re uploading a folder to icloud

I recently synced a whole collection of folders (photo backups), the parent folder is 'photo backup' and within that folder are many different folders of photos. I added these to my icloud drive to free up space on my mac but recently downloaded 3 of the folders and they have again taken up space on my mac. How do i re upload these to icloud drive so they are no longer taking up space?

Photo attached showing what I mean. I don't really want to have to turn icloud off and then back on as its around 40gb of files