Caution: Photos and Videos are down sampled when viewed/downloaded from iCloud Photo

[flashflooder]

If you go to beta.cloud.com/#photos you will find that pictures and videos you have uploaded via iCloud Photo Library are NOT the original resolution/size.

Pictures are lower resolution, as are videos. That's regardless of whether you're streaming or downloading them. Also regardless of whether you choose to "optimize storage" on your device or keep the originals.

This leaves open the possibility that if you are optimizing, you may lose the original files. In other words, once the optimization removes the original file from your phone, there is currently NO WAY to recover that original file.

Perhaps when the Photos app for Yosemite releases in 2015, you will be able to download / access the originals. For now, there is no way to do so. Not very reassuring.

Just a warning for those thinking about making the jump.

 

[Razeus]

If you go to beta.cloud.com/#photos you will find that pictures and videos you have uploaded via iCloud Photo Library are NOT the original resolution/size.

Pictures are lower resolution, as are videos. That's regardless of whether you're streaming or downloading them. Also regardless of whether you choose to "optimize storage" on your device or keep the originals.

This leaves open the possibility that if you are optimizing, you may lose the original files. In other words, once the optimization removes the original file from your phone, there is currently NO WAY to recover that original file.

Perhaps when the Photos app for Yosemite releases in 2015, you will be able to download / access the originals. For now, there is no way to do so. Not very reassuring.

Just a warning for those thinking about making the jump.

Well it IS a beta product. Do not trust BETA products with your only high-rez copy of a photo.

 

[Small White Car]

How soon did you try this experiment?

It took almost all day for all of my photos to upload. During that time the downloads were not full sized. Now that it's finished, though, they are.

It seems it needs time during the initial upload to get all of its **** together. But now that it's done it's been working fine for me.

 

[ZEEN0j]

I have iCloud photo library enabled on two devices. One setup to optimize and one to keep original. I have checked the beta site and pictures are high quality when viewed on the site for me. Haven't tried downloading any. Videos are lower quality when viewed on site. I'm guessing because they are streamed. Yesterday I restored to an iCloud backup on the device that keeps the original. The quality is as it should. Size matches with my local backup. They don't keep optimized photos on iCloud. Only the high quality ones. The downgrade is done locally.

 

[Zetaprime]

I got the stuff from my ipad to upload to icloud photo library, the photos open but the videos will not play when I go to the icloud website from my mac. My phone is stuck where it started (uploading 827 items) and is not progressing at all. This icloud photo thing looks more alpha than beta.

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Well it IS a beta product. Do not trust BETA products with your only high-rez copy of a photo.

I'm keeping all the originals on my devices for that reason. No way would I trust icloud beta or otherwise with my only copy.

 

[flashflooder]

Well it IS a beta product. Do not trust BETA products with your only high-rez copy of a photo.

I'm not, and never said I was.

To answer Small White Car's question: I uploaded these pics and videos weeks ago, and they are still downscaled. Pictures are slightly lower resolution (check the files if you don't believe me) and the video looks like absolute crap.

Just disappointed since this is not what was advertised.

 

[Zetaprime]

iCloud Photo library is not ready for prime time or even late nite. They should be labeling it an alpha, not a beta. I disabled it and went back to business as before. I was only able to get it to work on my iPad. The phone refused to upload any photos to it. After a day of trying I gave up. With it enabled it also ruined the way photos taken with one device would show up on the other since only one device was cooperating with it. Now that I disabled it the original behaviour has returned. I didn't allow it to optimize on the ipad so the pics that are on it were left as they were. So hopefiully trying out this icloud photo fiasco did no harm.

 

[zorinlynx]

The more this iCloud Photo Library thing has problems and people lose faith in it, the happier I am.

The whole notion of having the cloud host the primary copy of all your photos is so idiotic it makes my head spin. Especially after all the stories of cloud security breaches, data loss, and so on lately.

Apple really needs to tweak this; the main copy of your photo library needs to be on your computer. From there, you can sync to iCloud, but the cloud copy should never be authoritative.

 

[gsmornot]

On my 5S I had at the time I took a photo that came out 3264x2448 as copied to my computer.

The same photo downloaded from the Photo app in iCloud its 2048x1536.

The file size is roughly half of the original photo. I would not say it looks worse necessarily and being critical I would not say I could tell right away. It took going though this process to compare and discover. Maybe they do apply some type of process in order to reduce space usage.

If so, why then do they charge me for space about equal to what I use on my device? I have 6.1GB on my device. Phone says 5.8GB in the cloud but so far the photos have been roughly half the size when I download. So, I wonder if they charge for space equal to the original size because its reasonable to believe I would be using the space but on the back end only use about half therefore enabling the ability to sell the space twice if you know what I mean.

 

[RosOne]

I have taken a picture a couple days ago with my 6+. This picture was uploaded to iCloud Photo Thingy. The iCloud Photo Thingy is activated on my Air too. I connected my Air via USB and the picture is at full resolution.

I guess the full res version is being uploaded, but it doesn't display on icloud.com and can't be downloaded using the website. This might be fixed in the future.

Edit: Even easier, I took a picture today with my 6+ and it's at full res on my Air

 

[gsmornot]

Glad you said that. I felt like the full size photo was there but it was not looking that way in testing. I still have the feature on but don't plan to do anything more with the setting to optimize on the device until this is a little more solid. Even if that means next year or whenever the final pieces are ready and this is no longer beta.

 

[RosOne]

Forgot to mention that I do use the optimize option on both devices.

 

[Zetaprime]

Caution: Photos and Videos are down sampled when viewed/downloaded from iClou...

Forgot to mention that I do use the optimize option on both devices.

You really must like to live dangerously trusting an especially unreliable cloud server with the only full size copies of your pics. ICloud Photo Library is nowhere near ready for practical use.

 

[Zetaprime]

I have taken a picture a couple days ago with my 6+. This picture was uploaded to iCloud Photo Thingy. The iCloud Photo Thingy is activated on my Air too. I connected my Air via USB and the picture is at full resolution.

I guess the full res version is being uploaded, but it doesn't display on icloud.com and can't be downloaded using the website. This might be fixed in the future.

Edit: Even easier, I took a picture today with my 6+ and it's at full res on my Air

And you didn't need icloud photo library for that. I was always able access photos taken with one device on the other..until I activated icloud photo libary, at which point it stopped working..disabled icloud photo library and it works again. Avoid icloud photo library like Ebola.

 

[azukre]

It would make sense that full size are stored at the iCloud website. I consider it as a reliable backup for my photos and videos. Unless Apple has different idea.

 

[flashflooder]

It would make sense that full size are stored at the iCloud website. I consider it as a reliable backup for my photos and videos. Unless Apple has different idea.

Right now there is no way to access the full size versions, that's the problem. Perhaps when the Photos.app comes out for Yosemite next year, it will offer this option. No one really knows because Apple hasn't said.

I would argue that I should be able to download the full size versions from the iCloud website. I'm paying for the storage, I should be able to access what's being stored....

 

[RosOne]

You really must like to live dangerously trusting an especially unreliable cloud server with the only full size copies of your pics. ICloud Photo Library is nowhere near ready for practical use.

Nah, I keep copies until I trust it 100%.