There always is a way to organize photos

10/22/2010

Q. I use a Windows PC and an iPad. I'd like to upload photos to the iPad, but iTunes throws every photo loose into the Photos app. Friends with Apple computers can organize their pictures on the iPad into many folders. Is there any way to do that from a Windows computer?

A. While Mac users can simply take advantage of Apple's iPhoto program to group and organize photos between computer and iPad, Windows users are not without their own options.

If you keep your photos in the My Pictures folder (or another folder) on your hard drive, use subfolders to group photos in separate albums for the iPad. For example, to group vacation pictures in one album and graduation photos in another for the iPad, sort these images into their own subfolders within the main My Pictures folder before syncing with iTunes.

Connect the iPad to the PC, click on the iPad icon in the iTunes window and then on the Photos tab at the top of the window. Here, choose the folder and subfolders the iPad will copy photos from (like My Pictures). Click the Apply and Sync buttons to transfer the photos to the iPad, where they should show up in the same groups.

For people who use Adobe Photoshop Elements to edit and organize photos, iTunes can copy the same photo albums to the iPad. Connect the iPad, click the Photos tab in the iTunes window. Next to “Sync Photos from,” choose Adobe Photoshop Elements. Choosy users can turn on the checkboxes next to the specific albums to copy. Apple has more information at support.apple.com/kb/HT4236.

An iPad app for sorting photos directly on the iPad is another option. Photo-Sort for iPad (photo-sort.webs.com) is one possibility, although the program has received mixed reviews.