Like TypeLists in TypePad, Photo Albums can be used by multiple blogs. You’ll find that Photo Albums have their own tab, select it.

Creating a New Photo Album

You will then find your albums listed. As we don’t have any yet, there’s none. To create a new album click on “Create a new Photo Album”

You will then get the option to give the photo album a name. It will automatically create a folder name to house the photos and will serve as part of your photo album’s web address - you can edit this if you want. When you’re happy with the names, click on “Create New Photo Album”.

You now have a new but empty photo album so you need to upload some photos! Handy then that the next screen gives you that option. :-) 

By default you can upload 5 photos at a time, but TypePad gives you the option to change this so that you upload up to 15 at a time. Alternatively, you can upload a zipped folder and TypePad will unzip it for you which is convenient if you have a lot of photos.

Click on “Browse…” to choose photo files from your hard drive (make sure they are .gif, .jpg, or .png files as that’s what TypePad supports). Hit “Upload” to send them to TypePad.

You will get a confirmation that your photos were successfully uploaded with the photos in your album listed for you with thumbnails. You can edit a photo’s attributes by clicking on the photo’s title or on the thumbnail.

You will get a new window that lets you edit your photo’s title, location, and dates as well as letting you add a caption if you wish.

Changing Your Photo Album’s Design

Go to the Design tab in your Photo Album.

Your Photo Album will already have a default design, but you can modify this easily.

You’ll find that you have options to edit the Layout, Content and Style.

Changing your Photo Album’s Layout

You can change the layout of your Photo Album’s Cover Page - that is, the first page of your album. (Note that if you choose the “Photo and Introduction” option, you’ll need an Introduction - this can be added in the Configure tab, instructions further below.)

You can also change how your photos are displayed on their individual pages.

If you mouse over the options, you will get a brief description. Actually, this only seems to be of any use with the No cover page and No photo page options - the rest just repeat their titles which isn’t of any use at all.

Save it and view your album (you may need to refresh your browser to see the changes).

Changing your Photo Album’s Content

Click on “Content” and you will get options depending on your chosen layout. If you chose “No Photo Page” (so that your photo opens in it’s own browser window with no surrounding information), you don’t get any options.

If not, you can select check boxes so that your album will display information like the album’s title, each photo’s title, captions, date and location details. You can also choose to display EXIF Data which is details about the camera and exposure used when taking the photo that is often part of the photo file - this is more of interest to other photographers only and may be too much information for your audience.

Changing your Photo Album’s Style

Click on “Style” and you’ll get a long drop down of pre-built styles that you can apply to your album. If you select one, you’ll get an immediate preview of what it looks like as “Sample Screenshots”. If you find something you like, save it.

Using another Photo Album’s design

Back in your Photo Album’s Design tab, you’ll find a section called “Select a different design”.

If you like a design that you’ve created for another of your Photo Albums, you can select it using the drop down and your album will automatically have the same design options applied to it.

It’s an easy way to make sure all your photo albums look the same.

Configure your Photo Album

Go to the “Configure” tab of your Photo Album to set your album’s preferences.

Basics

You can change the name of the photo album by typing in a new one.

You can add a description or introduction to your album (though be aware this will only show with certain layouts, ie the Photo and Introduction cover layout).

If you are using the Photo and Introduction cover layout, you can select a cover image/photo from your hard drive.

This is also where you can choose to make your album public (or private) by selecting (or unselecting) “Make this photo album public).

Advanced Configuration

You can make some more advanced tweaks to your photo album’s display, however, be aware that in the Advanced Configuration section the default choices are optimised for the album design you’ve chosen. Check to see that your changes work, if you find you have problems use the “Restore Defaults” button at the end of the page to return to the default options that you know do work.

Photo Album Cover Page

You can specify how many columns of thumbnails you wish on your cover page. 

If you uncheck “Crop thumbnails into uniform dimensions (square)” then you will have thumbnails based on the original proportions of your photos instead of having them cropped into neat squares.

You can specify the size your thumbnails on your cover page.

You can customise the format of any dates on your cover page.

You can also choose the order in which your photos are shown: ascending or descending by date or ascending by title.

Your Photo Album’s Individual Photo Pages

You can choose the size of your photos on your individual photo pages but be aware that this will only apply to photos you upload in the future - it will not retrospectively change the size of photos you have already uploaded.

You can customise the format of the dates on the individual photo pages (and this can be different from the date’s format on the cover).

Photo Management Options

You can select which fields you want available when you edit your individual photos. Note this does not affect what information is shown to the public (you’ll have to change that in the “Content” section).

When you’re happy with your changes, Save. If you find that you don’t like your changes, you can always come back and hit “Restore Defaults” to get the default choices for your design.

Next up, we’ll go through how to configure TypePad’s Control Panel.

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This is part of our super series on How to Blog. Subscribe to our Newsletter for some special surprise How to Blog stuff over the course of the lessons.