If I delete my photos will iCloud still have my photos via photo stream?

No. iCloud will not back up your photos. Photo stream photos only remain in iCloud for 30 days, and if you delete them from your iPad, they are also deleted from all your devices as well as from iCloud. Camera roll photos are included in your iCloud backup, but if you delete photos and continue backing up your iPad, the backup containing the deleted photos will be overwritten by one that doesn't, and they will be lost.

To keep your photos, import them to your computer from your camera roll as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083. Then you can safely delete them from your iPad.

This is confusing.

I was looking at upgrading my free 5 GB of iCloud storage. But apparently, for reasons I don't understand, in order for the photos to stay in the iCloud, I have to keep them on my iDevice.

Am I missing something here? I thought iCloud Drive was supposed to be comparable to Google Drive and DropBox.

Now, I take pictures on my iDevice, upload them to my Google Drive and then delete them from my iDevice.

Seriously? I can't do this with iCloud Drive? Then what is the point of it?

Or maybe I am missing something...

You are confusing iCloud being used for backups with iCloud Drive which is not available yet. The post you are reading is from May - long before iCloud Drive was announced.

Cheers,

GB

Ah, thanks!

So, when I download iOS 8, I will be able to upload my photos to iCloud and remove them from my iDevice?

I'm not sure that iOS 8 has total file upload capabilities for iCloud Drive. It appears that the iOS devices can upload documents to the iCloud Drive, but that may be it. When Yosemite comes out and the new Photo app, I think that is when you will be able to upload photos to the iCloud Drive.

This is new for all of us, so just sharing what I have read on the Apple sites....

Cheers,

GB