If I delete photo’s from my iPad to free up space for my latest photo’s (to edit on a larger screen), does this delete the photo’s from my iCloud storage??

If you delete a photo from your iPhone/iPad. yes it will delete it from your other devices as well.

one suggestion I might have is (if you haven't done this already).

go into settings > photos > chose "Optimize iPhone/iPad" storage.

this will keep the originals of your photos on the cloud, and keep only a thumbnail size photo on your iOS device.

when you need to open and edit, it will download a full size copy of it from the cloud.

other options such as using 3rd party cloud storage is also always an option.

The simple answer is Yes.

Instead of using iCloud, you'd be better off using another third party offsite, online data/images storage, data/images backup services, like Google Drive/Photos, DropBox, BOX, Flickr than using iCloud.

Best of Luck to You!

Yes, it is a user pay world to compensate for the very cost of all these online services we all like and use.

But it is a fair point that Apple could make the distinction of iCloud as a “sync” service better, since so many people also use online archival storage services like DropBox. And Apple itself did once offer an archival service (MobileMe) at one point.

So it does get confusing about just what any particular “cloud” service is offering. As cloud storage and cloud compute services become more prevalent to consumers, the companies offering them need to do a better job explaining just what their particular service is - what it does, what are the pros and the cons of signing up for it.

You're not alone in thinking iCloud is an archive as opposed to a syncing service. I have multiple services (some paid and some free) to ensure I never lose any photos. I pay for Carbonite backup service for my laptops and my iPhine/iPad photo stream syncs with my laptop. I also use Google Photos, which is free and as a member of Amazon Prime, my photos are backed up to Amazon photo, so there's no way I'll ever lose my photos.

I have never used iCloud photo. But I sync more than 5GB of data with other apps (pages, numbers, work MS Office files in OneDrive, PDFs in a very large EndNote library, etc).

Additional iCloud storage is not merely about iCloud photo. It’s about any data you wish to sync across multiple devices. If you have devices with large storage (mine are all 128 or 256GB) and sync a lot of data, the iCloud subscriptions are an asset.

Even free google photo storage is not unlimited. If you exceed 15GB of Google drive space while storing photos in original pixel density and quality, you’ll end up having to pay for more storage. So if you’re shooting pictures at 16MP or more, or a lot of 1080P or higher resolution videos, you’ll end up paying for google storage. And google charges exactly the same monthly rate for 200GB storage as Apple does - $2.99/month.

While Amazon Prime does offer unlimited storage, you are of course paying for your Amazon Prime membership. And AWS benefits from being the single largest provider of cloud computing services in the world. Everybody uses them to some level for their own services, even Google, Apple, IBM and Microsoft.

Cloud storage and cloud computing costs the companies offering it billions of dollars to set up, and hundreds of millions annually to operate (Apple has invested more than $10 Billion in the last decade or so to build out icloud). So of course there is no free lunch with cloud based services. Beyond some basic introductory storage and services, every company charges for cloud storage and cloud computing - Apple, Google, Amazon, DropBox, Box, Microsoft, IBM - everybody charges for it since it costs them huge amounts to continue to provide it.

Yes, I'm aware Google gives 15GB of free storage. I'm not close to using that. And I did say above that I get Amazon Photo with my Prime Membership (so implied that I pay for Prime membership). And I also pay for Carbonite, so my photos are all there, but I pay for that more to make sure every file on my computers (two laptops) are fully backed up at all times and if something goes wrong with either of them, I can simply download the backups to a computer anytime, just like restoring an iPhone/iPad from iCloud backup.

I know I replied to your post lobsterghost1, but I was trying to make just the general comment to the thread that there is no one who offers unlimited cloud based storage or services.

Just saying that there is no such thing as truly unlimited cloud storage or cloud computing, from anyone. These are many billion of dollars systems to set up, operate and maintain. Beyond some basic introductory free storage and services, every single company offering cloud computing storage or services charges fees.

We all see many posts here from people who seem to think “cloud” should mean “free”, without apparently understanding these are huge costs to companies to build out, and huge costs to keep running. Apple’s NC server farm alone (only one of many they operate), which cost over $1 billion USD to build , also uses so much power it was worth building an additional solar power plant capable of powering 14,000 homes annually. So of course companies charge for these things, and no it is not a “nice wee earn” for Apple. Yes it’s profitable, at the prices they charge, but it is also hugely expensive to provide, hence the fees.

No worries Michael. I agree with you as I almost always do!

No worries at all, I will try to be as kind as possible :) I hope you are enjoying your iPad!

iCloud is a syncing service.. not a place for backing up photos.. I kinda wish it was.

So yes, if you have iCloud Photos turned on and you delete one of those photos from your iPad, you are also deleting it from your iCloud storage and any other devices that are synced using your Apple ID.

Do you have a Mac or a PC? If you want to retain your photos, you can 'offload' them from your phone.. and back them up using your computer, or an external drive etc.

Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support