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“It’s True: Adobe Bridge 2024 Is Completely Free for Everyone, for Life!”
It's True: Adobe Bridge 2024 Is 100% Free for You to Download & Use
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I am delighted to have Bridge download-update now, installed after so many years with older versions.
Bridge is one of the few organizers left that does not force ‘importing photos’. How can I easily import 500,000!!!
Bridge CC is not free!
According to Adobe, one has to subscribe to the Creative Cloud to be entitled to use Bridge.
Check with adobe before posting stuff like this!
Bridge is free.
And yes, we’ve definitely checked thoroughly with Adobe about this.
The cost of Bridge changed in 2013 when Adobe unbundled it from Photoshop, and made it a separate free download that does not require a subscription… Anybody can download and use it.
Bridge is first-and-foremost a media manager, browser and previewer – and in that capacity it will work with any Adobe files/software of any version, as well as all non-Adobe files/software. In fact, Creative Cloud customers can use Bridge to manage and view/preview their CC files even if/after their subscription lapses.
The article above was originally published in 2015. Adobe has absolutely seen it and repeated the same thing:
Do You Have to Pay Extra to Download Adobe Bridge?
If you have anything definitive to the contrary, then you’re welcome to post it here and we’ll help clear it up for you.
Bridge is free but Camera Raw does not work with Photoshop. This article is misleading in that sense.
@Caz
I meant Camera Raw does not work without Photoshop installed.
The article is not misleading. Bridge definitely does download, install and use the latest Camera Raw for its own functionality, and within Bridge, the ACR plug-in works in a read-only way in order to display and preview the content within your Adobe files. Bridge CC can also edit image metadata and the like, however to make changes to the image pixels (and actually open the file for editing) you would use your version of Adobe Photoshop and/or the Camera Raw plug-in that comes with it.
So whenever there is a new update to ACR, then your Bridge CC will definitely receive that update for those purposes. By using the current release of the ACR plug-in, the free Bridge CC will always be able to properly manage, display and preview the latest Camera Raw images within its media browser. The key to remember is that ACR is used by several Creative Cloud/Suite apps and is technically separate from Bridge.
Bottom line, you can absolutely download and use Bridge CC free for life. And Bridge will install the ACR plugin alongside for its own specific needs. But again, you would not get to use the full editing functionality of Adobe Camera Raw without making a purchase, as that would be giving away the keys to the store – and we never said otherwise.
I installed PS7 on my Dell WIN 10 computer but the Bridge and or RAW plug-in didn’t come with the disk? I use my WIN 7 computer with PS5 to work JPEGs using its RAW plug-in. This older computer is dying and I want to have the RAW/Bridge plug-in for my PS7 system. How may I do this without spending more money?
Thank you
Hi Vince, which version exactly are you referring to when you say “PS7”? (check under the Help menu > About) Normally all older releases of Photoshop came with Bridge bundled together. With CC above, they unbundled it and made Bridge a separate free product and download.
Photo Shop 7.0, Copyright 1990-2002
Sorry Vince, that’s 15 years old and truly ancient software, so can’t really say with any certainty.
I just downloaded Bridge and I have PSE 11 – is there a tutorial or something available to help me from the beginning figure out how to use these two efficiently together?
Hello Pam, see these previous comments for some tips on that.
Hi !
Does Bridge work with PC’s ?
Thanks
Yes, it runs on both Windows and macOS.
The offline installer asks to login with an Adobe ID, I think this article should be updated.
When you download Bridge CC using the direct download links, and then install it standalone onto your computer, the process does not require logging in at any point – neither for downloading, installing, nor running the program. (if that’s truly important to you)
Thanks for the informative article.
While Bridge CC does work with the standalone version of Photoshop CS6 X64, it has two serious glitches:
1. At most 33 highlighted images in Bridge CC can be opened at the same time in Photoshop CS6.
2. The “Open in Camera RAW” command does not work, but the plain “Open” command launches PS CS6.
This makes Bridge CC adequate for casual RAW image editing, but impractical for very large projects.
I was helping a friend install Bridge CC on his laptop, telling him that it is now free and does not require an Adobe ID or a sign-in, but read on several forums that Adobe Camera RAW is not activated, or does not open when a RAW file is double-clicked in Bridge. This defeats the purpose of having Bridge, because Photoshop by itself does not edit RAW files. Is this the case with Bridge CC? That, as you say on your blog, that Adobe Camera RAW is read-only and does not edit files?
Bridge CC is completely free, and you can make changes to image metadata using it, as well as all the other Bridge functions described in the article above… It is Adobe’s flagship desktop media browser and a powerful digital asset manager.
However, without a subscription to Photoshop CC, you cannot use Bridge to do editing with Camera Raw. The standalone version of Bridge CC includes and uses the Camera Raw plug-in in read-only fashion for accurately displaying and previewing your images within the application. If you want to make changes to your photos using Camera Raw, then you need Photoshop, which also uses the same ACR plug-in as Bridge, but with full editing functionality.
This is similar to what we wrote above (read that for more details), but hope that clears it up once and for all!
Thank you for the quick reply. That’s good to know. My friend has Photoshop CS6, so he can access ACR via PS.
I have downloaded the Bridge CC, but when I try and open Camera Raw it tells me that the parent application is not active and that a qualifying product must be launched at least once to use this feature.
Welcome Graham, please see our previous reply just above – thanks.
this information is very new for me, thanks a lot for this article…
launching camera raw from adobe bridge cc2017 shows this error “CAMERA RAW NOT ENABLED: Camera Raw editing requires that a qualifying product has been launched at least once to enable this feature.”
Yes, it’s doing what’s expected – please see our previous response above.
This entire campaign to make Adobe appear as though Bridge CC is free is untrue.
What you’re not telling people is that YOU DO have to have an adobe ID and a saved cookie to download and install Bridge.
Sorry, no. Bridge CC is free. And when you download Bridge CC 2018 using the direct download links, and then install it standalone onto your computer, the process does not require an Adobe ID nor does it require logging in at any point – neither for downloading, installing, nor running the program. (if that’s truly important to you)
Besides, this is not a ‘campaign’ that Adobe promotes. It’s something that we published, and Adobe acknowledges. And it’s a useful product to have, at no cost to you or anyone, for the reasons outlined in the article. But Adobe is not out there pushing it, and most people don’t realize it.
That’s great. When are they going add SVG support for Bridge?
Please add your feedback here:
Bridge CC: Need the Ability to Preview SVG Files
You can also “Vote” for and “Follow” the topic.
Follow-up:
Great news – Adobe recently released a new Bridge CC update which contains support for SVG and PNG files.
I downloaded bridge, but it seems I can’t use ACR for free without a subscription to PS or LR CC.
Yes, this is correct, and as described in the article. Please see the previous comments above.
Is there a possibility to change the cache to another drive? Now it uses my SSD-C-drive. I want to have the cache on a non-SSD-drive. I don’t see this option under preferences>Cache>Location. Can you help me with this?
Hi Kees, did you restart Bridge after changing the cache location? See:
Working with the Adobe Bridge Cache: Set Your Cache Preferences
That’s the problem: I cannot change the cache to another drive, only to the C-drive. Before and after restarting Bridge.
Is this Bridge CC version newer than the one what came with my PS-CS5 program
Yes, it’s certainly newer – Bridge is updated/upgraded pretty much every year. And Adobe made it free when CC first came out in 2013.
If you’re currently using an older (CS) release of Bridge, then before installing/using Bridge CC, we would recommend taking a look at this discussion:
Do I Need to Keep Old Versions of Adobe Bridge?
Hallelujah, Bridge is not free anymore suckers!
Wrong, Bridge CC 2019 is definitely still 100% free – it’s just an Adobe ID login is now required for everyone, whether you’re a free Creative Cloud member or a paid subscriber.
If you prefer to use Bridge without any sign-up or log in, then you can continue to download & use the previous CC 2018 release instead.
Here’s what’s new in the October 2018 release of Bridge (version 9.0, aka CC 2019) – some other major features:
– Bridge now has an modern, enhanced user interface to provide you a similar experience like other Creative Cloud applications.
– You can now cut, copy, or move files and folders across Bridge and Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder.
– Bridge now supports preview, thumbnail generation, metadata tagging, and keyword generation for Adobe XD files.
– The Libraries workspace in Bridge now displays a high-quality preview of Creative Cloud Libraries items.
– You can now share a cache with other Bridge users and let them use the shared cache instead of creating a cache.
– Bridge now lets you change the capture time of the JPEG and RAW image files, just like the way it is done in Lightroom.
– Bridge now processes and maintains a media cache of all audio and video playback files.
In case you didn’t realize it, the “Free trial mode” expires after 7 days now that a sign-in is required.
We’ve been in touch with the Bridge Product Team at Adobe and they tell us that’s not true, quoting:
“Bridge is definitely free; just a login is required for everyone.”
Didn’t work for me. Always says VCRUNTIME140.dll was not found
Hey Grace, that’s just because a Microsoft library does not seem to be available on your computer… See here for how to fix that problem:
How to Resolve Missing VCRUNTIME140.dll and MSVCP140.dll Errors