Digital Photography—Download & Organize Files

Fall Quarter 2017, Kalamazoo College

Richard Koenig, Professor

Download Images with Adobe Bridge

To download your images, it’s easiest to insert the SD card directly into the computer—use the slot on the right side. (One can also plug one’s camera into the back of the iMac with a USB cord.)

Open Bridge (“Br” Icon in launcher)

Applications folder in launcher

Find Adobe Bridge CS

While you have it open, please set it so the icon stays in your launcher

Get Photos

Menu Bar => File => Get photos from camera

(Or, in lieu of this, you can simply treat your camera/card as a drive and copy the images into a new folder)

Photo Downloader will open

Location => Choose

Select Desktop => Make a new folder—name it something helpful (your first name and date)

You may have the downloader rename the files if you like (but I do not do this)

Hit “Get Photos”

Open the folder to see if this has indeed happened

Dismount your Card or Camera

Drag the card or camera icon to the trash—when it disappears you may disconnect the camera from the computer (or remove the card from the slot).

Important—when you delete files from your camera, use the camera controls to do this. Do not put the files in trash to delete (as it may harm the memory card).

Organize and Edit with Adobe Bridge

Near the upper right corner, look for a tab that says “essentials”

You’ll do the following in that mode

Find the location of your images—look to the upper left to find the desktop and the particular file

Once you’ve found it, click on it and use the slider in the lower right hand corner to enlarge the size of the individual files—this program makes super thumbnails, which you can enlarge and reduce as needed

Use icons at upper right to rotate the vertical shots—or use these short cuts:

Command [ Rotates the verticals counter clockwise

Command ] Rotates the verticals clockwise

Now pore over your images to find your selects—this is a rough cut of 36 to 45 images

You’ll want to select out (and contact) 36 to 45 of your shots for a normal assignment (pick a number that is easily divided by three—so you can put 12 to 15 on a single contact sheet)

Use this shortcut to mark your selects:

Click on the desired image and hit Command 1 (that’s the number one)—this will put a single star at the bottom of the file)

When you’re done going through your files, look to see how many you’re picked. Look in the left hand center part of screen for the tab that has one star—you will see a count there as well. Add or subtract as needed to get to 36 or 45.

If you click on the tab with one star, your select images are now shown in the center of the screen—without the rejects to clutter things up.

In any case, once you’ve finessed this group into the amount you want to contact, I want you to copy them to a new location…

Select all of the images in this file now by hitting Command A

File => Copy To => Make a new folder on the desktop, call it “selects” from which we will make contacts

This step puts copies of your select files in a separate place so that you know you’re not messing up your master images (which you should save intact on your own computer and/or a disk).

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