ANOTHER question about moving referenced files.....

Question

After reading through most of the posts I could find, I am still not finding the answer to my question. I assume it's simple, but I'm a (second-guessing?) LR2 convert, and while I love Aperture's UI, I'm really struggling with file management.
Here's how I like to work. Insert card into reader, and copy the folder (100CANON) to my desktop. Open Aperture, import all the photos from their current location. I like to edit, keyword, rename, etc at this point.
Let's say I had 10 photos in that folder, 5 of my dog, 5 of my car. Here's where my confusion begins:
I want to select the 5 dog photos, and move their physical location to my Pictures/Dogs folder on my hard drive, as well as to my Dogs project in Aperture. I try 'Relocate Master', which moves the file to the desired path on my hard drive. Unfortunately, the thumbnail still resides in the 100CANON project.
So therein lies my question, if I want these dog photos in the Dogs project I now have to drag the thumbnails from the 100CANON project to the Dogs project.
That seems like extra steps, and I can see that causing a lot of confusion, especially when trying to sort a folder with images that need to go in several different projects. I can't help but think I'm missing something obvious - why can't I go into my 100CANON project and drag the thumbnails to the appropriate project, and have the finder path update as well?
Save the "you should let Aperture manage your files" discussion, I'm not interested in that. I need to use referenced masters.

Answer 1

JF wrote:
what do -you- do with your photos when you import them?
I take the CF card and Finder-copy the contents to a hard drive where they will ideally live forever. Then I eject the CF card (very important error-avoidance step). If the folder contents are not a single shoot at this point from the Finder I review the folder to see if I want the images to comprise more than one project; if so, each project is split into a separate folder with its own name.
Next I back up the folder of images which is labeled something like "101113Buckleymstrs." 101113 is 2010/Nov/13, Buckley is the job/project/event and mstrs indicates those images are the Masters. The backup folder is named "101113Buckley_mstrsbkup."
Note that at this point and forever I can Finder-search for the date or for the job/project/event or for mstrs or for bkup to find images. No Aperture involved yet. Also note that the year/month/day format at the start of the file name properly alphabetizes the folders by date on the hard drives. Most of the files on my hard drives are done that way.
Next I start to import into Aperture by reference into a new Project named "101113_Buckley" using the exact nomenclature used for "101113Buckleymstrs" except without "_mstrs" appended. If Aperture irrevocably lost the link to the masters I could Finder-search on the "101113_Buckley" and find them. At this step before import I review the pix Aperture is set to import and uncheck any obvious duds before clicking to import. The duds remain in the masters and backup folders but I do not care because hard drive capacity is cheap while my time and improved error avoidance have significant value.
I always shoot RAW+JPEG and sometimes I make two Aperture Project imports, one of the RAWs and another of the JPEGs: "101113Buckley_mstrsRAW" and "101113Buckley_mstrsJPEG."
For specific issues like "dogs" I use keywords to create Albums. Or if Buckley is a construction project, for instance, over time multiple Aperture Projects related to the Buckley construction will be created, all of which will point to a Buckley Construction Album. Other albums might be "Buckley Site Work," "Buckley Foundation," etc. Albums are very powerful and take up essentially zero space because they are comprised only of pointers.
I assume you're letting Aperture manage them? I think the issue is that I'm not ready to let Aperture take control of my library.
I manage every image very intentionally, using the tools Aperture makes available.
Do you have random folders strung out all over your Pictures folder with the various imports you've done over the years?
Folders are not random. They are sequential (which is how photos by definition always occur) and they are named identically to the corresponding Aperture Projects as noted above.
It boils down to this for me. I have preferred being able to navigate a file structure within LR to find that one image I'm after. Yes, I realize I could search for it by keyword, whatever, but sometimes I might not even remember how I categorized it. I used to do commercial interior shoots, and had them labeled by address. It's nice to traverse a folder hierarchy if you need to, and it seems like if I turn over control to Aperture I'd be giving that up.
I understand the need some folks have for what I call "film-think" or "folder-think." If you must use folders IMO best is to do it with the Masters before going into Aperture. Within Aperture IMO folder-think is debilitating to optimal use of the images database tools.
I analogize each Aperture Project to a roll of film that occurred at a point in time (an hour or a day or whatever). It gets dated and named in the hard drive archives and in Aperture. Aperture's pointers and key words allow us to create an infinite variety of Albums without relocating the hundreds of original Projects/Rolls of film.
HTH
-Allen