iCloud Photo Library questions

[Armen]

I subscribed to the 99 cents/month 50GB iCloud storage plan so I thought "cool, I can now copy files up there and photos and such".

I don't understand how this iCloud Photo library thing works:

- I imported photos into the photos app on my Mac
- I enabled iCloud library and it uploaded them all.

I can see the photos on my phone in their respective albums (Wedding, New York Trip etc) and also on iCloud.com in the photos section.

Under the sharing tab on my phone I see a "family" folder. I'm assuming this is an auto share with my wife which is in my family setup. I think ok great let me just click the + sign to add some of these photos so she can see them as well. This is where it gets difficult.

Why cant I share an entire album? If I tag X amount of photos in an album and share them do they show up in an album on her phone when she looks in the shared section or is it just a cluster!@$ of photos? I have 415 photos all organized by album but no means to share an album at a time. What am I missing?

 

[crashoverride77]

I am not exactly sure what happens when you are in familySharing and if it creates a special album, but normally you cannot upload an album directly from your cameral roll or albums.
First make sure iCloud photo sharing is turned on in settings-Photos&Camera.

What you than normally have to do is go to the Shared tab in you photo app and click start sharing if you haven't done so already, otherwise just click +. Than you can create this shared album and add what ever pictures in your cameral roll / IPL you like too it.
Alternatively, and probably a better way is to go to the album that you would like to share. Select all the pictures in it, than click the share sheet and press iCloud photo sharing and create the shared album that way.
Remember if you are on ios 9 selecting pictures is easier now as you can swipe to select them instead of clicking on each.

Than you simply pick who to share with, i.e. your wifes iCloud/iMessage email or number. If your wife than accepts the invite you are all done with this shared album.

When she now goes to her shared tab she will see the album you just created. Both of you can now view, add or delete (not 100% sure about delete) photos to this album as you please. If you want more albums just create more shared albums, your wife can do the same and just invite you. You can also share with other members of your family or friends.
Its pretty awesome.

 

[mconk]

If you follow the steps above, you can then create an album for each set of photos you'd like to share with your wife. These are shared photo stream and take up little to no space on device. As far as the Family folder on the phone, there is unfortunately no way to add albums to this folder...only photos. But, following the steps above is a very easy way to share albums by creating shared photo streams. They also don't count towards your iCloud limit.