Need help moving photos to external drive

Question

Hi, all--here's hoping one or more of you Aperture veterans can help.
Here's my situation: I'm not new to photography, but I'm new to Aperture. Just bought 3.3 and still getting to know what it can do. I'm an emigre from iPhoto, and one of the reasons I upgraded within Apple is that I was tired of the non-intuitive nature of PS Elements. I like to take pictures, not spend endless time in the dim glow of a screen digging through sub-menus for stuff, and from what I read, Aperture seemed more intuitive.
But now I've got a seemingly very basic problem that hours of poring over discussion threads and searching through the hundreds of pages of the manual has done little to address with any clarity:
How do I move (not just copy) older photos in projects to external drives, but in such a way that Aperture still keeps track of them, even when the drives are not connected? (The Aperture marketing I read/viewed clearly said Aperture could do this, and I'm running out of space on my MacBook Pro (15" from about 2008, running Lion) with lots of CF cards piling up.)
Info that may help:
-I need to move not just original (imported into iPhoto directly from the camera) photos, but also those I've adjusted in Elements, then re-exported into iPhoto (I would say "and now into Aperture," but as you know, there's no longer an import process b/w iPhoto and Aperture).
-I shoot mostly RAW.
-I have no idea whether the pictures are "Referenced" or "Managed" (for space reasons, I have yet to import any files directly into Aperture; all existing photos are from iPhoto, and if I was given an option when I set up Aperture, I don't now recall it).
-I have external drives with plenty of space to move older pix to (I also have multiple backups, including Time Machine, additional external hard drives, and DVDs)
Can somebody who knows how to do this safely please explain in clear language how to move photos as projects onto external hard drives so that Aperture keeps track of them via viewable thumbnails, even when the photo files themselves live on a hard drive that is not connected at the time?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

First things first:
You can easily check if an image is managed or referenced by ctrl-clicking on an image version and selecting "Locate referenced files...". If Aperture says "No Referenced Files", your originals are managed by Aperture and stored within the library itself, otherwise it should show you the location of the original, and give you some options to verify the references and so on. I don't know which method is used when importing from iPhoto.
Now, here's something you need to ask yourself:
Does it make more sense for you to keep the library on your laptop and the originals on an external drive, or does it make more sense to move both the library and the originals to the external drives?
In the first case, you can open and look at the thumbnails, but there's not a whole lot else you can do with your images when the external drive is off line.
If you have vast amounts of originals, spread across multiple drives, it might make sense to keep the library on your laptop and connect whichever external drive you need at the time. However, it might also make more sense to split such a huge library into mutiple libraries, stored with their respective originals (which could be either managed or referenced).
In my case, it makes sense to keep multiple libraries, with managed originals, but your mileage may vary.
Here's a tip that might help you decide: A small library is quicker to navigate and work with than a huge one, although performance has improved vastly with later versions of Aperture.
Once you have decided on the appropriate organization, you can start moving things around (after you've created the appropriate backups):
If your library contains all managed originals already, and you want to move the entire library off to the external drive:Simply drag and drop the library itself (using Finder) to the new location.
If your library use referenced originals, and you want to keep it that way, or your library manages your originals, and you want to start using referenced originals:
Select all your images
Click on the File menu and select Relocate Originals...
Locate the destination for your originals, and pay special attention to the "Subfolder Format" and "Name Format". I'd suggest choosing "Project Name" and "Original File Name" for the two.
Click on Relocate Originals, and twiddle your thumbs while Aperure moves all your originals to the new location.
If your library uses referenced originals, and you wish to let your library manage the originals:
Select all your images
Click on the File menu and select Consolidate Originals...
Decide if you want to Copy or Move the originals into the library. If you're running out of space, it might be best to Move.
Click Ok, and wait for the operation to complete.
(Optional) If you wish to move your entire library to the external drive, drag and drop the library to the new location.
I hope that answers your question.
Message was edited by: KluZz (oops, premature submission)