Help me make sense of My Photostream.

[sk3pt1c]

So, here's what i think i know about it, correct me if i'm wrong.

- I turn on My Photostream.
- From then on, any picture i take gets sent (when on wifi) in its hi-res glory to iCloud and then to my Mac.
- My Photostream contains a rolling 1000 photos (and no videos) that i take, the older ones getting deleted.

So, questions:

- After i take the photo and it gets sent to iCloud, do i still have the hi-res version anywhere on my phone? Camera roll? photostream album? Does one have the hi-res and the other the optimised?
- How and when are photos deleted exactly? If i don't open iPhoto for some time to pull the new pics, do they get lost?

I don't know why, but this is confusing to me .
Turned it on today to test it out because there's not much space left on my phone so i thought automatic lower res pics with the hi res on my mac instantly sounds like a good deal but i'm confused about the logistics.

I'm sure I'll have more questions with each reply

Thanks!

 

[Gav2k]

The hi-res photo is in your camera roll. You can manually sync this at any point in time.

iCloud is a convenience thing for sharing NOT a backup tool

 

[sk3pt1c]

The hi-res photo is in your camera roll. You can manually sync this at any point in time.

iCloud is a convenience thing for sharing NOT a backup tool

I get that it's not a backup tool per se, but it's a cool way for me to have a backup of my photos on iPhoto, since they sync.

So the hi-res remains in my camera roll, an optimized version is in my photostream album and a hi-res is sent to icloud to sync to my mac?

 

[Gav2k]

I get that it's not a backup tool per se, but it's a cool way for me to have a backup of my photos on iPhoto, since they sync.

So the hi-res remains in my camera roll, an optimized version is in my photostream album and a hi-res is sent to icloud to sync to my mac?

Honestly I've never looked at the resolution in iPhoto but given how fast it syncs over I wouldn't think there full resolution.