Maintaining previous filing system format within Aperture 3

Question

I am a new Mac user after 20 years with PC's. I bought a 2.3ghz MacBook Pro 15" with 8gb of ram and a 512 solid state drive to try to better manage a photo collection of about 100gb, including a huge set of ancestors photos from 1800 and on. I have been using a simple filing system by creating separate folders for various trips by date and place, such as 2011-03-15 USA, AZ, Phoenix. Each folder may contain photos from several dates over several weeks. I do not want to break out the photos into separate folders by each day. I want to be able to permanently modify, tag, and delete photos from the master file. I also want to be able to export the modified photos using this "date" structure.
What is the safest and most efficient way to do this while being able to take advantage of all that AP3 has to offer?

Answer 1

What TD, Allen, and Matthew said.
There are (at least) two import dialog boxes in Aperture:
. "File→Import" (also on the Toolbar), and
. +"File→Import Folders as Projects".+
You want the latter. It will allow you to retain you current filing system (and take advantage of it).
1. "Folders and Projects" will make an Aperture Folder for every Finder folder in your tree, except the terminal folders (which should be the ones w. images in them) from which it will create Projects. (If you are not familiar with Aperture's parts, [this comment|http://discussions.apple.com/messageview.jspa?messageID=13124533&stqc=t rue] will help, as will consulting the first seven chapters of the [User Manual|http://documentation.apple.com/en/aperture/usermanual>).
2. "In their current location" will leave your files where there are. Aperture will create a reference (a pointer) to each file. Your images in Aperture will all have Referenced Masters.
3. "Master File Name" will assign the current file name to the images imported into your Library. You might want to take advantage of Aperture's naming prowess and start with a file naming convention (search this forum) -- but this is secondary to your current goal. If you are satisfied with the current file names, use them for your Aperture images. If you have thought about renaming them, this might be a good time to do so.
4. My mistake (but this is whacked in Aperture). If you set this to either one of the settings that start with "Both ... ", Aperture should import all image files, regardless of format.
By all means:
- Back up all your current images
- Practice on small subsets of images. Import a few folders, a few hundred images, and see what happens. Tweak your settings as needed. Delete the entire Library, and try again (since you are leaving your files where they are, deleting the Library deletes only the references (the pointers inside the Library) to those files -- it does not delete the files themselves).
- Practice until you are sure you have it right, then do a trial run on all of your files. +You can always delete this Library as well.+
And ask more questions. Good Luck.