Photo Stream is a neat little feature of iOS and Mac OS. When set up correctly, any photo you take with your iOS device (iPhone/iPad), can be seamlessly and very quickly synced from your iOS device to your Mac, for safe keeping.
Setting Up Photo Stream...
The first step is to setup Photo Stream on your iOS device. To do that, on your iOS device, navigate to Settings > iCloud > Photos, and turn on My Photo Stream.
From now on every single photo you take or add to your cameral roll, will be automatically be uploaded and backed up to your iCloud account.
** Please keep in mind that your photos will only be uploaded to iCloud when you are connected to Wifi. So, if you are out on the road taking photos, only when you connect to a Wifi network (any Wifi network) will the photos be uploaded to iCloud. Yes, this may be a small inconvenience, but a small one.
The next step is to setup Photo Stream on your Mac. To do that, on your Mac, open System Preferences, then go to iCloud. Make sure you are signed into iCloud on your Mac with the same account you signed into iCloud on your iOS device. Then go to Photos (or Photo Stream, depending on which OS version you are running) and click on Options and turn Photo Stream on.
Finally, you need to setup iPhoto. To do that, Open iPhoto on your Mac (if you don't have it, download it from the Mac App Store, it's free). Then click on iPhoto > Preferences... Click on the iCloud tab and turn on My Photo Stream and Automatic Import.
That's it. Your setup is complete.
Now simply take as many photos on your iPhone or iPad as you want. When you connect to a Wifi network, those photos will automatically be uploaded to iCloud. Then, as long as iPhoto is open on your Mac, your photos will also be automatically downloaded to your Mac and backed up forever (or until you delete them). So remember to open up iPhoto on your Mac every once in a while, or just keep it open, running in the background.
