No, there is a big difference. Using only the finder you must have your photos in only one specific hierarchical structure. Most people choose to go with dates or maybe "job number". But in any case you must choose only ONE
Finder is crap anyway and only a buffoon would use that to organize anything.
{quote]Aperture and others let you put a photos in as many places as you like. The photo of (say) Mary in San Diego taken in Feb 2008 can go into three folders one called "Mary" another called "San Diago" and then in the "2008-Feb-12" folder. and then it might also show up inside the "four stars and better" or into a folder named for the designed of the dress she wore. The image file of course is physically on the disk only once but is linked to make places.[/quote] I can do that in Bridge, even though it is a mere File Browser.
The best think here is that you can change your mind later, re-define the definition of the folders the the file sort them selves into the newly re-defined folders. So your file system can evolve over time and changing needed with out a lot of effort. But if you have 10,000 images in finder folders there are not likely to be re-organized often
You don't quite understand filing it seems and using Finder is certainly painful and not a tool I ever use if I can help it.
You can file your images into your folders [as I said above, I do that by date+ description] and then add you can add metadata for smart searches. That way you can search by folder or metadata. Best of both worlds. Files in my date folders can also be in numerous subject folders, it is not exclusive folders
or metadata as you can happily use both. LR originally went down the Aperture route of not bothering with folders and during the public beta it was quickly realised, it didn't work that well, so now you have folders and metadata.
I'm working on some images at the moment in Bridge, they are part of a very long 5 week shoot with about 4-5hrs sleep a night, so there's a lot of work to be gotten through. When I go through my folders and I find shots I like I simply add them to an approriately named collection. I can add the shots to as many collections as I want, despite the fact that they are in folders. I can also do smart collections so I give the smart collection some criteria and anything that matches the criteria will end up in the apposite collection. On a long shoot like this, filing by date is very useful as I tend to know when things happen, as on certain days of the week, certain events would happen.
I can also use LR to work on same job and although LR is a database programme like Aperture, both Bridge and LR can work on the same images as they are filed sensibly so either approach can be used.
It also means that I can use Capture One or Phocus for Phase One or Hasselbald Cameras without any difficulty or changing my filing system.
The problem with metadata filing [which is what Aperture does] is that it is very, very, very time consuming
to do properly and when you repeatedly photograph the same subject or do long shoots over several years, filing just by metadata can become next to useless as you end up with an awful lot of images with the same tags. But if you sorted by folders first, then you have two options for searching and can use a variety of programmes to do so.
Aperture seems quite easy at first with a few images, but if you are a busy shooter then, it ain't so simple. A chap who shoots for Alamy, spends his time shooting and his wife spends all her time adding metadata to the images so they can be found - it's a full time job for her.
But whatever method you use for any filing, a good logical heirachy is a must, unless you only have a handfull of categories. Working out a subject heirachy for keywording is not an easy task, if you want to do it properly.
I've yet to finish working out my metadata heirachy and I guess it will end up with a few thousand labels, at least, a painful task.
