Difference between camera roll, photo stream, and photo library

With your iPhone connected to iTunes, go to the Photos tab. This controls which photos are synced to your phone. There are several options. You can sync all or none of your photos, or choose a folder or folders which you'd like duplicated to your iPhone.

It's not so much a matter of deleting the folder from your iPhone as selecting which items you want to be there.

The text below, copied from above, makes no sense to me. What do I not understand. Here's the text:

If the photos have not been imported from the Camera Roll and they are deleted, they will be lost unless they are in the PhotoStream or included with your iPhone's backup. If not in the PhotoStream and not in your iPhone's backup or if your iPhone's backup is updated after the photos are deleted from the Camera Roll, they will be lost.

SO.........how would these photos "that have not been imported" show up in my "photo stream?" I still worry about what my photo library is. Thanks.

If you have Photo Stream enabled on your iPhone, all photos captured by your iPhone, any photos saved from a received email, photos saved from a received message, and any photos saved from a website with all saved in the Camera Roll are added to your Photo Stream automatically.

Photo Library stores all photos that were transferred from your computer via the iTunes sync process which is selected under the Photos tab for your iPhone sync preferences with iTunes.

Thanks. How to I "capture" a photo from my iPhone? How do I save a photo from an email? I gather that syncing my iphone with the mac sends things from the mac to the phone.

Some other process is used to send things from the iphone to the Mac. Right?

You're welcome.

You don't "capture" a photo from your iPhone. You "capture" a photo with your iPhone - the iPhone includes a camera. All photos captured or taken with the iPhone are saved in the iPhone's Camera Roll.

You should spend some time with the iPhone user guide regarding saving a photo from a received email, from a received text message/iMessage, or from a website.

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf

This also covers the iTunes sync process to transfer music, podcasts, movies, tv shows, and audio and print books from your iTunes library on your computer to your iPhone.

Photos/videos in your iPhone's Camera Roll can be imported by your computer as with any other digital camera. This is not done with iTunes. This is done with iPhoto or with the Image Captue application on your Mac. Also covered in the iPhone user guide.

Hi Allan,

When photos and videos are imported from Camera Roll to MacBook, can I say that they are saved in my hard drive and where do they locate in the hard drive, inside the Library in iphoto? Thanks

Photos/videos imported by your computer from your iPhone or from any digital camera or digital camera storage card are stored/saved on your computer's hard drive.

If you use iPhoto for this, the import is stored on your iPhoto database.

If you use the Image Capture application for this, the import is saved wherever you designate the import to be saved on your computer's hard drive with the application.

Thank you. By the way, can you please tell me know how can I acess iPhoto database on hard drive?

So, I have discovered something odd about my iPhone photos. Not all of the photos I take go to my Photo Stream! I find them on my Camera Roll but not my photo stream. This creates a big problem when i want to view on a bigger screen like my iPad, which is how I can see the quality and whether it is worth printing. Why does this happen? How can I fix it?

I do not own a MAC but do have icloud set up on my desktop pc (I know, old school). None of my photos show up here, so I have problem when I want to save any of my photos (The only way I have figured is to email them to myself....my daughter said I should be able to hook up through usb port but again it is manual photo by photo). Any help eith this would be welcome.

Thanks.

I think only pictures that are taken while you are using WiFi show up in photo stream - Not the ones taken using cellular data.

Incorrect.

Photos captured by your iPhone when not connected to a wifi network are transferred to your photo steam the next time the iPhone is connected to an available wifi network.

Thanks, Allan. After reading through all of the posts on this topic I think I managed not be totally confused. So, if I have Photo Stream and I want to clean up my iPhone from all the photos, I can delete from the Camera roll without affecting Photo Stream, but if I delete from Photo Stream, is the photo then totally deleted from both my phone and iPad?

You're welcome.

Photo Stream is synced between all computers and iOS devices that you have your photo stream enabled on.

Can you then tell me why, when I put the SD card reader on my iPad, the photos go into the PHOTO STREAM instead of my CAMERA ROLL?

Why, when I create a folder and copy a file to it, does a copy go into CAMERA ROLL?

The reason I ask is that when I delete the duplicate from the CAMERA ROLL, it deletes it everywhere in the PHOTO LIBRARY, including every single folder it is in.

Why did Apple create such a convoluted system of storing images. With a couple of ADD commands, I could take up all available space as it makes copies upon copies.

It should not do that since photos can't be transferred to your photo stream when imported or when captured by the device without being saved locally on the device first.

Unless there is an option or selection available to import all photos with the Camera Connection Kit direct into the Photo Stream.

All photos captured by the device or saved by the device from a received email, from a website, or from an iMessage are stored in the Camera Roll. A photo placed in a user created folder is not copied as in taking up double the storage space. The original is stored on the Camera Roll. The user created folder includes a pointer to the original photo only that is stored in the Camera Roll. Delete the original from the Camera Roll and the duplicate or duplicates are removed as well from the user created folder or folders.

This prevents what you are saying and allows a duplicate that includes a pointer to the original photo stored in the Camera Roll only to be placed in one or multiple user created photo albums without taking the same storage capacity for each duplicate.

The same for photos transferred from your computer to the device via the iTunes sync process. All photos in all albums transferred from your computer are stored in the Photo Library. The photos in the albums below transferred from your computer are not copied as in taking up double the storage space. The photos on the albums below include a pointer only to the originals stored in the Photo Library. This way you can view the photos in an album only by selecting the album, or all photos in all albums by selecting Photo Library without having copies taking up double the storage space.

Try same with iTunes playlists. A song placed in a playlist is not copied as in taking up double the storage space. The song in a playlist includes a pointer to the original only. Allows for having a copy of the same song in more than one playlist, under artists, and genres, etc. without taking up storage space for each copy of the song where available. Remove the original from the main song library on the device and the song will not be available anywhere else on the device.

The same principle applies to photos.