Why Lightroom over Bridge?

I have a couple of days left on my demo version and I am still trying to see the advantage of LR over Bridge. In RAW 4 I can edit multiple files at once too.



I do like the Web Gallery module but think LR is pricey if that is all I'm going to use.



I have used the Bridge/PS combo for thousands of photos and I think I must be missing something.
Why Lightroom over Bridge?
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/productinfo/faq/lr_bridge.html



http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/03/adobe_photoshop_bridge_cs3_v s.html



Frankly, I can't seem to get Bridge to do anything useful. I don't have Bridge 2.
Why Lightroom over Bridge?
I got it for the ''management'' features in the Library module. The rest is just gravy for me. I'm not a Bridge expert so I can't comment much on it. I do use it occasionally as an image browser, because Lightroom is not an image browser and Bridge is compatible with Lightroom.



I had done nothing much about cataloging for years. I used a product that could manage a few thousand photos for some of our most important trips, tagging them in there. But we were about to scan in thousands of old slides and I had no way to catalog them all.



I originally purchased Elements but after a couple of weeks I decided it didn't give me enough flexibility, nor was I confident about its ability to handle many thousands of images. I had looked at Lighroom Beta 4 and had some issues with it. So it was just at the right time that Lightroom V1 was released and it served my needs much better than Beta 4. So at $199, I bought it and I'm quite happy with it.

Using Bridge,then Camera RAW, then PS hasn't been an efficient workflow for me. LR allows me to stay in one program to organize and select, then develop a group of photos and individual photos,then print.



I still like Bridge, especially CS3. PS allows for finer control thru selections and layers. Something LR doesn't do, yet.

I'm productive with the ACR-Bridge-Photoshop workflow. I really don't need Lightroom.



But I love Lightroom.



Could be just personal preference, but I've never been completely comfortable with Camera Raw as a modal dialog box that locks you out of the app that hosts it. In Lightroom, the raw controls are at the same level as any other feature, so going back and forth is fast and smooth.



Lightroom saves an edit history for every image. There is nothing like that in Bridge-ACR; once you exit ACR, there's no history except to reset. Keywording is also far superior in Lightroom, much faster and more flexible and efficient.



In Bridge's favor, CS3 lets you open two synchronized windows and put one on another monitor, so you can have the thumbnails and metadata in one monitor and a big preview on another monitor.



Lightroom also saves time at export. With the Bridge-ACR-Photoshop workflow, I use Bridge to set up and run Photoshop processing actions on a number of images. However, I can't start another action until the current one finishes. In Lightroom, I can set up my different export presets (e.g., print, video, web versions) and run multiple exports in parallel, saving a significant amount of time and making great use of all the CPU cores.



Your decision probably depends on whether you think you'll save enough hourly labor over Bridge to make back Lightroom's price.

olay regenerist