The Best App for Managing Digital Assets

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Photoshop is an excellent tool for many things, but it's no digital asset manager. The most successful workflows require Photoshop plus something else: Lightroom or Bridge. Which one is best for you depends on a lot of things.

In choosing between the two programs, you'll need to answer these questions:
• Are you new to photography?
• Are you a small studio or a large studio?
• Are you a high-volume shooter?
• Are you a designer, photographer, or both?
• Are you comfortable with computers?

Then you'll want to consider the advantages of each app.

Advantages of the Lightroom + Photoshop workflow:
• Ease of use
• Streamlined tools and interface
• Instantaneous searching
• Working with off-line files
• Efficient virtual copies and collections
• Infinite history and snapshots
• Interactive previews
• Preset- and template-driven
• Printing
• Web and slideshow creation

Advantages of the Bridge + Photoshop workflow:
• If you own Photoshop, you already own Bridge
• File browser architecture
• Extended support of file formats in one location
• Multi-user workflow
• Numerical values

In the video below, I'll help you decide which application is right for your workflow by explaining the differences between Lightroom and Bridge for managing images and assets.