iPhoto '11 Tips for Working with Albums Albums Are Optional You don't have to create an album in order to share photos: you can create slide shows, books, calendars, and Web pages by simply selecting photos in your library and then using the appropriate button or command. And by hiding less- than-perfect photos (page 20), you can "edit" an event to contain only those photos you want to use in a project. Still, when you're about to create a photo project of some kind, it's better to create an album first. Albums give you the abil- ity to change the sequence of photos. You can resequence photos while creat- ing slide shows, books, and the like, but creating these items is easier when you start with photos that are in roughly the final order that you plan to use. When you use either technique, iPhoto gives the new album a generic name, such as untitled album. To rename the album, double-click its name and type a new name. If you have photos on a storage device-- your hard drive, an optical disc, or a digital camera's memory card--you can import them into iPhoto and create an album in one fell swoop. Simply drag the photos from the Finder onto the Albums heading in the Library list. iPhoto imports the photos, storing them in their own untitled event. iPhoto also creates an untitled album and adds the photos to it. Albums and flagging. iPhoto's flagging feature (page 21) teams up nicely with albums. Want to create an album of shots that are scattered throughout your library? Flag the shots, then select the Flagged item in your Library list. Next, choose Edit > Select All, then create the new album. From Album to Event You've created an album containing the best photos of a friend's wedding. The photos are from various events; indeed, some were emailed to you from other attendees. You'd prefer that the photos were in an event of their own. Easy. Select the album, choose Edit > Select All, then choose Events > Create Event. iPhoto creates a new event, and moves the photos in the album into the event. Note, however, that the photos are removed from the events where they originated. Photo Count You can have iPhoto display the number of photos in each album next to each album's name. In the Preferences dialog, click General, then check the Show Item Counts box. Album Shortcuts You can create an album and add images to it in one step. Select one or more images and then create the new album. You can also drag the selected images into a blank spot of the Library list. To Experiment, Duplicate You have a photo that appears in multi- ple albums, but you want to edit its appearance in just one album, leaving the original version unchanged in other albums. Time for the Duplicate com- mand: select the photo and choose Duplicate from the Photos menu ( 1 -D). Now edit the duplicate. Duplicating an album. There may be times when you'll want several versions of an album. For example, you might have one version with photos sequenced for a slide show and another version with photos organized for a book. Or you 44