Aperture 3 beginner question

[crisro996]

Hello I've recently started working on a mac and I have a question about the importing feature of Aperture. Before I installed it I moved my pictures from my PC to the mac (about 20 gigs).

I imported my 2 big folders to Aperture, but it said that the photos were added to the Aperture Library, but when I opened the photo folder in finder, the Aperture Library was only 2 gigs. However, when I went to Get Info it said that it had 20 gigs(the size of my 2 photo folders). My question is, can I safely delete the existing 2 photo folders or the Aperture Library just holds some thumbnails and data about those 2 big folders?

Sorry if it sounds like a stupid question, but I'd rather be sure than regret later xD

 

[Jim.R]

How many photos are in the folders you imported and are there the same number of photos in the Aperture library?
If the answer is yes, then you're probably safe to delete the folders.

20Gb is what, 5-6 DVDs. Might be worth burning them to disk as a backup before deleting them, just in case...

 

[crisro996]

Thanks very much for your answer. I deleted those 2 folders and it didn't ruin anything. My MBA is the back up for my pics(and a 50 GB Blu-Ray, but since the Air doesn't have a drive I couldn't rely just on the disc ).

THanks again for your help

 

[Crazy Badger]

Aperture has a couple of different ways of importing pictures.

1. imports masters to the Aperture library
2. creates a link to the original images and adds a preview to the Aperture library

Make sure it's done 1 before deleting anything! If you have any red icons on your images in Aperture the link to the master has been lost, and if you've deleted them all you're left with is a low resolution preview.

 

[crisro996]

Everything was saved by Aperture(or at least the pics I've checked) so it seems everything was transfered correctly