Get more from your albums

Organize your shots more effectively with albums in Photos

REQUIRES

Photos

you will learn

How to create and add pictures to an album, manage albums, and share their contents.

IT WILL TAKE

15 minutes

In the days of analog film cameras we were limited to shooting on rolls of film that produced a maximum of 36 photos at a time. Most people would only use a handful of rolls of film each year to record special events such as holidays, weddings, and birthdays.

In these digital days, you’re never without a camera thanks to the app provided with every iPhone and iPad. As well as shooting birthdays, holidays, and weddings, you’re likely to document ordinary daily activities as a series of clips and stills. Unlike our analog ancestors, we have thousands of digital photographs and video clips to manage and share. Fortunately, iOS’s Photos app has all the tools you need to take control of your ever-growing collection of digital assets.

Photos uses the analog album model to organize digitally sourced shots and clips. Analog albums had to be filled manually, but Photos uses the metadata stored in digital images and video clips to help gather related files together automatically, in various ways.

An image’s metadata can tell Photos where and when a shot was taken, and what type of shooting mode was used (such as time-lapse). If you use your iPad’s front-facing camera to snap a shot, then Photos presumes you’re taking a self-portrait. These will automatically be stored in the Selfies album in Photos, so you can find all your best poses in an instant. If you have set your iPad and iPhone to upload to the iCloud Photo Library (in Settings > iCloud) then you’ll also find Photos has created albums that store images taken in Panorama, Timelapse, and Burst mode automatically.

Automatic albums are a springboard to finding specific types of files fast, though you’ll find it more useful to create themed albums from scratch. We’ll show you how to create albums, add photos to them, and even merge multiple albums to simplify your collection, if you find yourself with too many on the go.

You’ll also learn how to share albumbased content with friends and family so that your precious pictures will find their audience.