E-crush pt. 2

My last post was about my  new digital crush with the program Aperture. I figured I’d let you know how things are going with my workflow integration.

After reading the manual for several hours, and only being about a 1/3 of the way done with it, I came to the part about importing archived files. I was a little skeptical about my love remaining so high when I started reading this. I thought I was going to have to spend countless hours renaming/organizing all my old files. And then I found another reason to love this program.

It has allowed me to keep and maintain the same digital archive I have used for the past four years without changing a thing. What’s even better, is that I have a referenced file on my laptop of all my old files at all times. Let me take you through the process of looking at photos previously.

1. Think of a photo I wanted to use
2. Plug in my ext. harddrive
3. Wait for it to load
4. Try to remember approximately when I shot
5. Find the folder by either handpicking it on the external harddrive or searching for it through Spotlight
6. Open the folder in Photomechanic – wait for it to load
7. Wait some more for it to load
8. Select the photo and hit edit
9. Wait for Photoshop to load
10. Edit photo
11. Save photo
12. Close Photoshop to preserve resources

Here’s my new method:

1. Open Aperture
2. Either find the folder/project it’s in
3. Review it
4. Then decide whether I really need to plug the harddrive in or not
5. Plug it in and wait
6. Edit in Apperture
7. Save

That alone cut out five steps, very time costly steps I might add. Plus, it makes it so much easier for me to simply move my files from my laptop to my harddrive easily by the click of a few buttons. And they always remain referenced.

I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more post about this program as I learn new and exciting things, but here’s my big suggestion to you if you are a photographer.

Buy a Mac and then buy this program. It will be some of the smartest money you will ever spend.

Jumping ship

I decided to go ahead and give Aperture a shot this week. My copy of Photomechanic is stuck on my other computer. I don’t have the disc or the serial number available, so I thought why not.

The last wedding conference I went to a few photographers suggested. Probably the best decision I ever made.

It is such a time saver and creates a better workflow environment than my previous Photomechanic/Photoshop combination. I’m estimating it will save about 40 minutes on every hour of work. I’ll let you know how that goes. Right now, I’m going through the manual so I know how to use all the functions before I jump right in.

I think one of the things I’m most excited about is having a stacks of projects that I can quickly go back to. A quick example would be having the ability to look at all my 2008 football photos all at once instead of loading each folder individually. Plus, I can rate photos, group them and on and on.

I’m going to write up a workflow tomorrow. The manual suggests mapping it out and sticking to it, which is exactly what I’m going to do. As I find cool new features I’ll post about it and hopefully entice you to purchase a Mac and this program.