Perhaps an example will better show how it can be used...
I'll give specific references to areas within this gallery:
http://greggallery.gmcdesign.comTo answer your questions:
why do we need albums in the first place if we can make categories inside of categories?
You can't add photos to a category... Only an album... The categories provide a means of sorting the albums.
Is it that difficult to remove the albums and just use the categories?
The categories are the optional piece - you need to have the albums to hold the pictures...
To use your analogy, think of the album sitting on your table as the 'Category' and the chapters inside as the 'Albums'...
As you scroll the main page of my site (link above):
you will see a category of 'Sporting Events'
beneath that are sub-categories for each club, school, series, etc...)
and within each subcat are albums for each team, race, etc...
(Categories and subcategories are defined exactly the same way... only difference is a subcat has a parent defined of another category...)
So some of the structure flows:
Cat: Sporting Events -> Cat: Nascar Racing -> Album: 2012 Sprint Cup Pure Michigan 400
Cat: R/C Flying -> Cat: NEAT Fair -> Album: 2012 NEAT
Sometimes I have only a single category with albums below - depends on the level of grouping you want....
Categories are optional - you can define Albums with no category if you prefer.
The point about keywords you can see in:
Cat: Skymasters R/C -> Cat: Skymasters Special Collections -> Album "Oops"
(direct link:
http://greggallery.gmcdesign.com/index.php?cat=20)
This is a 'blooper' album... of interesting moments... Most of these photos are in other albums, but I wanted to pull them all together under one album... You will see the description says "6 files, 138 linked files".. Those 138 files are in other albums and linked by keywords... A photo can have any number of keywords... An album only one... The album will display all photos directly loaded to it - plus all photos with a matching keyword.
Does that help it make more sense??