Tutorial: How to Sync Develop Settings in Adobe Bridge

One of the ways to make your workflow more efficient when working with Raw files in Photoshop is to sync settings across multiple images that have the same setup like in a studio table top shot or even a portrait session. Using a gray card or similar like the ColorChecker Passport can make life even easier since you will have something to measure your grey balance with. Even if you don't have a gray card you can set the develop settings in one image and sync them to the rest of images with a simple command in Bridge. Lets take a look on how to do this in Bridge.

If you're using a gray card of some sort you want to get your White Balance set first. Select the photo with your gray card in Bridge and open it in Camera Raw by going to the menu File>Open In Camera Raw… (Command-R).

Once you have the gray card photo open, select the White Balance Tool in the upper left of the Camera Raw window. (circled below)

Now you have the White Balance Tool selected, you can click on an area of your image to correct the White Balance. In this photo I'm selecting one of the medium gray swatches on my ColorChecker Passport to correct the White Balance for my lights. Once you have the White Balance set, hit the Done button at the bottom right of Camera Raw window to save the settings.

Now that I have my White Balance corrected in my gray card photo I'm going to apply it to one of the real product shots.

With the Gray Card photo selected in Bridge, got o the menu Edit>Develop Settings>Copy Camera Raw Settings (Command-Option-C).

Now select the photo in Bridge you want to apply the correct White Balance setting to.

With the new photo selected, go to the menu Edit>Develop Settings>Paste Camera Raw Settings (Command-Option-V).

After you select Paste Settings you will get a window to select which settings you want to add to the new photo. Click on the Drop Down menu labeled Subset and choose White Balance. Only the White Balance should now be checked in the list. Choose the OK button and the White Balance setting should now be applied to the new photo. Sometimes it takes a few seconds for the preview to update in Bridge.

Now we have our first photo set with the corrected White Balance and I'm now going to open this photo in Camera Raw (Command-R) and set all my develop settings to the desired look. Once you have the photo looking the way you want, hit the Done button at the bottom right of Camera Raw window to save the settings.

Now that I have one of my photos fully developed with White Balance corrected and all my Develop Settings set, you will need to select the finished photo in Bridge, then go back to the menu Edit>Develop Settings>Copy Camera Raw Settings (Command-Option-C).

Now you will select all the images in Bridge you want to apply the develop settings to. You can select the first one then hold the Shift key and select the last in the sequence to get them all selected.

With all the photos selected in Bridge, go to the menu Edit>Develop Settings>Paste Camera Raw Settings (Command-Option-V).

After you select Paste Settings, you will get the window to select which settings you want to add to all the selected photos. Click on the Drop Down menu labeled Subset again and choose Everything. All the settings should now be checked. You can deselect any you don't want applied to the selected photos like the crop setting if you have different angles or views of the subject. Choose the OK button and all the checked settings should now be applied to all the selected photos. Sometimes it takes a few seconds for the preview to update in Bridge.

That's it. You should now have all your photos synced with White Balance and any Develop settings you want. If you now need to output your photos to JPEGs you can watch my tutorial on how to process all the images at once from Bridge.

I hope this tutorial helps speed up your workflow by getting all your photos synced in Bridge.