Restore single photo from time machine

Question

Quote from apple help
"To restore, select the file/folder and click the "Restore" button. The file will automatically be copied to the desktop or appropriate folder.  If the file you are restoring has another file in the same location with the same name, you will be prompted to choose which file to keep or keep both...."
So to restore one lost photo from a month ago, and presuming the entire Aperture library must be restored, do I have to "keep both" restored and current libraries and short term find another 150GB space in Pictures, export the missing photo, then delete the old library? Because if I keep only the restored library I lose all recent photos surely, but it seems a long process.
Or is there a clever workaround?  (apart from Vault which I don't intend using at this stage. )
Still considering using Aperture, not yet purchased. Cant find this fully explained in search. Thanks.

Answer 1

Peter -- adding (I hope) the excellent responses already given:
One of the downsides of using Aperture is that "Photo" is no longer easily defined.  When you ask, "So to restore one lost photo from a month ago ... ", you must define, in terms relevant to Aperture, what you mean by "Photo".
In Aperture you import image-format files.  On import, Aperture makes a note of where your file is located (and by default stores your file where it wants).  Thereafter your imported file is known by Aperture as an Original (prior to v. 3.3: a "Master").  Aperture also creates a text file to hold instructions on what metadata changes you make and what adjustments you make.  This text file is called a Version.  Aperture creates an image you can see, and displays this image to you as a thumbnail in the Browser, as a Preview in the Viewer (when Quick Preview is turned on) or as a fully-rendered image in the Viewer.  Aperture refers to this (somewhat fitfully) as an "Image".
Here's what you need to know:
Original * the instructions in the Version = the Image you see.
When discussing Aperture it is helpful to differentiate between
- the image-format file you imported:  the Original
- the text file of instructions that Aperture keeps in order to modify your Original to show you what you've done to it:  the Version
- the picture showing you all you adjustments, with all your metadata applied:  the Image
There is a one-to-one correspondence between Image and Version:  one and only one Version is used to create each Image.  Throughout Aperture, "Version" and "Image" are used synonymously to mean "the thing you see".  Only "Version" is used to specify the text file of instructions.
(There are excellent reasons for this set-up -- primarily among them Aperture's non-destructive workflow and excellent performance doing the tasks we ask of it -- but they are beyond the scope of this thread.)
Some of the responses you've gotten here are about restoring your Original.  Some are about restoring your Image.  Those are, in Aperture, different tasks, dealing with different (or in one case, more) files.