Exporting albums from photos

Bluebird1214 wrote: If I make an album in photos and then drag it to the desktop if I then delete those photos from the library will they still remain in the folder on the desktop. I have essentially exported them.

Export converts images to files and saves them in Finder. Finder files exist independently of Photos.

Drag & Drop from Photos is hit or miss. It works sometimes, but the process is not documented and the results have been different in different OSs. What Drag & Drop does from Photos is subject to change any minute. If you want to use Drag & Drop, you should try it and see what happens this time. It may be different tomorrow.

Bluebird1214 wrote: So if I don’t drag and drop is there another way to export an album from photos to the desktop? Or is there a way to export photos directly from the library to the desktop?

I should have been clearer. When I said "Export converts images to files and saves them in Finder," I was referring to this:

• • The menu, "File>Export>Export nn Photos" exports edited pictures.
  • The menu, "File>Export>Export Unmodified Originals" exports the original files.

For the first, the dialog looks like this:

You can see that you have lots of choices. When you hit the "Export" button at the bottom, it takes you to a dialog window that lets you choose the location.

Originals is similar, but you can't make so many choices, or it wouldn't be the original file.

Exporting the edited pictures is a bit slower, because edited pictures don't actually exist anywhere until Photos constructs them from the originals and the recorded edits.