Editing in albums that don't affect other albums

Question

Is there a setting I can choose so that photos edited in a given album don't affect the same photos in other albums or in the project?
For instance, I have an album of select photos. I want to make another album of those same photos (duplicate album) and edit them further without affecting the earlier album. But as it is now, anything I do to the second album changes the photos in the original album. Is duplicating the version the only way to proceed?
Thanks,
Jason
p.s. I'm coming from a video editing workflow where rough cuts are duplicated and refined until you have your fine cut. If at any time you don't like what you experimented with you can go back to an earlier version where it is exactly how you left it, and use that. This may be different from a typical photography workflow, but I find it allows me to experiment freely without worrying about the same photo in other albums or projects being affected.

Answer 1

Social Sentry wrote:
Is duplicating the version the only way to proceed?
Yes.  Just keep making Versions as needed.  (Versions are literally just text files of instructions applied on-the-fly to create the image you see on the screen.  They are very small in size compared to the original image files.  There is no reason not to create as many as you need.)  I use color-labels to keep track of the stage of development of each Version.  You might want to make sure "Stack Versions" is turned on in Preferences.  This will create a Version Stack in the Project that is home to the Master.
Note, too, that Aperture always applies your Adjustments in the same order.  (This is -- as I understand it -- an engineering decision.)  The implication is that the order in which you apply the Adjustments has no bearing on the image.  In practice, it means you can simply view the applied Bricks and their settings to see what the current Adjustments are.  Note that you can toggle any Brick on/off by checking the box at its top left.
What I'm trying to get to is that "earlier Versions" have a different meaning in this kind of workflow.  In the phrase "And then I did this", the "And then" has no useful meaning.
I'm sorry I don't have a better explanation.  I hope that helps.