new to iPhone, question about Photos

[ituleb]

Hello - I am new to iPhone (4s verizon) and am new to Apple in general. I have figured a lot of things out but am wondering about Photos currently...

I have a PC at home and I have iCloud enabled (though without a Mac at home or an iPad, it is unnecessary for the most part).

However, when I go into my 'Photos' - I have two separate photo areas, Camera Roll and Photo Stream. Most of the photos on my phone are in both albums, although there are about 12 photos that are in Photo Stream that are not in Camera Roll.

Why are there 2 albums? Is this because of iCloud - I'm confused by this. Are both necessary? I want to have the iCloud option even if all I have is the iPhone, because if I were to lose the phone/get damaged/etc, I want to have access to my pictures again.

Any advice/guidance on this would be helpful. Thanks for your help and time!

 

[fury]

Photo Stream takes pictures from all sorts of sources (Mac, PC, iPhone, iPod, iPad) and pushes them to all the devices that you use with iCloud. Since you take pictures with your iPhone, they'll bounce up to the cloud from your camera roll and straight back down into the Photo Stream.

iCloud only keeps 30 days worth of photos in Photo Stream, and iPhones only store the last 1,000 photos from Photo Stream. Your computer, however, will keep any and all of them indefinitely if you've got it receiving Photo Stream photos.

If all you want to do with your photos is to have a backup of your Camera Roll, then iCloud backup takes care of this and you do not need Photo Stream. However, if you like to transfer your photos to your computer frequently, and find it to be a pain to have to hook up the cable and let Windows take its sweet time searching for pictures, then Photo Stream is a good way to manage pushing your pictures from your phone to your computer. There is a specific setting in the iCloud control panel on Windows to turn this on, and it lets you pick what folder to put them into. You can also have a folder on your PC where you paste pictures that will be sent into the Photo Stream, so that your iPhone can grab a copy of them. Much easier than emailing yourself, opening the email, copying/saving the picture, etc.

 

[velvetelvis]

thank you for answering this. i thought that since im using a pc i couldnt use photo stream. i do however have one problem, my photos are upside down on my comp. any way to fix this? i know how to after the fact, but can i make it not do it from the start?

 

[Massie]

Are you taking shots with your volume buttons on the top edge of your phone? If so, turn the phone 180 degrees, so the volume buttons are by your left thumb.

(I know the Apple commercials show it the other way, but in real life that will give you upside down photos.)

 

[fury]

The reason it shows them upside down is because Windows or whatever program you're using isn't looking at the camera data properly. There's a setting stored inside each photo that describes the orientation of the device when it was taking the picture, so that the program can reorient it correctly. Unfortunately, not many programs have been designed to take this into account. So, yeah, shoot with your volume buttons on the bottom. (aka home button on the right)

 

[Cleveland]

The reason it shows them upside down is because Windows or whatever program you're using isn't looking at the camera data properly. There's a setting stored inside each photo that describes the orientation of the device when it was taking the picture, so that the program can reorient it correctly. Unfortunately, not many programs have been designed to take this into account. So, yeah, shoot with your volume buttons on the bottom. (aka home button on the right)

This is completely untrue as my MacBook Pro does the same thing, this is simply and iOS glitch I assume will be fixed for iOS 5.1

 

[Cleveland]

thank you for answering this. i thought that since im using a pc i couldnt use photo stream. i do however have one problem, my photos are upside down on my comp. any way to fix this? i know how to after the fact, but can i make it not do it from the start?

You can only use photo stream on windows 7

 

[fury]

Vista with SP2 can also do Photo Stream

This is completely untrue as my MacBook Pro does the same thing, this is simply and iOS glitch I assume will be fixed for iOS 5.1

My iMac has no problem viewing pictures in the correct orientation.

 

[Cleveland]

Vista with SP2 can also do Photo Stream

(oops my bad)


My iMac has no problem viewing pictures in the correct orientation.

Strange - my MB Pro (march '11) shows them upside down