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Can you work with both iPhoto and Adobe Bridge?

Cyril Roger

Cyril Roger

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Adobe BridgeEven though up till now all my pictures have been stored in iPhoto, I’ve gotten to a point where I can’t stand working with the application anymore. I find it too slow and too limited in terms of editing. I’m also not satisfied with the way you can organize and store your photos. The easiest solution would simply be to switch to Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture, but I’m waiting for a new Mac to do that. This is why I’ve gotten around to using Adobe Bridge, until I choose a more advanced solution. Now Adobe Bridge is never meant to replace any of the previously mentioned photo management apps. It doesn’t store pictures, but only displays them in multiple ways. As the name mentions, it also works as a bridge with all other Adobe applications, and you can quickly access specific functions in them, like merging to HDR in Adobe Photoshop.

I’m not ready to export all my pictures from iPhoto and save them in new folders in the Pictures folder of my Mac, so is there a way for Adobe Bridge and iPhoto to coexist? You can try but it is a little risky. The iPhoto library is a little complex and you can easily get lost in it. To access pictures stored in iPhoto, go to Library>Pictures>iPhoto Library and choose the folder with the date the pictures were taken at. If that doesn’t work you can also try this way. One thing to get right though is to select the correct pictures to edit.

iPhotoAs this forum discussion does well to explain, iPhoto saves photos in three folders: Originals, Modified and Data. Originals stores all the pictures imported from your camera, Modified has the pictures with your edits done in iPhoto, such as cropping or rotating, and Data contains thumbnails. Depending on how you work, you’ll choose to work with either the originals or modified, but try to stay consistent, or you’ll end up not knowing which ones are which. I prefer only working on the modified photos, that way I always keep the originals (for backup reasons), and they also already include any changes done in iPhoto. One really important thing to keep in mind though is to never, ever, move or delete pictures from your iPhoto libraries. You’ll risk messing up the iPhoto library structure and losing pictures.

Ultimately though, to the question, can you work with both iPhoto and Adobe Bridge, I’d say no. As said before the iPhoto library structure is complex and you’ll end up corrupting it. If you’ve gotten to this point, you’re simply better off switching to Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture in the long run. If like me you can’t do that for now, you’re safer choosing between iPhoto or Adobe Bridge. I’m choosing Bridge. In the future, we’ll compare how to import pictures from iPhoto to Lightroom and Aperture and choose which one is easier.

Cyril Roger

Cyril Roger

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