digital workflow

[mexipike]

I`m starting to see flaws in my workflow and looking for advice on how to improve it.
I`ve just started scanning using my schoolsepson. I'm very happy with my scans but the problem comes with organization.
Here`s my current system
Mac Book Pro, external hard drive (not firewire)
Right now I import everything into Aperture, and use that for organization, viewing and small editing, with my digital camera photos, however with the huge scans I get I've referenced them and kept them on a disk.
I use photoshop cs2 for all big editing and will probably download cs3 soon.
Aperture seems tp crawl when I try to few the scans. The other day I played around with bridge and it seemed to go pretty quick , quicker then aperture.

Anyway I guess my main question is what should I do with my giant scan files. I like that I can keep them on a disk and reference them with aperture, but I'm starting to get anoyed with how slow aperture is on my machine. Could I compress the scans, and what's the best way to do that with minimal loss.
Anyway I'd love to hear all suggestions involving workflow, and hear about different personal systems. I`ll change anything really except photoshop stays as the editor.
Thanks,

John

 

[rogue_designer]

I don't like aperture for file organization - especially with scans as those files tend to be much larger than regular digital images. It bogs down in a hurry. I hope they'll address that in later versions.

I use extensis portfolio as my asset management/organization program. That allows keyword, thumbnail, and other searching. As well as off-machine storage management.

All editing is in PS2 or the PS3 beta (for speed on the intel mac).

I use bridge some, but my primary tool is Portfolio.

 

[lZr]

Hi _designer,
Start from the beginning, please. Which Epson? I use 4990, but I can say, that there is no reason to scan over 2400 dpi with flatbad Epson. Nothing new to see after that. Make 100% crop at 2400 and your max. resolution and compare - nothing new. I hope this helps for the big files at 16 bit/channel

 

[kaiyen]

Aperture is not meant to be a DAM. It never was designed that way. And it's really not intended for use with scanned images. Straight from the Apple Product Manager for Aperture...

allan

 

[Ronald M]

Never scan directly into an application file.

Make a folder on the hard drive, in My Pictures if you use windows. Scan intothat file.

 

[nightfly]

I'm in the same situation and have been doing this for awhile.

I would suggest taking a peak at "The DAM Book". It offers a very definite workflow that makes a lot of sense to me. The one caveat is that it is aimed toward digital photographers working with RAW files but I'm looking into adapting this to scans. You basically use Adobe Bridge, CS2 and iView Media. I haven't gotten through the whole book yet but everything he says makes a lot of sense.

I scan at over 2400 so I can do big prints at native resolution and it's worked for me. My original scans are big but once I've tweaked them I flatten them down and reduce the dpi for printing and they get manageable.

 

[mexipike]

thanks for all the advice, to clarify I use either an epson 9000 edu scanner, I don't scan directly into any program, I just save to a folder, but usually I've been opening everything with aperture. Nightfly, I'll check out that book, how do you flatten your images, what's the best way to compress without losing important image data?