How can I transfer my photos to an external drive without using vaults?

Question

In light of what is going on with all the uncertainty over Aperture support in the future, I am trying to be proactive and save my masters/versions to an external hard drive without them still being tied to Aperture.  I've been at it for hours with no luck.  I can create a new vault but I want a system where I can choose which individual projects I want to download to the external and the ability to go back to the external HD to work on files.  Vaults seems to be an all or nothing backup and doesnt allow choosing 1 particular file to work on.  Same thing with Time Machine?  Is this possible or are all the adjustments I made in the past few years forever tied to Aperture?  

Answer 1

Yes i understand that. In fact when ever i import new images i do not save them in the Aperture Library. I save them on my server wich is pretty much the same as an EHD in this respect. There must be a clean way to do this....
I have in mind:
1) Export all your Photos from Aperture to EHD without an loss of Information/tags/RAW ...
2) Import them back but instead of choosing In the Aperture Library choose In their current Location. See Screenshot.
This might be an appropriate solution if you want to keep Aperture for some more months. Otherwise of course you can change step 2) easily by importing them right away in your new application (Photos from Apple or Lightroom...) In other words wait with this step until you definitely switch your app;)
jl