Should I use Bridge?

[Janet5E32]

Before I go further on my keyword list, I think I should back up and ask if Bridge is the way for me to go.  Ultimately I want to publish some books for family members, a combination of photos, genealogy and stories.  I plan to use Mixbook.  I have old family photos which I will scan myself as I don’t want to let them out of my hands.  With those added to already scanned and digital images, I will have a total around 2500 to 3000 covering 1870 to present, although the last ten years are in the Photos app.  I will get them out gradually and put them in folders on my Mac desktop arranged by year.  They can stay put for now.

My plan was to rename each image manually, so they sort chronologically, and add keywords.  After that I would gather them by groups into collections for each project, through keyword searching.  I was planning to use Photoshop Elements to spruce up some of the old ones, but not dramatically.  I really don’t want to commit to learning Photoshop.  Lightroom was a possibility, but I really wish it was not solely a subscription model - not so much the money, but the principle.  There are other editors as well that I am looking into.

All the images would go on solid state drives, one to each of my sons.  But the most important will be the books.

So, does this plan sound reasonable and will Bridge do it for me?

[gary_sc]

Hi Janet,

I can understand the hard decisions and the issues behind them that you face. In the end, you will have to decide what is best for YOU. The elements you must work around is effort, money, and time. As the simily of "Make it Better, Faster, Cheaper — pick two!" You also must make decisions. 

Without any doubt in my mind, you'd be much better off with Lightroom Classic than Bridge for your work and goal. Since you plan on doing this for family photos, keep in mind that Lightroom Classic has a very good face recognition. I used it on the thousands of family photos I have (from the early 1900s to present) and while it was dumber than a bag of hammers in the beginning, as it learned it got amazingly better and better. All of those names go into the LRC's keywords. Plus you can add dates, locations, events, all very easy. Plus, you can do a variety of image enhancement right in LRC without ever going into PS (but with a few clicks and you're in PS if you need to go to the next level). Plus, from within LRC, you can make what are called Collections that can be shared on the web to LR-Web and you can choose that anyone or specific people can look and/or comment on the images.

One aspect of LRC that is not often mentioned is that if this is a single project, one other option you have is after you are done, you can stop your payment and have full access to LRC WITH THE EXCEPTION that you will no longer be able to enhance any image and the LR Web feature will no longer be available to you. But viewing, using your keywords, etc. will all be availble. 

I have been a Bridge user since before it was Bridge and I use it just about every day. But while I have a number of photographic professional friends who use it exclusively, I personally think they are wasting their time. But that's their time and their money. You have quite a journey ahead of you and you are VERY wise to look at all options at this point before you make too much of a commitment in any one of the roads ahead of you. 

I can sum up the benefits of Bridge versus Lightroom Classic with one strong argument: Bridge is an image browser with no enhancement capabilities at all while Lightroom Classic is a full complete database with many different functionalities that include image inhancement, bookmaking, web sharing, and a very robust keywording functionality. 

I hope I've given you things to think about.

[Janet5E32]

Thanks, Gary.

I will think about this more.  A few questions:

Is it easier to enter keywords in Lightroom?  I have my keywords list pretty much done, including most of the individuals whom I will include.  It seems pretty straightforward in Bridge as I have run a few tests as I have set up the hierarchies I need.  Although I have decided to not do automatic parent keywords - the hierarchy is just for my own ease of viewing.

Since renaming files and adding keywords are the first steps, is there any reason I should not do this now in Bridge even if I move to Lightroom down the road?  I am sure I have a few months of this preliminary work.  I have read that you should not go back and forth between the two programs.

If I did go the Lightroom route, Bridge can still be used as a viewer, correct?  

Most of the editing I would do is healing imperfections.  I have done this before in Elements several years ago.  It is pretty easy.  Does Lightroom have equivalent tools or would I have to use Photoshop to do that kind of work?

I appreciate all your input.

[gary_sc]

Hi Janet,

I'm going to do this in steps.

Here are several links to how to add keywords in LR, I suggest you follow both to get a good depth of what you can accomplish:

1) https://jkost.com/blog/2020/03/working-with-keywords-in-lightroom-classic.html

2) https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-keyword-photos/

2nd should you add keywords and/or names now?

Renaming files is bordering on wasting time, UNLESS you wish to give primary family names, e.g., The Lincolns, The Madisons, etc. However, with keywords, this almost becomes irrelevant. One of the benefits of keywords is if you have a family gathering and both the Madisons and the Lincolns are both there, keeping them in separate folders "can" become an issue in Bridge, not so much in Lightroom. And if you're looking for Aunt Maude, she can be found if she goes to every party that's got chocolate cake regardless of who's giving the party.

Plus, the ease of adding keywords is so much easier in LR than Bridge, you'll probably want to save yourself the time.

Using Bridge as a viewer: Completely unnecessary and potentially damaging.

Part 1) Bridge IS a viewer. You use Bridge to viewer your images and have access to all of your images at any time. Where you "might" use Bridge is let's say a family member sends you some new images. You may wish to review them in Bridge before you import them into LRC. I do this because it's handy and gives me lots of initial image information on what I'm importing and where I might want to place it.

Part 2) Potentially damaging, because IF you are looking at images that are already imported into LRC, IF BY ANY CHANCE you intentionally or unintentionally move an image, that confuses LRC. It's easy to fix but why give yourselve issues to fix? Here's the deal: LRC is a great database but (again) dumber than a bag of hammers. Everything you do in LRC is done from within the structure of LRC. If you told LRC that you put image "myphoto.jpg" into the XYZ folder and out side of LRC that image is moved, than LRC doesn't have a clue as to where that image is. It know that there is a photo called "myphoto.jpg" but doesn't know where it is. If this happens, you can tell LRC where it is and everything is fine again. 

Let me add one more thing on top of all this mostly because you are doing an excellent job of getting things mapped out before getting too enmeshed in things: LRC does not care where images are located: they can be on your main hard drive, on external drives, on flash drives, it doesn't care. But YOU should care. I strongly suggest that you select/create a folder where all photos will be moved to as you import them into LRC. This then becomes very easy to backup, to navigate to, etc. If you do have images all over the place, finding them can become, well, messy.

Adjustment: Yes, it can deal with the vast majority of them. It has spot healing tools, circular filters, rectangular filters, brushes, etc. Occasionally there are things that do require PS and if you do get LRC, you will also be getting PS so you have it right there. Meanwhile, Adobe has been making great strides in providing guides and lessons for those who are stepping into PS for the first time. However, you do have some experience with PSE so it will not be completely new stuff for you.

Let me add this final thing: if you go to Lightroom Queen's website (directed to above for keyword info), be sure to sign up for her newsletter (there will be very few, mostly when new versions of LRC come out and she will break down the new features for you), she also gives you an excellent PDF with LRC's basics and how to do most things. It's truly very good.

Sorry for this being so long but I didn't have enough time to write a short letter.

[Janet5E32]

Thank you so much again!

I read the links you gave me and am familiar with Lightroom Queen's website - very useful.

I am going to think this over more.  This project has been waiting for years; a little longer won't hurt.  I did read that renaming images can certainly be done before importing into Lightroom so in the meantime, while I am deciding, I can do that.  Since you gave me the tip about the click-pause-click and then tabbing, it is quite efficient to do that in Bridge.  Yes, I know the argument for not renaming images, but there is something bothersome about the sloppiness of the current file names.  I am not doing them by family name but strictly by time (yyyymmdd) plus a bit of location info.  My folders are organized by year and that seems logical to me.

I will also look into the book making capability.  I like Mixbook as I can add a lot of text easily.  They also print with archival paper.  Not sure how Lightroom would measure up.  I don't like Apple Photo Books because basically they are only photo books!

I might opt for a Lightroom trial when I have a week I can devote to it, perhaps a rainy spell.  I am retired so a week would give me plenty of time to weigh the benefits.

While out for a walk, I decided that I like the ability in Bridge to see my keyword hierarchy on the left (expanded as necessary), the images in the center and the metadata on the right.  Perhaps Lightroom also has a one screen view as well.

This sounds rambling as I reread it.  But again, much appreciation.