Len, I am not 100% clear on what you are trying to do, but I think you
want the album program to contain all the photos. I can't remember
seeing any album program working this way.

However, have a look at IdImager (www.idimager.com). It is mainly aimed
at cataloguing your photos but it also does albums, slideshows, etc plus
archiving to CD. The best thing to me is that photos archived to CD are
still searchable in IdImager. It just prompts to insert the CD (and
tells you which one) if you want to use the full size photo rather than
the thumbnail image. There is a free lite version which includes most
functionality plus trial versions of the Professional and Personal
versions.

Anyway, back to the point, after you create albums (virtual like in
Picasa), you can archive a complete album to CD giving you the complete
set of photos on a standalone CD which you can give to someone else to
view. I think this is what you want to do. Alternatively, you can create
slideshows, videos or websites of your album to CD.

Check out the free lite version to see if this is what you want as it
has all the album and archiving functionality. Be warned, this is high
end software so it has a lot of functionality and so looks very daunting
at first, but it is well worth the effort to learn.

Graham Corbin