Lightroom because it didn't show .hdr files. I had to use Bridge. Now that both Lightroom and ACR's HDR capabilities are vastly superior to Photomatrix, I now use Lightroom Classic for all of my travel and personal photographs.

       

      What I'm saying here is that your needs should dictate your software. Your software should not dictate your needs. Use what lets you do your best the best way.

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