I’ve got tips for you today on how to use Adobe Bridge for photographers and anyone who’s looking to cull through photos faster and more efficiently. Check out my written instructions and video to watch me show you how to use Adobe Bridge for quickly culling and selecting which images I want to edit from a session. Full instructions are below as well a video!

Adobe Bridge is a free program put out by Adobe. I think it’s supposed to be for organizing photos, but I use my own system for doing that. I use Bridge to quickly go through and select which images I want to drop into Lightroom and edit there. Here’s how I use it:

How to Use Adobe Bridge: Step 1

Once I’ve downloaded my RAW files into a file on my external hard drive, I open up Bridge and select the appropriate folder.

How to Use Adobe Bridge: Step 2

You’ll see all your files pop up at the bottom. When I used Lightroom for culling, I would go through and delete ones I didn’t like. With Bridge, I give each image I love, or even kinda like a 5 star rating. Adobe Bridge is awesome because it can quickly read a large RAW file. Faster than Lightroom can read them.

How to Use Adobe Bridge: Step 3

I quickly go through the session and pick out the best. If there’s a series that I can’t quite tell which one is most in focus or has the most “good” faces, I just 5-star all of them.

How to Use Adobe Bridge: Step 4

Once I’m done, I head to the left side of the screen and select “5-star” images. I then select all of those and open Lightroom.

How to Use Adobe Bridge: Step 5

With Bridge and Lightroom both open, I just drag all the 5-star images over to Lightroom and it imports them while keeping them in the same location on my hard drive.

How to Use Adobe Bridge: Step 6

That’s it! I go through and do a mass edit with my favorite preset and then go through and do tweaks to each image as needed.

Here’s the video you can watch if you’re a visual learner!

Super easy and such a time saver! I usually cull a Classic family session (60 minutes) in about 10-15 minutes. I’ve even culled weddings in about 30-45 minutes vs. the HOURS it took me to cull my first wedding!

I highly, highly recommend checking out Bridge if you’re looking to streamline and speed up your culling experience! Let me know if you have any questions!