An album that fills itself
A regular album in the Photoshop Elements Organizer is like a folder — you add photos to it manually, one by one. A Smart Album is different. You define a set of conditions, and the Organizer continuously monitors your entire catalog and adds every photo that meets those conditions automatically. You create it once, and it keeps itself up to date.
For anyone with a large photo library, Smart Albums are one of the most time-saving features the Organizer offers. An album of your five-star photos that always contains your latest five-star ratings. An album of every photo tagged with a grandchild's name that updates the moment you import new photos from a family visit. An album of everything taken in December across every year — automatically assembled for a Christmas review slideshow. None of this requires manual sorting.
Creating a Smart Album
Open the Photoshop Elements Organizer. In the left panel, find the Albums section. Click the + button and choose New Smart Album from the menu.
The Smart Album dialog opens with three fields:
- Name — give the album a clear name. Something like 5-Star Portraits or Emma — All Photos tells you at a glance what it contains.
- Conditions — one or more rules that determine which photos qualify.
- Match dropdown — choose whether a photo must match All of the conditions (stricter) or Any of the conditions (broader).
What conditions you can use
The conditions dropdown gives you a wide range of criteria to build your Smart Album on. The most useful ones for family photo collections are:
Ratings
- Select Rating from the first dropdown, then is greater than or equal to, then choose a star value.
- A condition of Rating is greater than or equal to 4 stars creates an album of your best photos — every keeper in your library, always up to date.
Keyword Tags
- Select Keyword Tag from the first dropdown, then choose includes and type a tag name.
- If you tag photos with keywords like Holiday, Birthday, or School, a Smart Album for each tag instantly groups everything with that label.
People (Face Tags)
- Select People from the dropdown and type a person's name.
- This creates a living album for that person — every photo you have ever tagged with their name, including any you tag in the future after importing new photos.
Date
- Select Date and choose conditions like is in the range or is in the month of December.
- A Month is December Smart Album automatically pulls together every Christmas and winter photo from every year in your catalog.
Media Type
- Select Media Type to filter by photos, videos, audio, or projects.
- Useful for keeping a Smart Album that shows only your video clips separately from your photos.
Flags
- Select Flag with a condition of is flagged to create an album of every photo you have marked for attention or further editing.
Combining conditions
You can add multiple conditions to the same Smart Album by clicking the + button on the right side of any condition row.
For example, to create an album of five-star photos of a specific grandchild:
- Condition 1: Rating is greater than or equal to 5
- Condition 2: People includes Emma
- Match: All
Only photos that meet both conditions appear — every five-star photo tagged with Emma's name. Any new photo you import, tag with Emma, and rate five stars appears in this album automatically.
To create a broader album — say, every photo taken on a birthday OR tagged with the keyword Birthday:
- Condition 1: Keyword Tag includes Birthday
- Condition 2: Date is in the month of April (if birthdays cluster there)
- Match: Any
Editing and deleting Smart Albums
To change the conditions of an existing Smart Album, right-click the album name in the left panel and choose Edit Smart Album. The conditions dialog reopens with your existing rules intact — adjust, add, or remove conditions and click OK.
To delete a Smart Album, right-click and choose Delete. This removes the album only — no photos are deleted from your catalog or your hard drive.
Smart Albums vs regular albums
Regular albums are better when the grouping is fixed and manually curated — a specific holiday trip, a set of photos you have already edited, a collection you want to share. Smart Albums are better when the grouping is defined by properties of the photos themselves, and you want it to stay current automatically.
Most organised Photoshop Elements libraries benefit from having a few of each: regular albums for specific finished projects and Smart Albums for ongoing collections like Best Photos, Photos to Edit, Each Person's Collection, and This Year's Photos.
A suggested set of Smart Albums to create today
If you are starting from scratch, these four cover most of what a family photo library needs:
- Best Photos — Rating is greater than or equal to 4 stars
- To Edit — Flag is flagged
- This Year — Date is in the year 2026 (update each January)
- One album per key family member — People includes [Name]
Set these up once and the Organizer handles the sorting from that point on.