How do you manage your photostream and camera roll?

I grabbed my wife's iPhone 4s and was going to see if I has processed all the photos she had taken in the past month or so. To my astonishment she only had 20 photos in her photostream, and the same 20 photos in her camera roll. I know there should have been many more photos than 20 from the past month!

She seems to be under the impression that she needs to clean up her camera roll AND photostream. Isn't it accurate to say that photostream has limits as to the number of photos you can maintain, and you don't have to worry about cleaning up your photostream?

How about your camera roll? Do you periodically delete photos stored there as well?

What do you mean by processed?

By "processed" I mean add a subtle date stamp to the photos, create a directory in the family media library corresponding to the event, and copy the photos there. I also have an iPhoto reference library, so I'll drag the newly created directory to iPhoto.

You are correct that she doesn't need to manage her photostream (unless space is super tight). The photostream is just a synced representation of the last 1,000 photos taken (or, if more than 1,000 happen within 30 days, the last 30 days worth).

Yes, there is a Photostream limit. Apple says it's either the last 30 days, or 1000 photos, which ever happens to come first. The way one should look at Photostream, is as a temporary means of storage until their device is backed up to iTunes.

If you travel a lot, and for long periods of time, without your computer, then you should purchase more iCloud storage space, that is if you intend on backing up your camera roll to the cloud, as well as share things across multiple devices.

However, you should also make it a habit to back up to both iTunes AND iPhoto (videos take up a ton of physical space), and then when you're finished backing up physically, (this is redundant backup) delete both the photos and videos on your iOS device, as well as the iCloud backup for said device. This way you can start fresh. Just don't forget that after deleting the iCloud backup, to manually back up to the cloud again, to make sure that your app data is restored to the cloud. So, you're:

Backing up to the cloud
Backing up to iTunes (manually)
Backing up to iPhoto

Lastly, if you turn on Photostream within iPhoto or Aperture preferences, each photo you take that goes in to your camera roll, will automatically upload to your Mac at home. And if you have a Windows machine, all you have to do is download iCloud Control Panel for Windows, and the same thing will be done. The photo will upload to a folder named Photostream, within your Pictures folder.

Tech is a wonderful thing.

Doug