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Searching, sorting, and filtering in Bridge

Michael Ninness

This video shows you how to use keywords and metadata in Bridge to search, sort, and filter images in one or more folders. You also learn how to save a search query as a collection and create an item in the Favorites panel.

Requirements

To follow along with this article, you will need the following software:

• Bridge CS3

Watch this tutorial in the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Video Workshop.

Searching, sorting, and filtering

1. In Adobe Bridge, open any folder of images on your computer.

2. Choose the Filter tab to display the Filter panel. This new feature in Adobe Bridge lets you change the current view in the Contents panel to focus on the images you really need.

   You can filter using ratings such as the three and four stars here, by image keywords, and various other items. Each rating contains a count of how many images have that attribute. To filter your view, simply select one of the filter criteria.

3. In the Filter panel, select the four-star rating. This automatically filters the images in the Content panel (see Figure 1).

   

   Figure 1: Selecting criteria from the Filter panel automatically updates the Contents panel.

4. Select the three-star rating. Selecting another filter augments the additional criteria.
5. To sort images when you are filtering with multiple criteria, click the Ascending or Descending button in the upper right of the Filter panel.

6. To remove filters, in the Filter panel click the check mark to deselect the criteria.

   The Filter panel can reduce how many searches you need to perform on images. However, you may want to search with criteria that's not visible in the Filter panel.

7. Choose Window > Metadata to open the Metadata panel and select any image. If this file was renamed, the original name would be saved and appear in the Preserved Filename field in the Metadata panel (see Figure 2).

   This original filename, along with the other metadata, does not appear in the Filter panel, but you can search for it.

   

   Figure 2: The Metadata panel, showing the preserved filename

8. Press Ctrl/Cmd and F to open the Find dialog box (see Figure 3).

   

   Figure 3: The Find dialog box lets you search by various types of information.

9. Choose All Metadata from the Criteria pop-up menu.
10. Choose Contains from the second pop-up menu and enter your image's name in the text box.
11. Click Find. The results automatically appear in the Content panel.
12. Click the Back button at the top of the Adobe Bridge Document window to exit the Search Results folder.
13. Select another image in your folder.

14. Choose the Keywords panel. Click a keyword to apply it to this image. I am going to select an image of my daughter and choose a keyword I created in a previous exercise, Sofija.

    Now, say you want to find all files with this keyword, not just the files in this folder, but in all the subfolders as well.

15. Choose File>New Folder to create a new folder in your original images folder. Click and drag the image you applied the keyword to into this folder.
16. Now click the Flatten View button to show all the images in the master directory, regardless of whether they're in subfolders. Now you can see all of the images in the main folder and the subfolder you just creaed.
17. Press Ctrl+F (Windows) or Ctrl+F (Mac OS) to open the Find dialog box.
18. Choose the Sample folder from the Look In pop-up menu.
19. Choose Keywords from the Criteria pop-up menu.
20. Choose Contains from the second pop-up menu and enter the keyword you selected for the image in Step 14 in the text box.
21. Choose Include Subfolders to include the subfolders in the search query. You could simply run the search, but instead, you'll save the search as a collection so that it can be used multiple times.

Creating a collection

To be able to run a search multiple times, you can save it as a collection.

1. Select Save as Collection and enter a one word description for collection name.
2. Click Save. The search results automatically appear in the Contents panel.
3. Click the Back button to return to the main folder of images.
4. Select a diffferent image that has not been tagged with a keyword.
5. Select the same keyword you selected previously from the Keywords panel.
6. Click the folder icon next to the navigation bar to go up one folder level and find your collection. Collections are saved as icons within Bridge.
7. Drag the icon to the Favorites panel.

8. Double-click the collection icon to re-run the search. Notice that the search results now include both of your tagged images (see Figure 4).

   

   Figure 4: Use Find Collections to run searches again and again.

   Feel free to explore these tools more. With the Find command, the Filter and Keywords panels, and the ability to save searches as collections, it has never been easier to find and organize your assets in Bridge.

Where to go from here

For more information and additional tutorials, visit the Adobe Design Center.