SoundGuy wrote:
With Picasaweb just one link takes whomever clicks on it to all 5 albums where they can then select the one they may be interested in. I just don't see a way of accomplishing the same thing with Google Photos.
When Google's photo app was a part of Google+, you could share albums with everyone (public), or with your "circles" such as family, friends, etc. Facebook works the same way. And, all albums that you share to a social network can be seen by the logged in user. The disadvantage of this method is that obviously, you cannot share albums with people unless they are members of the social network that you choose to use.
Google Photos (since being separated from Google+ which I think was a very good change) does not have an authentication process. So an album owner can provide a link to an album that allows access to anyone with access to that link. Or, they can share the album through a social network such as FB or Google+ that does have a login requirement. Then access is limited to those that are "friends" in the social network.
This may seem cumbersome, but in my mind it works better than the alternatives. I don't see how access like you want (no login required and open access to multiple albums) would allow any kind of privacy protection on desired albums. In other words, I don't think you can or will ever be able to do what you want with Google Photos. And, I would be surprised if you can do it with any other cloud based photo host.
In Picasa Web you can share albums as Public, but you still have to send a link to a single album to the person you want to share it with. And then (I haven't used Picasa Web in some time) when you finish viewing that album Picasa Web asks if you want to see other albums from the same person from several offered as an option. This may work fine if you only have five albums, but not if that person has a lot of public albums. As I remember, there is no way to easily find specific other albums.