I'm looking for some help/advice from those of you using both PSE5/6 and CS2/3.

I'm currently using the Organizer and I'm satisfied with the way it is working. I know that I can get to CS2 through the Organizer without Organizer getting mixed up and I assume that it would be the same with CS3. But, if I used Bridge instead, could I get to PSE6 without Bridge getting confused?

Do you use Bridge or Organizer to organize your photos? Pros/cons, advantages/disadvantages etc?

Can the Organizer tags & categories be imported into Bridge or would I be starting from scratch?

Any help or advice that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Amy,

I am currently using PSE5 Organizer and getting used to CS3/Bridge. I have been continuing to use Organizer as I have invested a bit on TAGS and dont want to loose that investment.

As I am typing this I am running an experiment where I used Organizer to write the tags to the files in Organizer and I think I am seeing them in Bridge.

Need to check things out, but will get back to you later with an update and progress report.

Hi John,

Thanks for running a test. That is exactly the information that I am looking for. I too have a lot of time invested in tagging the files for Organizer. I have about 11,000 photos with multiple tags on each. As I said, I'm happy with Organizer but don't want to miss something if Bridge has more to offer. I'm just beginning to get my feet wet with CS. The ideal situation would be if Bridge and Organizer are interchangeable and I could go back and forth between the two without lossing anything. I would also be interested in hearing your pros and cons for the two. Thanks again!

I am still using the organizer with CS3. I need to do a tutorial to get used to Bridge. If you are interested too, here are a few links:
http://www.gotmyidea.com/cat/adobe-brid ... -tutorials
http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/BasicBridgeSM.mov
http://creativesuitepodcast.com/index.p ... _id=196794
http://creativesuitepodcast.com/index.p ... _id=171215

Amy, make sure you join us for the Saturday "Get Technical with CS" tutorials. They really help you get used to CS3.

Amy,

Well, looks like yes and No.

I have been able to transfer tags from PSE5 Organizer and Access them in Bridge - at least for JPG, PSD and TIFF, but not for Camera Raw.

Bad news for me as most of my tagged images are RAW and a handful are PSD and JPG files.

What I did was open Organizer, then do an Edit, Select All - to select all of the images in my Organizer.

Next do a File, Write Tags to Photos.

Now when you go to Bridge and click in a Folder you should see the tags showing up in the Keywords (right hand side) in italics. If you right click on one of the italicized tags, it will give you a make persistent option.

What I haven’t figured out – and hope is possible is how to replicate the Organizer behavior and be able to select a keyword across all subfolders. Haven’t figured that out but there has to be a way. More studies to follow.

Hi Reka,

Thanks for the links. I will check them out and will also look in on your Get Technical with CS thread.

Hi John,

Thanks for your time and help in trying to figure this out. I guess the 'bad news' portion of your findings would not affect me at this time because I don't use camera raw right now. But, that is one of the reasons why I want to get into CS a little more. I currently have CS2 but didn't install Bridge. I'm getting an upgrade to CS3 soon so I'll be sure to install Bridge and also do some testing.

I think for now, I'll probably use Organizer for a base and then go to either PSE6 or CS3 depending on what I'm working on. For the time being, I think there will be enough to learn so I'll leave Bridge for the future. Thanks again!