Consistent Efficiency Dilemmas when Designing with Large Files

Hi there, 

I work with a company that designs large scale prints that can span up to 50' in width, sometimes even more. We mainly use Photoshop and Illustrator. The artwork that we put onto our prints comes from our clients, so it is out of our hands to export the design files effectivly. Some files that we recieve are high resolution photos, some files are simple vector graphics. 

Our issue is that we are consistently losing hours of work due to waiting for these files to load, save, or unfreeze. From time to time this even happens with vector graphics, which is always a surprise. So far, we've concluded two things:

1. That's just the nature of large files

2. That it's usually the client's way of exporting the files that causes them to run so slowly, because we have highly efficient computers. 

I have been logging the amount of time I lose waiting for a file to unfreeze, load or save - So far, in the five months I've been here, I've lost somewhere around 5 hours of time just waiting on a file. So it's hard for me to believe that there isn't something we could be doing better to make sure our software runs efficiently. 

We supposedly have computers that are made to be the best - we have large amounts of RAM and Memory, and save our files on a seperate drive. 

So what I'm wondering is: is the slowness of large files simply inescapable? Or does the perfect combination of computer and software-preferences exist? 

Thanks for you time, 

Carrie