iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition

Smart Albums

Albums, as you now know, are the primary organizational tool in iPhoto. Since the dawn of iPhoto, you’ve had to create them yourself, one at a time—by clicking the + button beneath the Source list, for example, and then filling up the album by dragging photo thumbnails.

iPhoto, though, can fill up albums for you, thanks to smart albums. These are selfupdating folders that always display pictures according to certain criteria that you set up—all pictures with “Aunt Edna” in the comments, for example, or all photos that you’ve rated four stars or higher. (If you’ve ever used smart playlists in iTunes, you’ll recognize the idea immediately.)

To create a smart album, choose File → New Smart Album (Option-⌘-N), or Option-click the + button below the Source list. Either way, the Smart Album sheet slides down from the top of the window (Figure 5-10).

The controls here are designed to set up a search of your Photo Library. Figure 5-10 illustrates how to find pictures that you took in the first two months of 2005—but only those that have four- or five-star ratings and mention your friend Casey in the title or comments.

Click the + button to add a new criterion row to be even more specific about which photos you want iPhoto to include in the smart album. Use the first pop-up menu to choose a type of photo feature (keyword or date, for example) and the second pop-up menu to tell iPhoto whether you want to match it (“is”), eliminate it (“is not”), and so on. The third part of the criterion ...