Photos

In this guide, you will learn how to create albums and upload files via various methods that suit you best, edit photos and videos, and view uploaded files with quality thumbnail for better browsing experience.

For the latest information about photo and video formats supported by Photo Station, visit Synology's website.

Upload Photos and Videos

If you have Photo Station’s administrative privilege, you can use any of the following methods to upload a new album to the photo shared folder (for the default Photo Station managed by DSM admin) or home/photo folder (for Personal Photo Station managed by DSM users).

The length of time required largely depends on the size and the amount of files. Of all the methods mentioned in this section, we recommend you use Photo Station Uploader, which utilizes your computer’s system resources for quicker thumbnail generation and video compression before the uploading process starts.

To upload files, do any of the following:

• Upload Using Photo Station Uploader (Available for Windows and Mac)
  You can upload your photos and videos to Photo Station using Photo Station Uploader.
  This is the most convenient method because you can easily upload files with the file explorer by right-clicking the files and folders after installing Photo Station Uploader on your local computer. If the files to be uploaded contain videos, select conversion qualities (high, medium, low, mobile) you prefer; videos will be converted to the selected qualities for playback in Photo Station. Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the upload procedure.
• Upload Albums Using Photo Uploader (Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux)
  You can upload your albums to Synology NAS using Photo Uploader (Synology Assistant), one of the several functions of Synology Assistant.
  Before uploading, Photo Uploader will use your computer to compress videos to H.264 format, and generate thumbnails for the photos and videos. For more information about using Photo Uploader, see the Help of Synology Assistant.
• Create Albums and Upload Files Using Photo Station
  Navigate to Albums on Photo Station, click Add to create a new album or upload files to existing ones.

  Note:

  • For Synology NAS models with 64-bit processors and running on DSM 6.0 or above, the size of each file to be uploaded should be 32 GB or less. For other models, the maximum upload size per file is 2 GB.
  • Only users with the access and upload rights to the album can upload photos and videos. See To edit album information and privacy settings for more information.
  • The following browsers do not support drag-and-drop uploading: Internet Explorer 9 or previous version, Safari 5 or previous version, Opera.
• Upload via File Sharing Protocols or File Station
  Select the photos and videos on your computer, and put them in a folder that will become your new album.
  • To upload within the Intranet: If your computer and Synology NAS are within the same Intranet, you can upload the album via the file sharing protocols for your platform. For more information about accessing folders within the Intranet, see DSM Help.
  • To upload over the Internet: If your computer and Synology NAS are not within the same Intranet, you can upload your album via File Station or FTP. For more information about accessing folders over the Internet, see DSM Help.
• Upload Using DS photo (Mobile App)
  If you have an iOS/Android device or Windows Phone, you can upload photos from your device to Photo Station with DS photo. See DS photo Help for more information.

Manage Albums

Manage your albums with the upload, delete, download, and share functions. Edit the titles, descriptions, and access privileges according to your needs.

To edit album information and permission settings:

1. Browse to the album you want to edit.
2. Click More on the top and click Edit Album Properties.
3. Modify basic album information like Album Name and Description.
4. Set album permission by selecting from the Permission Type drop-down menu:
   • Public Album: Accessible to all viewers
   • Private Album: Accessible to privileged user accounts
   • Password: Accessible to viewers with a correct password
5. To set user/group privileges for the album, click Assign Privileges. To know more about privilege assignment, see here.
6. To change album cover, click Set album cover on the top-left and choose a desired photo as the new cover.

To change album order and view mode:

• Click the view control icon in the top-right corner to switch between view modes and change the way albums are automatically sorted.
• Drag and drop to manually rearrange the sequence of files or albums. To undo all manual sorting and reset to the default order of files and albums, click More and choose Clear Manual Sorting.

To change the permission type of your albums to Windows ACL:

With Windows ACL, the album permission can act on not only Photo Station but other file services (e.g. File Station, Samba, FTP, AFP, et cetera), and the calculation of the user quota can be more accurate. Click Start to change the permission type.

To browse albums in tree view:

You can browse all albums more easily in tree view on the left side of gallery. Once the tree view is enabled, you can move and copy albums displayed in the main area to any album on the left panel by the drag-and-drop method. To enable the setting, go to Settings > Photos. Tick Enable tree view of albums on the left panel to move and copy albums by dragging and dropping.

To create a slideshow:

To create a full-screen slideshow using photos from an album, simply browse to this album and click Slideshow.

To organize albums into categories:

You can create categories to group related albums together. For example, you can create an album category called "Travel" to collect albums that contain photos of your different trips.

1. Click + in the left panel to create a new category.
2. In the newly created category, select and pin albums to it.
3. You can also navigate to Albums, select albums and click Action to pin them to existing categories.
4. Within a category, drag and drop to rearrange the sequence of pinned albums.

To download albums, photos, and videos:

Go to Settings > Photos. Tick Allow users and guests to download photos and videos. Do either of the following:

• To download entire albums, simply navigate to Albums, select albums and click Download.
• To save the photo or video you are currently viewing, simply click Download while viewing.

To delete or move albums:

Navigate to Albums, select the albums you want to delete or move, and click Action.

To share albums, photos, and videos:

Photo Station offers various ways to share your albums, photos, and videos with other people. Read more about sharing here.

To embed Photo Station:

You can embed any public album into your website using HTML scripts and customize your embedding preferences.

1. Navigate to a public album of your choice.
2. Click More > Embed album.
3. Edit your embedding preferences for this album. You can adjust the display size and choose whether or not a slideshow will be played automatically.
4. Copy the HTML code generated by Photo Station and paste it in the source code of your web page. If you tick the Click to enter Lightbox mode checkbox, a JavaScript source code will also be generated.
5. The embedded album will appear on your website in the position as specified in your HTML source.

You can refer to this tutorial for more information on embedding albums.

Create Smart Albums

Smart Albums are special albums that automatically group photos or videos that match specific criteria. The contents of a Smart Album will automatically change when you change the criteria. By specifying criteria such as keywords and location tags, you can create Smart Albums that help you review and collect images efficiently.

To enable default Smart Albums:

1. Navigate to Smart Albums and click Add to enable default Smart Albums.
2. Select which tags will generate default Smart Albums. Photo Station will then create a Smart Album for each tag automatically. For example, if you tick Location Tag, Photo Station will collect photos and videos tagged with the same location tag into one Smart Album. If you tick People Tag, in addition to Smart Albums of confirmed people tags, a Smart Album containing unconfirmed people tags will also appear with the album name: To-be-confirmed Album.

To create a new Smart Album:

Navigate to Smart Albums and click Add to create your own Smart Album on demand.

Manage Tags for Photos

Photo Station allows you to tag your photos with people, locations, and descriptions.

To add tags:

Simply click the photo/video to which you want to add tags. Please note that people tag is not available for videos.

To manage existing tags:

1. Go to Settings > Photos, and click Manage Tags.
2. Select tags from the list to edit or remove them.

Comment on Photos or Videos

Go to Settings > Photos and tick Allow users to comment on albums to let users leave their messages while viewing a photo or video.

Perform Face Recognition

Go to Settings > Photos and tick Enable face recognition to try out Photo Stations' face recognition feature. By enabling this function, not only can Photo Station be configured to detect faces and perform auto recognition for photos, but you can identify faces yourselves manually.

Tick Perform auto face recognition for new photos so that faces appearing in the newly-added photos will be detected and people tags will be created accordingly.

If you want to find people appearing in all photos, click the Find people for all photos button to scan all photos. Tags will be generated after the scan is finished, and name fields will be auto-filled in from your people tag list for the people you chose to tag.

Search Albums, Photos, and Videos

Photo Station provides the search function from general to advanced for albums, photos, and videos. Please note that the search function is not available for Smart Albums.

To perform a general search:

Enter keywords in the search field in the left panel. Albums, photos, and videos matching the search criteria will appear.

To perform an advanced search:

Click the down arrow next to the magnifying glass in the left panel, and then specify your search criteria.

Manage Indexing and Conversion Settings

Photo Station provides you with an option to choose which files and albums to be displayed by excluding media files of certain formats stored in the photo shared folder from being converted. You can specify the formats by going to Settings > Photos.

Conversion settings include thumbnail creation and video conversion, allowing you to decide whether to apply the settings to newly-created albums and select for which albums you want to enable the settings. By default, the settings are enabled for all existing albums. Click Conversion Settings to disable the settings for specific albums. Alternatively, click More > Edit Album Properties while browsing to an album.

Set Watermarks for Pictures in Albums

When you set a watermark for an album, the watermark will be applied to all the pictures in the album. You can go to the album of which you wish to edit or remove the watermark, and click More > Edit Album Properties to proceed with the operation.

Set Thumbnail and Video Settings

When you upload photos or videos for use with Media Server or Photo Station, thumbnails will be created for better browsing experience. You can set the thumbnail quality and monitor the thumbnail creation progress. Meanwhile, if you would like to view videos in the photo shared folder of Photo Station on your mobile devices, you can enable video conversion and view the conversion progress as well.

To set thumbnail and video settings:

Log in to DSM, and go to Control Panel > Media Indexing to set the thumbnail quality and monitor the conversion progress. For more information about setting thumbnail quality and monitoring thumbnail creation progress, click the Help button (with a question mark) at the top-right corner.

Access Photo Station via Mobile Devices

To connect to Photo Station via mobile devices, you can download DS photo on your mobile devices to manage the photos in Photo Station.
Before downloading Photo Station photos with DS photo, go to Settings > Photos in Photo Station and enable Allow users to view and download full size photos.
For more information about operating DS photo, please refer to DS photo Help.