What are albums?

An album is a container in the Aperture library used to group photo versions. You can create albums at the library level or within a project.

You use albums created at the library level to organize versions from multiple projects. For example, you can create an album to consolidate your favorite photos, or selects, from multiple projects. You can then publish this collection of selects on your website or export the album’s contents for review by a prospective client.

You can also create albums within projects to help you organize your photos into relevant groups. For example, you can organize photos in a project by:

  • Occasion: Break a project into a series of albums according to specific occasions. For example, a wedding project can be divided into albums for the preparation, ceremony, and reception, or a soccer project can be divided up in albums for each game.

  • Day: Break a project that spans multiple days into albums for individual days. For example, a project consisting of a two-week trip to Japan can be divided into 14 individual albums corresponding to each day.

  • Subject: Break a project consisting of multiple photographed subjects into individual albums dedicated to each subject. For example, a studio photographer may shoot three models for a single project. The photographer can create an album for each model. Or you might create albums to hold specific photo types, such as candid shots or close-ups.

    Figure. Library inspector showing albums within a project.

You can also place versions from other projects into an album that resides within a project.

In addition to a standard album that you drag photos into, you can create Smart Albums whose contents are controlled by criteria you specify. When you change a Smart Album’s search criteria, the contents of the Smart Album change automatically. For more information, see Smart Albums overview.