metadata. Adobe’s Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is a labeling technology that allows you to embed data about a file, known as metadata, into the file itself. With XMP, desktop applications and back-end publishing systems gain a common method for capturing and sharing valuable metadata.10 On the right side of this list, notice a series of pencil icons. These icons indicate that you can enter information in these fields.Note: If you are not able to edit or add metadata information to a file, it could be locked. You can check by right-clicking on the file directly in Bridge and selecting Reveal in Explorer (Windows) or Reveal in Finder (Mac OS). In Windows, right-click the file, choose Properties, and uncheck Read-only; in Mac OS, right-click the file, choose Get Info, then change the Ownership (Sharing) and Permissions to Read and Write.
11 Scroll down until you can see Description Writer and click the pencil next to it. All editable fields are highlighted, and a cursor appears in the Description Writer field.
12 Type your name, or type Picture-by-me.
13 Scroll up to locate the Description text field. Click the Pencil icon to the right and type Goalie in net to add a description for the image, as shown in Figure 2-3.FIGURE 2-2: Scroll through the Metadata panel on the right side of the Bridge workspace.FIGURE 2-3: The description added to the image’s metadata.
14 Click the Apply button, located in the bottom-right corner of the Metadata panel, to apply your changes.You have now edited metadata that is attached to the image; this information will appear whenever someone opens your image in Bridge or views the image information in Adobe Photoshop using File ⇒ File Info.
Using Keywords
Using keywords — logical words to help you locate images more quickly — can reduce the amount of time it takes to find an image on a computer. Here’s how you can add your own keywords:
1 Keep the IMG_4088.JPG image selected, and then click the Keywords tab, which appears behind the Metadata panel.A list of commonly used keywords appears.
2 Click the New Keyword button at the bottom of the Keywords panel, as shown in Figure 2-4. Type Goalie into the active text field, and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac).
3 Click to select the empty checkbox to the left of the Goalie keyword. This adds the Goalie keyword to the selected image.
4 With the Goalie keyword still selected, click the New Sub Keyword button. This is the button to the left of the New Keyword plus sign button. Type Boy into the active text field, then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac).
5 Click on the empty checkbox to the left of the Boy keyword to also apply it to this image.You have now assigned a keyword and a sub keyword to the IMG_4088.JPG image. Now you will add a second keyword.FIGURE 2-4: Click the New Keyword button to add your own unique keyword to the file.
6 Select the Goalie keyword, and then click the New Keyword button at the bottom of the Keywords panel; a blank text field appears. Type Peewee and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac). Then, select the checkbox next to Peewee to assign the keyword to this image.
7 Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) on the Peewee keyword, and choose the option Rename. When the text field becomes highlighted, type Youth, press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac). Make sure the Youth checkbox remains selected. You can also enter information directly into the image by opening the image in Adobe Photoshop, and then choosing File ⇒ File Info. The categories that appear on the top include Description, Camera Data, IPTC, and IPTC Extension, among others. After it is entered in the File Info dialog box, the information is visible in Adobe Bridge.
Creating a Metadata Template
After you have added metadata to an image, you can easily apply it to more images by creating a metadata template. In this exercise, you apply the metadata template from the IMG_4088.JPG image to other images in the same folder:
1 Make sure that IMG_4088.JPG is selected in Adobe Bridge.
2 Choose Tools ⇒ Create Metadata Template.The Create Metadata Template window appears. If you scroll down you will see the keywords that you applied to this file. In the next few steps you will apply those same keywords to many other files. Adding keywords to events, or photoshoots can help make finding the files you need easier.
3 In the Template Name text field (at the top), type Game photos.In the Create Metadata Template window, you can choose the information that you want to build into a template. In this exercise, we choose information that already exists in the selected file, but if you wanted to, you could add or edit information at this point.
4 Select the checkboxes to the left of the following categories: Description, Description Writer, Keywords, and Date Created and then click Save, as shown in Figure 2-5.You have just saved a template. Next, you apply it to the other hockey images in this folder.FIGURE 2-5: Select a file and check the information you want to save into a metadata template.
5 Select the IMG_4087.JPG image, press and hold the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) key, and select the IMG_4083.JPG image.All the images are selected.
6 Choose Tools ⇒ Append Metadata and select Game Photos, as shown in Figure 2-6. Note that you can also choose Replace Metadata if you want to eliminate existing metadata.The same metadata has now been applied to all the images at once.
FIGURE 2-6: Choose the metadata template you want to use to add metadata to an image or images.
Searching for Files Using Adobe Bridge
Find the files that you want quickly and easily by using the Search tools built directly into Adobe Bridge and by taking advantage of the Filter panel.
In this example, you have a limited number of files to search within, but even so, you can still see how helpful these search features can be.
Searching by name or keyword
The benefit of adding metadata to your images is that you can use it to find your files later. Using the Find dialog box in Adobe Bridge, you can narrow your criteria down to make it easy to find your files when needed. Here’s how:
1 Make sure that you are still viewing the content in the Hockey folder.
2 Choose Edit ⇒ Find, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac OS).The Find dialog box appears.
3 Select Keywords from the Criteria drop-down menu, and type Goalie into the third text field (replacing Enter Text), as shown in Figure 2-7. Then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac).Because you are looking within the active folder only, you get a result immediately. The image files that you tagged with the Goalie keyword are visible.Note: You can click the
