I am using a “de-sharpening” technique in CS5 (externally edited from Aperture) on a project of photos shot years ago in JPG. When I do this, I get an externally edited original. I want to leave this TIFF as my new original. Now, when I want to make creative edits using an external editor on this new original, Aperture does not create a new version. Since I don't want to further edit the new original, I must create a version from the new original. So I do this and then aperture will make a new TIFF on this version, and it will be used for my desired edits. At this point, I have 4 images: 1) the true over-sharpened original, 2) the TIFF aperture created when I made the new “un-sharpened” original, 3) the version I made from image 2 in order to make creative edits and not touch image 2, and 4) the TIFF aperture created from (3) which will be used for my creative edits.

Two questions arise: a) can I delete image 3 without any repercussions? (I know image 3 is only a version occupying little space, but it clutters my stack and I do not see a need to keep it.) b) is there an easier way to accomplish this?