Pictures on my iPhone shared with other devices

[Electrics]

I have an iPhone 5, it will be replaced in a week with a 6S. I use it to take pictures often.
I also have an iPad and a MacBook Air in which I use the older iPhone program, but I am willing to switch to the newer Photos app if necessary.

Currently I only upload pictures with the USB cable, but I would like to stop doing that and turn on whatever I need to in order to get all of my images to automatically show up on ALL of my devices.

I've looked into the settings and noticed a few different options, such as iCloud Photo Library and My Photo Stream. I just want to make sure that I do it right so that I don't lose anything. Can someone please tell me which options I should set on each device? Thanks!

 

[markb1]

The nice thing about iCloud Photo Library is all your photos are in the cloud, and the photos on your devices will automatically be optimized to save space (if you choose). Basically, it keeps only thumbnails on your device for older photos, and it downloads the full versions only when you want to view them. The downside is you will need to pay for iCloud storage if you have a lot of photos.

PhotoStream is free, but it's just a means to keeps all your photos synchronized between your devices. You still keep all your full resolution photos on every device, or you can manually delete them from a device to save space.

I really like keeping my photos and videos in the cloud, so I'm happy to pay Apple for the storage. It's working out well for me, so far, and I really don't have to think about it.

 

[GrumpyTrucker]

The nice thing about iCloud Photo Library is all your photos are in the cloud, and the photos on your devices will automatically be optimized to save space (if you choose). Basically, it keeps only thumbnails on your device for older photos, and it downloads the full versions only when you want to view them. The downside is you will need to pay for iCloud storage if you have a lot of photos.

PhotoStream is free, but it's just a means to keeps all your photos synchronized between your devices. You still keep all your full resolution photos on every device, or you can manually delete them from a device to save space.

I really like keeping my photos and videos in the cloud, so I'm happy to pay Apple for the storage. It's working out well for me, so far, and I really don't have to think about it.

The catch with iCloud Photo Library though seems to be that apparently it only optimises your phone storage if and when your phone gets low on storage. Unfortunately I've not been able to find any info on what iOS considers to be "low on storage". A mate of mine has a 16GB phone and freed up about 6GB of space before going on holiday. He's been taking photos and videos while away yet his phone is filling up again with no sign of any optimisation going on. Yet at least.

I will say that the synchronisation works great across devices, although I still wish there was a way that photos at least could be made to upload to the library over cellular instead of waiting for wifi.