Need help with iCloud. Not very tech savvy?

You can't really use iCloud to back up your photos. If you used photo stream, those photos only remain in iCloud for 30 days. You can back up your camera roll as part of your iCloud backup, but you wouldn't be able to access the photos without restoring the backup to your device. Also, if you deleted the photos from your device and continued to back up, you would overwrite the backup that contains the photos with one that doesn't, and they would be lost.

To do what you want, you would need to use a different cloud-based service that allows you to store and view photos and videos. There are a number available, such as Dropbox, that allow you to upload your photos and videos to their cloud server, then access and view them from any of your devices. A number of these are reviewed in this article from Roger Wilmut: http://www.wilmut.webspace.virginmedia.com/notes/missing/inicloud3.html.

Also, you can get a better idea what is using the space on your device by going to Settings>General>Usage on your device, as well as by connecting it to your computer, opening iTunes, clicking on the name of your device in iTunes, then looking at the multi-colored bar at the bottom (see image below). One area that you may have overlooked is photos and videos that are sent to you as attachments to emails and text messages. Unless deleted, these can add up to quite a bit of space over time.

Randers4

Your answers are a joy to read. Thank you for taking your valuable time to contribute to this community.

Thanks, glad you find them helpful.

Other includes many things, including your settings, contacts, calendar events, Safari bookmarks/cache/cookies, email and email attachments, SMS/MMS/iMessages and their attachments, notes, app data, iTuens Match cache, cookies and bookmarks, stored passwords, search index, home screen organization, wi-fi network data, etc. You can check the size of some of these on your device. For example, you can go to Settings>General>Usage to check if you have any apps that have lots of app data. You can also go through your text message conversations and delete any photos or videos (by opening the conversation, tapping Edit, tapping the items you want to delete, then tapping Delete at the bottom). Also, if you are using iTunes Match and have been playing a number of songs in your library on your device, they are stored in cache memory. These can be cleared by going to Settings>General>Usage>Music, swiping across All Music, then tapping Delete. You can also go through your saved email messages and delete any large attachments.

If none of this helps, and you've already tried restoring your device, you may have something corrupt in your backup and restoring the backup simply returns the problem to your device. If that's the case, you'll need to save as much of your data as you can (such as importing your photos and videos to your computer, transferring your purchased music and other media to your iTunes library, emailing your notes and voice memos to yourself, etc.), then restore your device as new (without using your backup) and start over.