Why can't I just copy/paste?

April 25, 2007 5:07 PM

Does Adobe Bridge CS3 allow one to copy Camera RAW settings from one image to another? If so, how?

I mainly use Photoshop to process RAW files from my Nikon D50 (on a strictly hobbyist basis). My usual workflow with CS2 would be to load a series of images in Adobe Bridge, make the necessary adjustments to one image in a series, and then copy the settings over to the rest of the images and work from there. It's not the most efficient way, I know, but it works for me.

I've been giving the CS3 beta a whirl to see if it's really an improvement. So far, it seems to be (I really, really like the B&W color mix adjustment), but for one glaring problem: I cannot seem to copy camera RAW settings in Bridge at all!

In CS2 I would simply right-click the image thumbnail in Bridge, select "Copy Camera RAW settings", and then similarly highlight the target images, right-click, and paste. I would then get a handy dialog asking me which settings I want to copy over. Yet despite the simplicity (and usefulness!) of this function, it does not seem to exist in CS3 at all!

Please hope me. If this is actually impossible in Bridge CS3, I may have to go back to CS2. I am not particularly interested in using Lightroom (too slow!). Did Adobe simply remove this feature so they could sell me fancier software?

posted by neckro23 to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V? Just a guess - maybe it's just gone from the context menu.
posted by aye at 6:38 PM on April 25, 2007

You can do this in Lightroom really easily. Actually, you should just download the Lightroom 1.0 trial because I can't think of any reason to use Bridge over it.
posted by bradbane at 7:06 AM on April 26, 2007

Well, I made a last-ditch effort to figure it out and finally found it. Adobe seems to have moved the feature to Camera RAW instead of Bridge. You can now load multiple images into Camera RAW, and they'll show up in a sidebar. Select the ones you want to match, click "Synchronize", and you've got it.

Phew!

(I did try Lightroom again, but still hated it. Why do they have to make it completely incompatible with Photoshop's Camera RAW? Why does it have to use its own separate "library"? Blah!)
posted by neckro23 at 4:46 PM on April 28, 2007

Alternately: If you're working with presets (I use them frequently), you can just click your preset on the right, and it will also apply it to the entire selected group, regardless of which one is "focussed".

Why they changed this from how it was in CS2, I have NO earthly idea. It seems as though the two could work together even.
I've already screwed up by accidentally synchronizing with the wrong image "active"..
posted by Jack Karaoke at 4:58 PM on April 29, 2007

neckro23: Lightroom can convert the RAW processing information to the XMP sidecar file if you want to work with it in Camera Raw or whatever. Actually, I think you can make that the default action.
posted by bradbane at 9:26 PM on May 2, 2007