Could someone explain photostream, camera roll and photo albums?

Camera Roll is the album of photos and videos you've taken with your phone. Also they are any photos you've downloaded from apps and browsers like Facebook and Safari.

Photo Stream is what is uploaded in your iCloud. When you take a photo its uploaded to your iCloud album for storage.

Options:

1. You can also allow other iPhone 4-up users with an iCloud to see your photos.

2. You can turn this feature off in the iCloud submenu in Settings.

Photo Albums are just folders in your phone.

You can sort each of your photos to a folder. Like if these series of photos are from a trip, you can create an album(folder) where you can put them into... really they're just short cuts to save space. If you've accidently deleted a photo or album, they were only shortcuts. The main photos are still in the camera roll.

You can save those videos easily. My method is the old school click-and-drag method. Connect your iPhone to your computer via cable. Next your computer should pop up a window(AUTOPLAY) that says OPEN DEVICE TO VIEW FILES. OR you then go to "computer," where all the drives are, and right click on your phone and choose open.

There you just have to click into each folder to see what you want.

Creat a folder in your computer and click and drag these videos and photos for safe keeping. Do NOT choose MOVE cause this will delete the main copy from your iPhone and the only copy will be in your computer. Just copy. You can decide to delete each video and/or photos in your iPhone later.

As for your question on iCloud and make space, YES. You're right.

Droid101 gave a pretty good explanation.

TurquoiseBlue wrote:

My icloud (don't even understand what icloud is or how it works! 😟) is full - so I'd like to delete photos I don't really care for from my 5C - will that give me more space in the iCLOUD for backups?

No. Photos in Photo Stream do not take up iCloud space.

You can download photos from your iPhone to your computer via iCloud Control Panel or connect your iPhone to your computer.

You should regularly copy photos from your iPhone to your computer.

Photos in iCloud will stay there for only 30 days.

-> iCloud Control Panel 3.1 for Windows

See this -> iOS: Import personal photos and videos from iOS devices to your computer

Hi TurquoiseBlue

Welcome to Apple Support Communities!

I will be happy to help you today.

So what I will do is explain the difference and if you have any other issue I will respond to them ASAP.

Camera Roll: This is every photo that has been take on this device and once it is deleted I will be deleted from all folders on that Phone however it will be backed up to iCloud Photos if it is enabled on your device.

My Photo Stream: This is a place where every photo you have taken in the last 30 days (with I think a limit of 10,000) are stored. The images here are all images taken on any device that used the same iCloud/Apple iD as the phone. So this means that if you took a picture on your iPod 15 days and it uses the same account as your iPhone the image taken will be on your iPhone and any other iOS and Mac OS X device that have the same account under Photo Stream. My Photo Stream is basically the Cloud storage of images.

Photo Albums: Consist of all images from the Camera role that have also been placed into an album. So if you want to sort some images from the camera role and have them in folders such as wedding, birthdays e.c.t these images will be there AND in the Camera role. If you delete the images from an album other than Camera role the images will go from that folder but will remain in the Camera role. If you delete an image from the Camera Role it will be removed from Camera Role and any other folder that is created.

Basically photos work like a flow chart.

Image Taken ⇒ Camera Role.

If there is iCloud Photos on: image ⇒ Photo Stream and therefore accessible on another iOS/Mac OS X device using same iCloud/Apple iD.

Just to repeat as I know this is crucial and important information.

If an image is deleted from Camera Role that image is wiped from the device. However there is still a copy of that photo in iCloud Photos but remember those images are only there for 30 days so don't rely on it to keep that image.

Delete an image from photo stream it is wiped from the iCloud sync of that image to all iOS/Mac OS X device using iCloud Photos using same iCloud/Apple iD. YOU WILL STILL HAVE THAT IMAGE IN CAMERA ROLE HOWEVER.

Photo Albums. Delete an image there and it will be removed JUST from the folder. Delete and image from Camera Role that is also in a folder and it will be wiped from the Camera role and Photo Album. However there is still a copy of that photo in iCloud Photos but remember those images are only there for 30 days so don't rely on it to keep that image.

Just quickly iCloud Photos is a way of keeping a cloud copy of those photos on all your iOS/Mac OS X device using the same iCloud/Apple iD as I am sure you have worked out already.

With iCloud Photos you can also share images using a shared photo stream where people can add, comment and like images there.

In short don't rely on iCloud Photos to keep an image if you want to delete an image from the photo stream because most likely when you will want the image, it will be gone.

Of course Apple might explain it better than me and so this link should verify what I said and reinforce what iCloud Photos does: http://www.apple.com/icloud/icloud-photo-sharing.html

Many Thanks and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

iBenjamin Crowley

Photos in the Camera Roll are also in Photo Stream, if Settings > iCloud > Photo Stream is enabled.

In addition, they will be backed up to iCloud if you are backing up to iCloud And there is nothing named "iCloud Photos".

My Photo Stream limit is 1000.

It can also be used with Windows with the -. iCloud Control Panel

Photo Albums can be created on the iPhone but but also imported from the computer.

Photos imported from the computer cannot be deleted directly on the iPhone

That was a helpful read....

Something I am unclear on.

My girlfriend had her phone stolen and when she received a new one all her photos downloaded from the icolud - great nice and easy.

However, a lot of those of photos were from a holiday so she copied them from photo stream to a folder 'holiday'....are these photos still considered part of the photo stream and there for liable to disappear once the photo stream > 1000 shots or are they now considered to be downloaded to the camera roll. They appear to have started disappear. Will back up to a computer ASAP, but where do they stand if they are put in a folder from the photo stream...i see you covered putting photos in a folder from the camera roll.

Thanks!

iCloud has changed since the original post.

How did she copy these from Photo Stream to an album?

Can't do it unless iCloud Drive is enabled.

If iCloud Drive is enabled, the photos stay in Photo Stream but can be added to albums.

See this -> iCloud Photo Library FAQ - Apple Support