OK, the fact that photo stream still exist is confusing. It really needs to go away once iCloud Photo Library is out of beta.
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I don't understand iCloud Photo Library
- Thread starter EJ8
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Not unless you are likely to find yourself in a situation where youd require a full resolution image and you dont have access to the internet.
Like everyone else I'm trying to sort out just what iCloud Photo Library is and isn't. When I take a picture on my phone, I want it to be on my photo roll on my camera. Then I can choose which photos to put into the iCloud Photo Library or in a shared photo library. In other words, the iCloud Photo Library needs to be a separate step from just taking a picture. Right now I think everything goes one place from the moment a picture or video is taken. But that's not ideal. I take many pictures and some become valuable enough for me to save in a formal cross-device sense (i.e., iCloud Photo Library), but I would also like to keep many to all of the pictures I take on my phone even if I don't want them in the iCloud Photo Library: Two different types of photo storage.
The other way of looking at this is from the delete perspective. When I delete a picture on my phone, I may not want to delete that picture from iCloud Photo Library. And conversely when I delete a picture from iCloud Photo library, I may not want to delete that picture from my phone. Again, two different types of photo storage.
The other way of looking at this is from the delete perspective. When I delete a picture on my phone, I may not want to delete that picture from iCloud Photo Library. And conversely when I delete a picture from iCloud Photo library, I may not want to delete that picture from my phone. Again, two different types of photo storage.
Not yet, no. You'll need to wait for the replacement for iPhoto and Aperture on the Mac - the new Photos app - to be available. It's due early next year. The only way you can see the photos using your Mac is by going to beta.icloud.com/#photos.
Real question now:
I'm trying to keep all my iCloud within the 5GB limit. My usage now is basically an iPhone backup that uses about 3.5GB and some other documents and etc.
Imagine that out of this 3.5GB backup, 2GB is the Camera Roll backup. If I turn iCloud Photo Library on, will it need 3.5Gb + 2GB or the same old 3.5GB but now divided into 1.5GB backup and 2GB iCloud Photos?
I'm trying to keep all my iCloud within the 5GB limit. My usage now is basically an iPhone backup that uses about 3.5GB and some other documents and etc.
Imagine that out of this 3.5GB backup, 2GB is the Camera Roll backup. If I turn iCloud Photo Library on, will it need 3.5Gb + 2GB or the same old 3.5GB but now divided into 1.5GB backup and 2GB iCloud Photos?
There's reports that iCloud photo library is compressing photos and videos stored in iCloud, which goes counter to what Apple is claiming.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6614540
Also with iCloud Photo library enabled, it appears My PhotoStream photos are removed from the device. This can be confirmed by going to the local Storage usage setting and checking Photos and Camera Roll. I'm not sure if photos are still uploaded to My PhotoStream or not. I would guess yes since things like Apple TV don't use iCloud Photo library. The device doesn't appear to download PhotoStream photos though.
There's also some reports that not all photos are being uploaded. That was a common problem with My PhotoStream and poor Wifi networks.
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I'm not seeing a difference between optimize and keep originals. When I first turned on ICPL, I enabled keep originals and they remained on my iPhone. I ended up turning off ICPL and turning it back on, but left it set to optimized this time. With my iPhone connected to my PC, I could still see the full size photos/videos so I don't think that setting applies to existing photos/videos, unless it's buggy.
When you turn on iCloud Photo library, the Photo Library is no longer backed up in iCloud backups.
At least that's how it's supposed to work. I had to delete my iCloud backup after enabling ICPL, because it got screwed up. When I set it back up "Photo Library" in the backup contained "No data" as long as ICPL was enabled.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6614540
Also with iCloud Photo library enabled, it appears My PhotoStream photos are removed from the device. This can be confirmed by going to the local Storage usage setting and checking Photos and Camera Roll. I'm not sure if photos are still uploaded to My PhotoStream or not. I would guess yes since things like Apple TV don't use iCloud Photo library. The device doesn't appear to download PhotoStream photos though.
There's also some reports that not all photos are being uploaded. That was a common problem with My PhotoStream and poor Wifi networks.
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I'm not seeing a difference between optimize and keep originals. When I first turned on ICPL, I enabled keep originals and they remained on my iPhone. I ended up turning off ICPL and turning it back on, but left it set to optimized this time. With my iPhone connected to my PC, I could still see the full size photos/videos so I don't think that setting applies to existing photos/videos, unless it's buggy.
When you turn on iCloud Photo library, the Photo Library is no longer backed up in iCloud backups.
At least that's how it's supposed to work. I had to delete my iCloud backup after enabling ICPL, because it got screwed up. When I set it back up "Photo Library" in the backup contained "No data" as long as ICPL was enabled.
I honk he means, the icloud should serve as a backup and container for all images instead of just a mirror of your device. He means if the the cloud has the exact same images on your phone then what's the point of having it in the cloud.
I am also confused. So right now the iCloud Photo Library refuses to store previously taken photos that were synced to iPhoto from all of my cameras including my DSLR/previous iPhones/iPads.
What would be synced to the iPL is just new photos taken on iOS 8?
And then these synced photos cannot be accessed on my Mac unless I go to the web-based iCloud? But there happens to be iCloud Photo Library on Windows already. Wow. That sounds a lot like the failed Picasa from Google to me.
What would be synced to the iPL is just new photos taken on iOS 8?
And then these synced photos cannot be accessed on my Mac unless I go to the web-based iCloud? But there happens to be iCloud Photo Library on Windows already. Wow. That sounds a lot like the failed Picasa from Google to me.
Through testing I figured out how My PhotoStream integrates with iCloud photo library. It's a one way sync. If you take a photo on a device with ICPL on, the photo will be uploaded to My PhotoStream and downloaded to devices without ICPL into the My PhotoStream album just like before. If the photo is deleted from the original device, it gets deleted from both ICPL and My PhotoStream. All of that works exactly as it did previously.
The difference now is that there is no My PhotoStream on devices with ICPL on, so pictures taken on other devices not using ICPL, won't show up on devices with ICPL on.
The difference now is that there is no My PhotoStream on devices with ICPL on, so pictures taken on other devices not using ICPL, won't show up on devices with ICPL on.
No, with iCloud Photo Library enabled you see on all devices that have it enabled regardless of the Photo Stream setting.
I have done some experiments and figured it out...
The settings are independent of each other.
iCloud Photo Library (Beta) - it uploads ALL your photos to iCloud in original resolution. Option to Optimize iPhone/iPad Storage - this downloads all low-resolution (thumbnails) onto the IOS device. If you go and view a picture, then it will download the higher-res version - you can tell because the picture is fuzzy at first and takes a moment to download. Not sure how long IOS keeps the full resolution copy on the device after viewing. With Videos, it will only keep the thumbnail of the video until selected to play. Any device that has iCloud Photo Library enabled will see every picture or video from every other device. If you don't Optimize then the full pictures/videos are downloaded to each device. Photo Stream setting has no affect whatsoever on the functioning iCloud Photo Library as far as sharing between devices etc.
Photo Stream - this is the old photo stream pre-IOS 8. It is probably in there for people who do not wish to use the iCloud Photo Library (IPL), or wish to have compatibility with Photo Stream Apps (ie. Aperture, iPhoto). I am not 100% sure but I don't believe it uses the new iCloud storage and is "free" like before with the 1000 photo/monthly limit. If you enable it, all it does is uploads the pictures to the old legacy iCloud Photo Stream like it always has. With it you can view pictures etc. on OS X in Aperture or iPhoto. I imagine Photo Stream will be killed-off next year when we get a real OS X client for iCloud Photo Library.
You can enable Photo Stream in addition to iCloud Photo Library and have best of both worlds for now. I use Aperture to copy/backup pictures from my iPhone periodically and this is what I will do until a better solution comes along using iCloud Photo Library.
Maybe some others can experiment a bit to confirm or add to all of this since I may be missing something and do not guarantee 100% I am correct.
There is an option whereby you can choose to keep the low res versions on your phone or the high res ones.
.....probably a bug and the reason why iCloud Photo Library is in Beta.
All 'cloud' services operate it this way though don't they? Delete stuff fro the cloud and the same things get deleted from the cloud enabled devices, and vice versa.
Personally, I don't see a problem with this. If you want to keep photos on your phone but not in the cloud (or vice versa), just turn iCloud Photo Library off - problem solved.
ALSO, just to add to the confusion, doesn't iCloud Photo Library work via wifi AND cellular? Because if you are connected to cellular surely your data is going to get hammered each time you take photos (which get uploaded to iCloud Photo Library) or view your optimised photos on your phone (at which point the phone downloads the higher res version as you are looking at it).
Think of the photos like you would contacs. If you delete a contact from your phone it deletes it from iCloud so your other iDevices don't have access to it.
Let's say you took a bunch of pics at a birthday party. All these pics get sent to the cloud. You then realize your finger covered to lens on 25% of those pics. When you delete them they get deleted across all your devices.
It's a different mind set than the way we've done photos in the past but to truly sync all your photos, this is have it works. Otherwise, iPL would simply be a photos folder.
Apple provides a solution in Sttings > Photos to prevent all these photos from taking up space.
As far as I can see this info is spot on.
Think of "upload to my photo stream" as legacy support, as it only shows on things like the OSX version of iPhoto and NOT in the iOS 8 photo app
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Goto
Settings
Mobile Data
and turn off Photos
That should stop it using you data plan if you are concerned
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Bottom right on an iPad.
Make sure you in photos and not the activity feed as it doesn't show in the activity feed
Has anyone else had their PhotoStream photos deleted after enabling iCloud Photo Library? I set up my new iP6 as new, so the last 30 days of photos from my old iPhone were downloaded through PhotoStream.
Now that I have enabled iCloud Photo Library, those PhotoStream photos have disappeared off my iP6 leaving only photos I've taken on this new phone.
Now that I have enabled iCloud Photo Library, those PhotoStream photos have disappeared off my iP6 leaving only photos I've taken on this new phone.
The issue I have with this is that you can search on contacts, and most people will have no more than 100 or so. With images, the optimised thumbnails will take up next to no room on the iOS device, but the idea of navigating that many images... It's unusable. iCPL should be about backup and sharing with friends/family, not spreading thousands - maybe tens of thousands - of tiny images across all of your devices.
I've set up my own system: I keep iCPL off, Photostream on, and I've moved my iPhoto library into iCloud Drive on my Mac for backup. If I need to share an image after it's been scrubbed off Photostream, I need to go to my Mac, but that never happens. Now I'm just crossing my fingers Apple don't remove Photostream any time soon...
I'm a bit lost too!
Ive turned on iCloud photo library on my phone (running 8.1) and it spent all night uploading photos.
But when I go to beta.cloud.com all I get is a message saying Your iCloud photo library is empty, add photos or videos from your devices"
Am I missing something?
Ive turned on iCloud photo library on my phone (running 8.1) and it spent all night uploading photos.
But when I go to beta.cloud.com all I get is a message saying Your iCloud photo library is empty, add photos or videos from your devices"
Am I missing something?