Martini Hour 011, In Which Colleen Lures Back John and Russell—with Olives!

Submitted by colleen on 21 April 2009 - 12:15am.

Roundtable madness. A bridge too far. Dogs and cats living together....

For those of you who enjoyed our previous guests Russell Brown (Episode 007) and John Nack (Episode 009), independently and on their own, I've invited total chaos into the lounge by inviting them both at once. And to discuss, of all things, Adobe Bridge—or "the Bridge" as Deke insists on calling it. But once we settle the ever-controversial definite article question, we jump right in and talk about how darn nifty this oft-ignored application is. It spans the applications, like this:

(This "the bridge" artwork might give you a sense for the general whereabouts of the top-secret dekeLounge. Hint: It's not St. Louis.)

Although it's been around since CS2, the Bridge really came into its own with CS4. Before you even get to Photoshop, Bridge helps you label, rate, compare, and generally review your images so you can choose which of them are worthy your Photoshop-time. During our conversation, hear how John stumps Deke by mentioning that after you use that handy review mode to sort through your images, you can then turn it instantly into a collection. Then hear John sum up my favorite feature of working in Bridge, "the file is the truth." Meanwhile, Russell impresses us all with his ability to make panoramas come alive, even in audio only format. And you'll hear about Dr. Brown's Services for CS4 which includes Dr. Brown's Place-O-Matic which gives Bridge extra special functionality for HDR (or is that fake HDR?)

Interested? How can you resist? Here's the regular-quality (192kbps) audio file. You can stream, or for best results, right-click and choose Download or Save.

Don't want to miss a single episode of this singular treat for the ears and mind? Subscribe via iTunes. And don't forget, this is a separate subscription from your regular dekePod podcast.

Got a question you'd like us to answer on the show? Write us on the site, or even better, call 1-888-dekepod. (That's 1-888-335-3763.) Practice, be charming, and ask us something really intriguing. Or just ask a really sincere question with great earnestness.

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Comments

vector mask shapes

Submitted by sweet on 11 May 2009 - 5:39am.
Thanks a lot Deke for your prompt reply but no, it didnt help :( . Now i m not getting the same message but its not deleting the contents in any way. Not your fault, i must be that much dumb :( By the way i have gone through the essential training as well. There i got the idea about how to resize the vector masked shapes but dont know how to delete the contents of a shape. Is there anything else that can help?

vector mask shapes

Submitted by sweet on 10 May 2009 - 5:17pm.
hi deke, i m a beginner and going through photoshop one-on-one training. I created something with rectangular tool shape and stuck with it when i wanted to delete a part of rectangle. Photoshop gives me the message "couldn't complete your request because the contents of the layer are not directly editable". Don't know what to do? Feeling helpless. Can you please tell me how to delete any content from these shapes. thanks.

Photoshop's inherently alien rectangles

Submitted by deke on 11 May 2009 - 12:02am.
Try choosing Layer > Rasterize > Fill Content. That will convert the contents of the layer to pixels so you can edit the pixels directly. Does that help? Meanwhile, it sounds like you may be jumping in late in my One-on-One book or video. Which is fine, you can jump in anywhere that suits you. But like Photoshop itself, my training tends to make the most sense if approached sequentially. Photoshop is a beast best tamed thru patience. (Good news: tame it once, remain its master.) Something as inherently simple as the rectangular shape tool is one of Photoshop's more advanced features. Photoshop was designed to edit photos, not draw rectangles. It's a long story . . .

Photoshop Variations Missing in Photoshop x64 CS4

Submitted by Reno on 24 April 2009 - 9:25pm.
Hi Deke, I've been following along with the One-On-One Photoshop Essentials series. I'm at the "Introducing the Variations command" video. "Variations" did not appear as a menu selection and I went crazy for an hour trying to figure this out. I'm running: -Adobe CS4 Master Suite -Vista x64 I finally found something that suggested I check plug-ins and "Variations" was actually missing. I've been running the x64 bit verison of CS4 this whole time. It *IS* installed on the 32-bit version. Now I have minor issue where I need to re-do preferences and such on the 32-bit version because I can not find a download of the "Variations" plugin. I didn't even know but apparently the x32 and x64 versions don't share preferences. They do use the same workspace save files though. I have no idea if there are 32 and 62 bit version either. Can I possibly use the one installed in the 32 bit version for the 64 bit version of Photoshop? Also, I'm wondering what other plugins might be missing from the x64 bit version. The list is so long, how can you tell what you're suppose to have? I'm a loosing anything by just using the x32 version? Your videos are the best CBT videos I've ever seen. Keep making them please! -Reno

64Bit PS

Submitted by Archee on 24 April 2009 - 11:15pm.
Well it's not only variation but pretty much all plug ins available in 2008, do not support 64 PS, The worst scenario is with Photoframe but I'm sure with next release of PS and Win 7 more plugins are going to be integrated. You also noticed that adobe automatically installed with CS4 both version, exactly for the reason that many plugs are not available in 64 Vers. But if you have good system you can have both simultaneously running and just work on same file and select autoupdate the file info and you should be good to go. Note that Macs do not support 64 PS so since most of the graphics and any design work is done on Macs ( not in my case and even deke uses macbook that runs vista to record the tutorials - win has better capture screen soft - camtasia) so some of the version issues and differences might not be known to Deke and his design team. Adobe has to step up with update for all products supporting more RAM and 64 bit enviroment. AE and Prem.

Path to Bridge Cache

Submitted by inspiredmac on 24 April 2009 - 4:31pm.
Deke: In your video on the Bridge Cache you mentioned that we could find the path to the system folders on the "deke.com" site. I've been looking for some time now, and I can't find any reference to the paths for either Mac or PCs. Where would I locate the information? On my Mac, I have the following location: User/Library/Caches/bridge1 or bridge2 Although I've been using bridge and never purged the cache folder, they are, nonetheless, empty. Have I missed the REAL bridge cache folder? Thanks, Inspiredmac

When in bridge…

Submitted by flyboy on 26 April 2009 - 1:56am.
…press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac). Then choose “Cache” in the left window pane, and click “Choose” button on the right size. That will open the window allowing you to choose a folder, but it’ll also highlight the current location. Make sure you cancel out of this box when you’re done so as not to accidentally change the location. Mind you, your post tells me you probably did all this by now, but I could be wrong. Also, you may have purged your cache if you ever held Ctrl, Alt and O while in Photoshop (Cmd+Opt+O on a Mac, I believe). Although, you'd probably know about it due to a dialog box that pops up when you do this. -iVan Happy, happy, joy, joy! __________________________________________________

This Is A Test Comment

Submitted by salman22 on 24 April 2009 - 5:50am.
This is a TEST Comment Salman Khan Salman Khan http://www.google.com/

Just figured it out

Submitted by galefraney on 23 April 2009 - 5:25pm.
Regarding Stacks in Bridge, I just figured out that a minimum of 10 images must be within the stack before it begins to preview the the "play" button on top of the stack, and the slider that allows you to scrub through the images in the stack without opening the stack. It seems a bit glitchy though because if you have the scrubber bar moved anywhere to the right, you can't select and drag the stack until the slider bar is moved back to the far left . I took some trial and error to figure that out. If the slider is not set to the far left, when you click on the stack, it merely opens the stack instead of selecting it. Very confusing behaviour.

Robert Plant

Submitted by stevenemartin on 23 April 2009 - 3:10pm.
Where is that confounded Bridge?

Regarding Stacks in Bridge

Submitted by galefraney on 23 April 2009 - 3:02pm.
I have a question regarding Stacks in Bridge. Yesterday when I made a stack, there was a play button at the top of the stack that allows me to scrub through the thumbnails within the stack, but today that play button isn't visible. I thought maybe I had turned something off in the Preferences, so I looked there, but no matter what I do, that play button and slider on top of the stacks doesn't appear. Any idea what may have caused this and how to get it back?

Received Prize - Thank you !!

Submitted by galefraney on 23 April 2009 - 2:59pm.
Hello Colleen & Deke, Thanks so much, I just received the book and goodies. Wonderful !! Very much appreciated! Gale :-)

Bridge with Twittering birds on top!

Submitted by stevecoda on 23 April 2009 - 5:54am.
I am currently trying to get my head around Bridge... after years of just opening files with the App I want to work in.. Loads I want to learn, PLUS I am trying to add to my twitter page background.. it's slowly developing, and I keep updating it to the live twitter page and would be grateful for any comments.. my twitter ID is graphicsartist. Thanks! http://twitter.com/GraphicsArtist

Under the Bridge

Submitted by Remiss63 on 21 April 2009 - 10:40am.
This sounds like a great summit of Adobe masters of the universe. I'm relatively new to Bridge (only been using it since upgrading from CS to CS4 recently). It seems like a useful tool, but I can't wait to hear watch you all have to say about it. will be sure to download and listen in tonight when I get home from work! Remiss63 http://remiss63.blogspot.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/raimist