Listening to the Voices in My Head

The final solution to Adobe CS6 Bridge being slow is this:

Copy the Adobe Camera Raw.8bi v8.3 into the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-ins\CS5\File Formats folder. This way, you will get all the metadata, AND when you press space bar to preview the images, you get the full embedded jpg view.

You have to right click, "Open With Photoshop CS6" and ACR 8.3 opens without a hitch. But if you right click and select OPEN IN CAMERA RAW you get the "unable to use the Camera Raw plug-in. It is not compatible with this version of Bridge." (leading me to believe if I had really great programming skills, I could remove that version checking that would allow it to launch on a double click. Maybe someone other than me can figure that one out.)

On the rare occasion I really need to tweak a jpg in Adobe camera Raw, I'll just use CS6 to do so.

But I was >.< this close to giving up on Adobe Photoshop CS6E because of how glacially slow Bridge was. Bridge in CS5 was fast, but in CS6, snails could out run it.

So, ok, what's the different between CS6 and CS5 Bridge?  For months, I couldn't find a damned thing. Set up was the same,  same settings for thumbnails, disk caching, etc all the same. 

I did find I could use the faster CS5 bridge with CS6, if I was willing to do without a few of the tools, including the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw.  I actually did do this for a few days, but certain ACR tools were integral in photo processing. 

While I was setting up a new script with a nifty utility called Y-Launch, a great freeware program made by halspacejock to run  C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop CS6 64bit and C:\Adobe\Adobe CS5 64 bit Bridge I discovered that although there is 64bit version of Bridge for CS6, there is no 64bit version of Bridge for CS5.

*LIGHTBULB*

Kept Y-Launch open, and checked the Program Files (86) directory and sure enough, there was CS5 bridge for 32bit, and one for CS6 also. Hmmm, CS5 fast, 32 bit. CS6 slow.. and it's launching the 64bit version.  Let's see how fast it is if I launch the 32bit version of Adobe CS6 Bridge.

Holy f**king shit.  Once again, thumbnails loading fast, no more stalling at "Building Criteria", and no more of the program behaving as if every time I open a specific folder, that it's a brand new import.  Had I known that Photoshop CS5 Bridge was 32bit only... 

So now in Y-Launch, I have a script file that executes the following commands:

"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Photoshop.exe"
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Bridge CS6\Bridge.exe"

Simon, I owe you a beer! A cup of tea, or coffee.. something.

I got only what I can call a 'propaganda' email from Adobe titled "What are the common myths about Adobe Creative Cloud?", singing the praises of how just wonderful Creative Cloud is.   All I can think is that their move to mandatory subscription only isn't taking off as they thought it would. And some of the myths they listed, I've never heard.  All I can think of is people who are really tech naive would have said these 'myths'.

Other than that, Adobe still doesn't address certain things that users have asked about.

If I don't want to rent anymore, how do I open or access the files? 

You're still stuffed and stuck paying rental/subscriptions fees in perpetuity if you want to use your images/work, if you don't have an older working copy of Photoshop that isn't cloud based.

So far, if I want to keep using the same tools/plug ins that I use with CS6 46bit, I will have to us CC 32bit. So, I will be staying with CS6 (and I still have CS5)

Going through the laborious process of running the installation files for my OnOne photo Suite, from v5x to 7.5 to make sure that at least tools will install in the 32bit Photoshop CC. I'm not even given an option to install them (with the exception of 7.5) in CC 64 bit, so I can't even using the little trick I discovered of copying one DLL from the 32 bit directory to make the tools functional in the 64 bit version.

Also, still no joy on using any of my Alien Skin plugins with CC. *sigh*

So far, though, it seems my options are stay with CS6E 64 bit with all tools and plugins functional, or use CC, with it hobble, or using it 32bit only, thereby not using full system resources and to be continuously billed for the luxury of not being able to use all the plugins and tool. OR bounce from the 64bit to the 32bit versions of CC and then off to CS6? My brain hurts.

What a frigging choice, yes?

Adobe Bridge for CS6.. to say it runs slow would be an understatement. Everytime you launch it and open any folder, even if it's one you just got through working in, it takes an inordinate amount of time, as if all the images are newly imported and need to be indexed. Each and every time. I have posted about it on the Adobe Forums, and of course the guys there insisted it was something I was doing wrong. That is until others started posting about the same problem.

The work around is this: Launch CS5 bridge first. Then launch CS6. And even when I open a CR2 file for my Canon, the most updated Adobe Camera Raw opens. A bit convoluted, but it does work.

Must set up a script in yLaunch.