1. Create a directory on your computer.
2. Copy some photos inside this directory, resize them for web display. Warning: the name of directories and files must contain only letters, figures, "-", "_" or ".". No blank space, nor accentuated characters.
3. With a FTP client, copy your directory in the "galleries" directory of your Piwigo installation.
4. Logon your gallery and go to Administration and click on the big Synchronization button.

Congratulations! You have successfully created the first album of your photo gallery.

• Album directories are in the Piwigo directory "galleries". Here follows the directory tree of a very small gallery (but using many features):

  galleries
  |-- wedding
  |   |-- celebration
  |   |   |-- arrival
  |   |   |   |-- paul-alone.jpg
  |   |   |   +-- sarah-alone.jpg
  |   |   +-- departure
  |   |       +-- paul-and-sarah.jpg
  |   +-- party
  |       |-- dancers001.jpg
  |       |-- dancers002.jpg
  |       +-- dancers003.jpg
  +-- honeymoon
  |   |-- hotel.png
  |   |-- video-from-plane.avi
  |   +-- pwg_representative
  |       +-- video-from-plane.jpg
  +-- photoshoot
      |-- img0001.jpg
      |-- img0002.jpg
      +-- pwg_format
          |-- img0001.cr2
          |-- img0001.cmyk.jpg
          |-- img0001.zip
          |-- img0002.cr2
          +-- img0002.cmyk.jpg
  

• Except for "pwg_representative" and "pwg_format" (see explanations below), each directory under "galleries" produces a album. There is no limit on deepness.
• Basically, an element is represented by a file. A file can be a Piwigo element if its extension is among file_ext configuration parameter possibilities (see include/config_default.inc.php file). A file can be a picture if its extension is among picture_ext configuration parameter possibilities.
• Non photo elements (video, sounds, file texts, whatever you want...) are represented by default by an icon corresponding to the filename extension. Optionally, you can associate a thumbnail and a representative file (see video.avi in the example above).
• Multiple formats: a photo can be available in several formats. In this example, we have 3 additional formats for img0001.jpg. You can activate this feature with $conf['enable_formats'] = true; in your local configuration and define a list of formats, like $conf['format_ext'] = array('cmyk.jpg', 'cr2', 'zip');
• Warning: the name of directories and files must contain only letters, figures, "-", "_" or ".". No blank space, nor accentuated characters.
• Once photos are correctly placed in the directories, go to: Administration » Tools » Synchronize