Overwhelmed by photo library

Oh--I was going to add something, but I missed the deadline. I wanted to say that, while the Library view that shows all the pictures that can be put into albums is necessary, it might be nice to have an additional special view that showed all the pictures that hadn't yet been put into an album. If that's something that you would like, then let Apple know here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

I think that would be a good addition!

We are not supposed to organize the library. It is the place where we always find all objects in Photos. We use albums and folders to build our own view of the library on top of the existing structure.

"My only options are: - copy to an album OR delete the photo"

That is a misunderstanding. We can add photos to an album, but not move them out of the library. Albums are not holding copies of the photos. They are a referencing the photos in the library. We can add a photo or video to as many albums as we like, without creating duplicates. You can hide the photos you are not interested in, then you will no longer see them, only in the Hidden album. And add the important photos to suitably named albums for easy access. Your folders and albums will be your private view of the Library.

Actually, I like it very much, that the photos will remain in the library and I can use them in many albums. Most of my relevant photos are needed for several projects, and so I can add them to as many albums as I like, without duplicating them. I only need to duplicate photos when I want to have two different versions of the same photo, for example one color versional one black and white version, or the photo cropped in different ways.

SewExcited wrote: … give us the option to ‘move’ an image to a folder

The thing is, if you read closely what léonie said, you will see that removing a picture from the Library when you put it into an album would make it harder to put the picture into another album. As she said, in Photos an album isn't a holder of pictures--an album is a way of giving a specific view of your pictures, and it allows alternative views, as well.

The picture of "Aunt Ethel at the Grand Canyon" can be in the "Aunt Ethel" album with other pictures of Aunt Ethel, and it can also be in the "Grand Canyon"  album with pictures of other people at the Grand Canyon. And it can even be in a the "September 2015" album with other things that happened then. Each album is pointing to a single file stored in the Photos Library, so having pictures in multiple albums takes up no more storage space.

If you eliminated a picture from the Library just because it was in an album, then you couldn't put it in other albums where it belongs, too. As you can imagine, this is very powerful in organizing pictures. It provides a step beyond the process we used to be forced into because there was really only one piece of paper with a picture on it, and it couldn't go into two albums at once..