Adobe Bridge vs. Lightroom

I'm just digging into CS6 and a lot of the videos I am watching use Bridge as the go-between for the various pieces of the suite. But the more I look into it the more Bridge seems to look and act like Lightroom, and it seems that it's pretty much a choice one needs to make between the two since using them both is redundant. Am I getting this right? It seems like you need to choose a preferred "Home" and then work out of that - either Lightroom or Bridge, but not both - with the choice probably hinging on how man other tools do you use beyond PS (i.e. Illustrator).

Anyone here switch to Bridge from Lightroom? If so, why?

I use CS5 and love Bridge. I use it all the time and it is by far the easiest and quickest way to make proofs. If I use film, I can scam all the images and make a proof a whole lot quicker than I could doing a contact sheet and the image will be a lot larger. When you have a client who wants proofs yesterday, it is a great way to get them to them very quickly.

LR and Bridge have a lot of similarities but are meant to compliment two different work-flows. Bridge is a great program for CS centric workflows whereas LR is more for CS independent workflows that need access to plugins like Nik, Topaz, etc. Both are excellent programs and there is a lot of overlap but I don't think either can fully replace the other.

Understood, and I can do all that in Lightroom as well, which brings me back to the heart of the question, which is really, "Is Bridge really "Lightroom for Photoshop people"?"

Thanks, Dave. That's sort of what I was thinking, you just said it better. Each serves to manage workload with the key being where you do most of your work. If I ever find myself relying more and more on Photoshop then I can see where Bridge might be a better solution for me. But I've been using Lightroom for so long I find myself far more comfortable with that as a home-base.

I haven't used Bridge in a long time... If I remember correctly, it was basically a file management program, with no editing capability... In which case, it would be redundant to most of what LR provides...

I have been involved in graphics since the '80s... and have used just about every graphics program (even wrote a few myself)... and I can do 99.9% of everything a photographer needs to do in LR...

The way LR and PS are made to work together is, you use Lightroom to move, apply presets and develop a photograph. For 85 % of amateurs, it's all they will ever need and you can avoid the five year learning curve and absurd expense of PS. But let's say you want to go a step further and remove a power line from a photo, or do pixel by pixel editing, then you go one more step in Lightroom and PS opens with your photo in it.... When done, you can drop back into Lightroom. Photoshop was designed as a stand alone program, with no file handling, so bridge was created to move files around first. Lightroom was built from the ground up as a photography tool, it is tremendously powerful and can do most photo stuff... Until you get way out there. Lots of pre-Lightroom people are out there, so there is a disproportionate number of PS users than there would have been if Lightroom and PS had been available at the beginning of digital photography. For them, well, they know the tool and are comfortable with it's archaic interface and steep learning curve... You can tell I'm a real fan of PS after using it for several years, actually the suite... With Illustrator. I had deadlines, and would be kept up late at night trying to fine some simple command that was hidden until you pressed the "ubscure key" number 34. JD

I'm not new to PCs I've used a huge percentage of the software packages since available since 1985... PS doesn't stand for PhotoShop, it stands for Photoshop Sx... Hmmm, I feel better... I didn't realize how much hostility I hold for that program. If your a rich masochist , I highly recommend it.