Click the 
button in the Albums panel or the dropdown widget next to the in the Albums panel to open creation workflow in the right panel.
Last updated on
May 29, 2024
- Elements Organizer User Guide
- Introduction
- Workspace and workflow
- Importing media files
- Viewing and fixing media files
- Marking places, faces, and events
- Managing catalogs, folders, and albums
- Creating albums and album categories
- Editing albums and album categories
- Create and edit catalogs in Elements Organizer
- Back up or restore catalogs | Elements Organizer 2018
- Tag your media
- Using Smart Tags
- Creating and editing Saved Searches
- Back up or restore catalogs | Elements Organizer 15 and earlier versions
- Troubleshooting catalog issues
- Searching photos and videos
- Creating photo projects
- Creating video projects
- Printing, sharing, and exporting
Learn how to create photo albums in Elements Organizer.
About albums
Albums in Elements Organizer are like physical photo albums, where you can store and organize photos in groups of your choice. For example, you can create an album called “Ten Best Vacation Photos” and add ten of your favorite images.
You can drag the photos within an album to arrange them in any order you want. You can add a photo to more than one album.
You can organize albums in groups. You can also create multiple levels of album categories. For example, you can have an album category titled “My Asia Trip,” containing the album “Ten Best Japan Photos,” along with another album called “Ten Best China Photos,” and so on, for each country in Asia you visited.
Instead of manually selecting photos for including in an album, you can create Saved Searches with criteria for selecting photos. Each Saved Search is an album that dynamically collects photos that match the criteria specified for the Saved Search. For example, if the criterion for a Saved Search is to collect photos with the keyword tag ‘Chiara”, you can open the Saved Search to view all photos with the keyword tag ‘Chiara”.
Creating albums and album categories
You can create, edit, and manage albums in the Albums panel in the left panel of Elements Organizer.
Create, edit, rename, and delete albums.
View albums and album categories. Scroll up and down the list of albums, as needed. Click the triangle
beside an album category to expand or collapse the albums under it.Organize albums within album categories.
Display photos of an album.
Create an album or an album category
You can create an album consisting of your media or a group of new albums. For example, you can create an album category called “Vacations” and create separate albums within it, one album for each set of vacation photographs.
Create an album
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In the Name box, type a name for the album.
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(Optional) From the Category drop-down list, select a category for the album.
Note:To change the furigana for the album name, type a new furigana in the Furigana box.
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There are various ways in which you can add photos to the Media bin:
- Drag photos into the Media bin, and click OK.
- Alternatively, you can also add photos by selecting them in Media view and select Add to Media Bin option from the task bar.
- Select media in the Media view, right-click and select Add Selected Media. You can also select Add All to add all the media present in the media view to an album.
Note:To delete any photo, select the photo and click the trash bin icon.
The album appears in the Albums panel under the album category you specified.
Create an album category
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Click the arrow button next to
in the Albums panel, and choose New Album Category. -
In the Album Category Name box, type a name for the album category.
Note:To change the furigana for the album category name, type a new furigana in the Furigana box.
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(Optional) From the Parent Album Category menu, choose a category into which you’d like to nest your album category.
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Click OK.
The album category appears in the Albums panel under the album category you specified.
Create sub-albums within parent albums
You can nest albums within the parent album category by selecting New Album Category by selecting the drop-down or the + button next to My Albums in the Albums panel at the top-left. Type the Album Category Name > select Parent Album Category, you want the sub-album to be created within the desired parent album.
Create instant albums using folder names
You can automatically create an instant album with the same name as a folder on your hard disk. Creating instant albums this way is useful when you’ve used descriptive folder names to organize the media files on your hard disk. It also helps to quickly add your managed media files with those same folder names.
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In the Media view, choose the folder from My Folders list in the Albums panel.
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In the folder tree/managed folder on the left, select the folder containing the media files you want to tag. Thumbnails of the managed media files in that folder appear in the Media grid.
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Right-click the folder and select Create An Instant Album.
A new album is created in the Albums panel bearing the name of the folder.
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(Optional) To customize the properties of the newly created album, right-click/control-click the album name, and select Edit.
Add photos to an album
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Click the All Media button in the top-left corner of the Media view to view the media available in Organizer.
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Do one of the following:
- Drag the photos or videos from the Media view into the album in the Albums panel.
- Drag the album from the Albums panel to the photo in the Media view.
- You can also add people/places/events stacks to an album. Select the stack and drag to the album.
Note:You can also add photos to an album when copying and importing images to Elements Organizer. See Designate an album during photo download.
Add photos to multiple albums
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Click the All Media button in the top-left corner of the Media view to view the media available in Organizer.
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Select one or more photos. The selected photos are outlined in blue.
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Select one or more album names in the Albums panel. Shift-click to select adjacent items or Ctrl-click/Command-click to select nonadjacent items.
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Add the photos to the albums by doing one of the following:
- Drag the photos into any of the selected albums in the Albums panel.
- Drag the albums from the Albums panel onto any of the selected photos.
Display photos in an album
As the same photo can be in multiple albums, you can view only one album at a time.
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Click an album.
Note:To see which albums a photo is in, hold the pointer over the album icon
or the tag icon (when multiple keyword tags are attached to the album) under the photo in the Media view.
Sort photos in an album
You can sort the photos within an album in chronological, reverse-chronological, or album order.
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Select an album from the Albums and Folders panel.
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From the Sort By drop down list in the Media view, select one of the following options:
- Newest: Orders the photos by date from the most recent to the oldest
- Oldest: Orders the photos by date from the oldest to the most recent
- Name: Orders the media alphabetically by name (A-Z)
- Import Batch: Orders the photos by the batches in which they were imported
- Album Order: Orders the photos by user's choice. You can manually drag and reorder the order photos.
Customize the order of photos in an album
Apart from the default sort order (Newest/Oldest/Import batch) provided by Elements Organizer, you can also customize the order of your photos.
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Select an album from the Albums panel.
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From the Sort By drop down list in the Media view, select any of the following option to sort:
- Newest
- Oldest
- Name (alphabetically from A-Z)
- Import Batch
- Album Order
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Select one or more photos, drag the selection between any two photos in the album. You can also drag the selection before the first or after the last photo in the album.Note:
To reset the order of items, select Newest/Oldest/Import batch from the Sort By drop down list.
Designate an album during photo download
You can designate an album to which the media is downloaded to while using the Photo downloader or select Import > From Camera or Card Reader. Click here to read about the procedure to reach the Photo download option.
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Make sure that the Photo Downloader is in the Advanced Dialog mode. If necessary, click Advanced Dialog.
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In the Advanced Options section, select Import Into Album.
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Click Settings and do any of the following in the Select An Album dialog box:
- To import photos into a specific album, select the album in the dialog box.
- To import photos into a new album, click Create
New Album and
then type a name to overwrite the generic “New Album” name in the
dialog box.
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Click OK.
Export or import an album structure
Album structures contain the album names and album categories created by you. You can save your current set of albums and album category names, including their organization in the Albums panel and their icons. This structure can be shared with other users.
You can share album structures with others by exporting or importing them. For example, you have a set of albums representing different museums you’ve visited with friends. By saving and exporting your album set, your friends, who have also visited those museums, can import that album structure (not the photos in it) and use it for their photos. Alternately, you can import the album structure of one of your friends and apply it to your photos.
Export an album structure
You can share album structures with others by exporting yours.
Note:
Exporting an album does not export the photos associated with the album.
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In the Albums panel, click the arrow next to
and choose Save Albums To File. -
Choose one of the following and click OK:
Export All Albums
Creates a file that contains your entire album hierarchy.
Export Specified Album Category
Creates a file that contains the hierarchy of the album category you select from the list.
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In the Save Album to File dialog box that appears, choose a location and enter a name for the file. Then click Save. The file is saved as an XML file.
Import an album structure
You can import an existing hierarchy of album categories into the Albums panel, where you can use it for your own photos.
Note:
Importing an album does not import the photos associated with the album.
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In the Albums panel, click the down arrow next
and choose Import Albums From File. -
Select the exported XML file in the Import Albums From File dialog box containing the album and album category names, and click Open.
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Browse and select the XML file that contains the album structure that you want to import. Click Open.