[LJR69]

Coo. Where to start? I guess the first place is to say 'stop looking for the folders and files' because they're not there. What Aperture and iPhoto do is change how you organise and view your files (as well as find them). It accomplishes that through various mechanisms but the most important for you to understand now is that it stores all the files you import in a hoofin' great database. To get the photos out of that database you either need to export them to a format you need them in (which you'll be doing anyway if you are exporting processed RAWs), or you need to get access to them through an application's integration with those databases. Sound convoluted? That's what I thought when I first moved over to the Mac too (Sept last year). However - it's really quite amazing when you get used to it.

For example, and taking the scenario you pitched regarding attaching to an email, if you open Mail and create a new message then click the attach icon a Finder will open up at the bottom of which you will see "Media" and beneath that "Photos" (as well as Movies and Music). If you click that you will see all the Albums, Photo books, folders, even Smart Folders that you created in the applications like Aperture. It's an incredibly powerful tool. No longer are you constrained to remembering the filenames and locations you now are able to locate those images in exactly the same way you would in those applications. If you've created a Smart Album with all your 4 star images from Wednesday last week then when you go into Mail, or other program, you will have the ready made list of images for you to select from.

Further to that if you just open your Finder again at the bottom you see some preset searches (such as "All Images", media from Yesterday, Last Week, etc). However the real power comes from when you select, for example, "All Images" and then click the Action drop-down from the top menu and choose "View Search Criteria". You can really go to town here. Keep clicking the + to the right of the search options. You can search for any image in almost any conceivable way and it's incredibly powerful.

As you can imagine this subject could run on and on. The way the Mac organises all your media files is very powerful and slots right into your workflow. What it does require though is that you forget the old folder structure ways for Windows and think more 'workflow'. Worst case you can go into the iPhoto or Aperture and export as a JPEG/TIFF or whichever format you want, to somewhere you'll be able to locate it.

Have fun!