Anyone care to write up a workflow solution using referenced images?

Question

So, I'm having a little bit of a hard time figuring this out, but I think I got something. I'd like others to share their thoughts and opinions about how to get a good referenced workflow going. Maybe we can come up with an efficient method of working on, say, two machines with only one folder of images and a way to archive them efficiently too.
I'll post what I think I can now do with Aperture 1.5.
1 - I shoot a bunch of shots, in the field, and download them to my Powerbook
2 - I rename the raw files in the finder (my preferred choice) and save them out to an external hard drive
3 - I fire up Aperture on my laptop and import those pix from my external hard drive as referenced images. This does a couple of things: One, it keeps my internal laptop hard drive from filling up and, two, it will allow me, when I get back to my fast killer desktop, to transfer, or work on, the images from this external hard drive.
4 - I doodle away, in Aperture, on my laptop until I'm happy.
5 - When finished, I can export a copy of the project I just worked on to the external drive, but make sure that the "consolidate images" option is off (no need to have 2 copies of the RAW file on the same external hard drive). This will give me, on the external drive, a project with all the adjustments (and preview images) along with a folder containing the RAW files. I'll also have a copy of the project on my laptop hard drive as a backup (I suppose I'd have a backup of the raw files on a burned DVD or another hard drive too).
6 - I get back to my desktop and plug in the external hard drive.
7 - I import the project from that external hard drive. Since the RAW files are still on the hard drive, there's no problem with the project finding the actual files.
8 - But, I do not want to work the files from the external hard drive (speed is an issue). So I copy the folder of RAW files to my internal hard drive and delete the RAW files from the external drive.
9 - Aperture tells me (through the badges underneath the thumbnails) that the RAW images are no longer connected to the project.
10 - I select all the images in the project and right click (or control click) and choose from the contextual menu, "Manage Referenced Files."
11 - From the dialog box that appears, I navigate to the internal hard drive where I copied the RAW files to and choose to "reconnect all images." The badges under the thumbnails update to let me know that the images are back online.
12 - I futz with the images some more and do whatever else I need to do.
13 - Done. Job finished. No need to have access to RAW files anymore, although I want to keep preview images in Aperture for websites, email, etc.
14 - At this point I think I can do several things. I can export the project and "consolidate images into exported project," and archive that exported project to whatever medium I use for archiving. Or I can just archive the folder of RAW images and eventually delete them off my internal drive. This last option will leave me with preview images inside Aperture (along with badges that tell me the originals are offline). I can back up that project using the vaults method that comes built into Aperture. That way I'll have several copies of the project (with the JPEG previews) and offline RAW files (also copied and archived) that I can reconnect at anytime I want to in the future. This will help keep my Aperture library smaller and more manageable with plenty of backups.
How does that sound?

Answer 1

I tried out something like your flow, though I attempted to let Aperture do the intake step right to the Aperture library on the laptop and then work to a portable drive by exporting the consolidated project (I tried my iPod as a temp drive which worked just ok) from there.
The G4 17 in - lorez - is pretty marginal for Aperture. Working with a few images was just ok, but I really don't think it's up to a couple of gigs of NEF files. What I wanted to accomplish the same goal - a reference set of pictures on the working hard drives with originals offline and archived in a couple of places.
But after trying this I'd say your scheme of importing to the portable drive and working in the finder and renaming with ABetterFinderRename prior to any import is a better one. The more I can hold down the Aperture's processing overhead the better. The other thing I plan to try is to use iPhoto for the first look. No messing with the images, but I can look at them and toss out the garbage, do some tagging and then, on the G5, let Aperture import the resulting file structure from the portable hard drive and carry on with your scheme.
Once the images are to my liking in aperture I can export a finished set for iPhoto on my Laptop for emails and etc.
After messing with this for awhile, I don't see anything in your workflow that is not going to work.
I imagine as time goes on that lots of people will be going through all these steps. I hope the designers can figure out some simplifications. A media manager in Aperture, much as the one in Final Cut Pro would be welcome for much of this. Or droplets or buttons with the more tedious bits of the workflow included would be welcome.