Ever wanted to convert just about any file to JPEG from Bridge, or to attach browsed files to email? Photographer/scripter/Bridge quality engineer David Franzen has your back, having posted a set of great scripts to the Adobe Exchange. He writes:
* Bridge E-Mailer Extension — Lets you e-mail files directly from Bridge.
* Bridge Export to JPEG Extension — Create JPEG files quickly using the cached previews and thumbnails already in Bridge’s cache. This is a major update the the script I posted during CS3. Some examples of new features:
- You can add the sRGB ICC profile
- File naming options matching Batch Rename’s
- Reusable export presets
- Better UI for configuring options
- Metadata options based on the new options in Save for Web.
- FTP and E-mail
* Preview Latest File — Enables and “auto preview” mode in a Bridge window that selects the latest file in the folder. This is designed to help users doing tethered shooting.
This is very useful! Love how I can save my email image size as a preset. Thanks!
I particularly like the JPEG export – including the email features. It kind of makes the email plug-in less necessary. Great job David.
Peter
For the “Preview Latest File” is that full screen (slideshow) or is it merely selecting the latest image in content?
At the moment I have to have my Windows tethered shooting script do a sendkey to send “end” to Bridge to get it to always show the most recently downloaded image. It works, but people complain this does not get them full screen which is really what they want.
But if I go into slideshow then I can’t get sendkey to work — I’m not sure if it is because I am not sending to the right window (which window is full screen??) or if slideshow doesn’t like the next key; maybe both.
Nice work by David Franzen!
Do you think that you could persuade him to write a Script which would let us burn a CD, or DVD, directly from a Bridge CS4 Collection?
That would be so useful ….
Can anyone give me a tip on how to set up the emailer extension. I just can’t seem to get the right configuration.
birdge> edit> prefrences> email ?????
Thanks in advance.
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
The E-Mailer extension will not work for all E-Mail servers or for all the forms of authentication that E-Mail servers use, so even if you enter the “right” information, it still may not work. It works with many E-Mail systems, but I was not able to add support for all E-Mail protocols. We ran out of time for CS4, but I hope we can fix some of these limitations if we release a new version in the future.
First of all, if you are using a PowerPC mac (ex: a G5 Mac), make sure to download and install the PowerPC version of the extension instead.
As far as the preferences go, here is a guide to entering the correct information.
1. Mail Server Name – this is the host name of your Internet Service Provider (ISP) POP and SMPT servers. You should be able to get this information from the ISP providing your E-mail–it’s the same sever name you probably had to enter when setting up your desktop E-mail client. If your ISP uses different host names for the POP and STMP servers–sorry, but the E-Mail extension does not support that configuration.
2. User Name – the user name used to connect to the mail servers. Again, you can get this information from your ISP, and you probably had to enter this when setting up Mail, or Outlook, etc. Often this is your E-mail address, but sometimes mail servers will use another user name you’ve configured with your ISP.
3. Password — the password associated with the user name.
4. Sender Address — this value is simply used as the default value for the “To” line in the E-Mail when sending messages–it’s not actually used when setting up the connection with your mail server.
5. The port numbers –Leave these at their default values (110 for POP and 25 for SMTP) unless you know that your mail server uses different, nonstandard numbers.
If you are certain everything is setup correctly but still can’t send mail, there is a way to turn on a logging feature for the E-mailer that might help you troubleshoot the problem.
Warning, the next part of this comment is very technical. If you chose to read on, get your pocket protector and slide rule…
To turn on logging, you have to open the E-Mailer script and edit it with ExtendScript toolkit. Here are the steps:
1. Bridge Preferences > Startup Scripts > Click “Reveal Scripts”
2. Open the BridgeEmailer folder
3. Find BridgeCS4Emailer.jsx and open it with ExtendScript Toolkit.
5. Edit line 50, changing it to:
BridgeCS4EmailerGlobals.verboseLogging = true;
6. Quit Bridge, Re-launch then attempt to send an E-Mail.
Note, ExtendScript Toolkit is installed as part of CS4, it’s in the Adobe Utilities folder. This is Adobe’s editor and development environment for scripting the Creative Suite.
With verbose logging turned on, the E-Mailer extension will create a file named EmailerLog.txt that contains a record of all the information exchanged between the extension and your E-Mail server. On a Mac this file will be in:
/Users/YOUR USER NAME HERE/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Bridge CS4
And on Windows Vista the path will be something like…
C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME HERE\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Bridge CS4
And on Windows XP, something like
C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME HERE\Application Data\Adobe\Bridge CS4
You may see error messages here which indicate where the E-mail failed along the way. If you think the problem is caused by a bug or limitation in the E-Mailer extension and not because you entered the wrong thing in preferences, then please log a bug with Adobe and provide the log in the bug report. You can report a bug to Adobe using this form:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
Warning, the log will contain your E-mail password as plain text. You will want to edit the log in a text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, etc.) and change the password to something like “changme” before sending the log to anyone.
If you see a problem in the log and can fix it by changing your preferences, then you’ll want to turn logging off again–logging makes sending E-mail slower.
Thanks for trying the Bridge E-Mailer!
-David
Has anyone gotten preview latest file to work? I tested with a 5DMII, Mac 10.5.6 (finally fixed USB tether speed!!) and Bridge CS4. It would be nice to have this capability in Bridge. I don’t have another camera to test with at the moment.
How do you use these scripts in Windows? I can’t seem to figure it out, thanks.
Hey David Franzen–
Thanks a ton for the detailed help on the email set-up, I finally got it to work with your help…AWESOME…I’ve been waiting for this function.
Thanks..ryan
Hello Again–
Does anyone know how to limit the metadata displayed in the journal with slideshow web gallery?
I just want title and description and not everyting.
Thanks in Advance.
Ryan
Ryan,
To edit that metadata you’ll need to open the group.xml file in the resources folder of your output. Find the information you don’t want and delete it, then save the .xml file.
he Auto Preview Latest File extension does everything but actually work as intended. I am tethering an EOS 5D with firmware v1.1.1. to a Macbook PPC 17 running OS 10.5.7.
There is a feature in iView Media Pro that I’ve found very useful but I can’t seem to find a way to do the same in Bridge. It is the ability to display the number of image files next to each folder in the Folders panel. Is there a way to set this up in Bridge ? In case there isn’t are you aware of a script that would do this ?
Thanks,
Joe
“Preview Latest File” Doesn’t work, which is tragic. It would be very useful indeed when shooting tethered. No-one else can get it to work, either. (see commments on the download page)
Snow Leopard, CS4.
Does anyone know if the Bridge Emailer works with CS5 or do we need an update?
I am trying to use this script in CS5 and it’s not working. Was there an update or should it work?