COUNT() -- Am I doing this correctly?

[slick101]

A bit new to mysql and just want to see if im doing things correctly!

Im basically getting a row on a user and also counting how many albums the user has.
tables: users, albums
norm table: albums_users

SELECT u.id,u.name,
(
SELECT COUNT(a.id) FROM albums a
LEFT JOIN albums_users au ON au.user_id = u.id
) AS total
FROM users u WHERE u.id IN(398,3247)

I then (i need users showing even if 0 albums or i would do a HAVING total > 0)

do an if statement in PHP to check if TOTAL > 0 if it is then retrieve some albums

SELECT a.id,a.image,a.name FROM albums a
LEFT JOIN albums_users au ON au.album_id = a.id
WHERE au.user_id = 398 ORDER BY a.date_added LIMIT 5

i norm the tables b/c it is a 1 to many users

just need some criticism to up my game...just wanna see if im doing things correctly.
Thanks for your time

[djjjozsi]

without subquery:
replace the field names. How many images a has:

SELECT users.id, users.name, Count(albums.image) AS CountOfimage
FROM albums RIGHT JOIN users ON albums.user_id = users.id
GROUP BY users.id, users.name
HAVING (users.id IN (398 , 3247));

Is it needed to use a third (connector) table? Or you allow many albums for many users?

[slick101]

yea users may have many albums.

Thanks man thats basically what i wanted to know. thanks