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One of Expression Media's strengths is its speed. Since it doesn't render images at full size like Aperture and Lightroom do, you can zip through a catalog quickly, rating images, comparing them, adding keywords, and more

You can't create Flash-based sites as you can with Lightroom,

At $299, Expression Media's biggest limitation is its price. Lightroom, at $299, and Aperture, which is now $199, include image editing and image management capabilities. With Expression Media, if you're just getting started, you'll also still need to invest in an image editor like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, which adds significantly to the cost of your image management system.

If you already have an editor, and want more than what Adobe Bridge provides, Expression Media is good, but we think more people will still go for a program like Lightroom or Aperture, or even iPhoto, just to get more expansive editing capabilities. However, if you prefer to maintain your own system for tracking, managing, and archiving images--and other kinds of media--Expression Media is a solid and easy-to-use program with some great file-management capabilities.

Path Bar, which serves as a clickable trail of breadcrumbs that keeps you spatially oriented within your file system

Among other improvements are a new Collections pane, which, expanding on the existing collections feature, gives you the ability to group your images into virtual albums. You can build Collections manually or have Bridge do it for you by selecting certain criteria like star-rating, name, keywords, and so on. These Smart Collections will grow over time as new photos with matching criteria are added to the collection automatically. They take Bridge beyond being a mere browser, by giving it some powerful library functionality.

Bridge gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to viewing your image collection. For example, you can use the Sort menu at the top of the window to arrange your images by name, date modified, size, and so on.

The Filter panel, on the other hand, lets you weed out images by displaying those that match a certain criteria, like star-rating, rejections, and so on

After importing your images, the new Review Mode lets you see them in a giant, floating carousel. It’s a quick and easy way to view your images full-screen, mark rejections, and apply a handy star-rating system.

Bridge can also create an instant slideshow of your work, and generate PDFs or a Web gallery.

The galactic bummer is that you can’t save any of the options you’ve painstakingly entered—though it does remember the last settings you used.

With the workspace overhaul and speed increase, Bridge is a real joy to use. The ability to quickly zip through the images on your hard drive is very satisfying, especially for those who have a lot of imagery in their lives.

inability to save your settings as a preset is bone-jarring.

After all, the module feels air-lifted right out of Adobe Lightroom where the ability to save presets does exist.

For those mourning the loss of Contact Sheets and Picture Packages over in Photoshop CS4, a little customization in the Output module would have been placating

edit your photos nondestructively (this simply means that any adjustments you make to an image do not physically alter the original; you can always return to your original photo

The same five modules—Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, and Web—still anchor the program, but Adobe has reordered and refined things considerably, so you can easily get to your images, edit them, and present them for viewing on screen, in print, or on the Web.

f the LED is green, the drive (and its folders) is online and has sufficient disk space available. If it is yellow, the drive is available but is getting full, and if it is red, the drive is full. If the LED is not lit, the drive is offline. (You can still see offline images and their previews; you just can’t edit them.)

create albums (or collections, as Adobe terms them) based on any combination of the same set of criteria found in the Filter feature. If you’ve used the Smart Album feature in Apple’s iPhoto or iTunes, you’ll be right at home here.

Adobe has also included an associated tool called the Graduated Filter, which uses an approach borrowed from the photographic world. Adding a Graduated Filter to a photo creates a rectangular region where the effect is gradually reduced from the top of the region (where it would be strongest) to the bottom (where it would be weakest). This is similar to a graduated filter that you might place on a camera lens, to gradually darken skies, for example, and Lightroom’s Graduated Filter can do the same thing. But, like the Adjustment Brush, you can use the same seven effects (or combinations thereof) to create your own adjustments far beyond darkening skies.

If you’ve used any of the brush tools in Photoshop, you’ll feel right at home with the Adjustment Brush.

The feature with the biggest wow factor in Lightroom 2.0 is the Adjustment Brush. This tool, found in the Develop module, lets you “paint” tonal and color adjustments directly onto your images with your mouse or tablet pen

Recognizing that many Lightroom owners also use Photoshop, Adobe has made it easier to move files back and forth between the two programs.

Support for multiple displays, something both Photoshop and Apple’s Aperture have had for years

The Quick Collection feature, which lets you add or remove images on-the-fly to a special album

The Print module has a number of useful enhancements, but the biggest is the Picture Package layout feature, which lets you create multipage photo layouts for an image.

Professional studio photographers will miss the fact that the program doesn’t include support for tethered shooting

doesn’t support photo books, something Aperture, iPhoto, and Photoshop Elements all do.

no provision for soft proofing, which lets you view your images on screen via ICC profiles for your chosen printer, but people I’ve spoken to about this at Adobe feel that soft proofing is unnecessary for Lightroom

odd to me that version 1.0’s Clone and Heal tools were not revamped as brushes. My least favorite job inside Lightroom is using the Heal tool, one spot at a time, trying to repair a scanned image or other photo that has defects. It works fine for the small stuff, but I want the Healing Brush tools found in Photoshop and Elements