files in aperture

Hi, may sound a bit silly so please forgive me.
I have not been a mac user for very long, i have played around with iPhoto and have downloaded aperture, seems a really good program / app.

1)
My question is, am I right in thinking that no matter where I have my library / master files there never get touched and really the photos in the projects are short cuts?


2)
i have about 3000 pictures that are stored in the pictures folder in sub folders in year/month order if i import them into aperture will there still be in the original place as well, and then if I work/modify a few pictures where are these ones saved?

Sorry to be so dim.

Enjoying life with a computer that don't freeze up all the time, should have made the move from pc to mac long time ago.

Files in Aperture

ste1 said:

Hi, may sound a bit silly so please forgive me.
I have not been a mac user for very long, i have played around with iPhoto and have downloaded aperture, seems a really good program / app.

1)
My question is, am I right in thinking that no matter where I have my library / master files there never get touched and really the photos in the projects are short cuts?


2)
i have about 3000 pictures that are stored in the pictures folder in sub folders in year/month order if i import them into aperture will there still be in the original place as well, and then if I work/modify a few pictures where are these ones saved?

Sorry to be so dim.

Enjoying life with a computer that don't freeze up all the time, should have made the move from pc to mac long time ago.

Click to expand...

Hi there - Aperture uses non- destructive editing. Any changes you make to an image are stored in a file in the Aperture library, the image itself is not changed which means you can revert to the original image at any time.

In respect of storing your images you can choose to store your images in the Aperture library (managed library) or on a separate hard drive (referenced library). You can set this option when you set up Aperture and do your first import - you can also make a backup copy of the photos at import to a different location. I used referenced files - my Aperture libraries are located on my iMac with the referenced photos on a separate drive and a copy of all photos on yet another drive. You can also relocate your master files from within Aperture (under the File menu) and Aperture will maintain the links to the photos.

I went the other way. I let Aperture import all the images on my hard drive into its managed library. This means I no longer have to think about where to store the master images, just trust that Aperture is looking after them. The images that I look after in projects (moving them around into various projects in folders with an organization I like) are not the masters, or at least that is my understanding. However, one must be careful when using delete functions so as not to inadvertently delete a master, or delete an image that lets me know a master exists in the Aperture library. After nearly a year with Aperture, I still don't have a completely clear understanding of how to live with a managed library, but it has simplified managing my images over the completely manual workflow I used in Windows.