Victoria Herring wrote: … I had the big library on my MBP which was a System Library…I can't find it in iCloud - I did …set it up as a new Master
Some of that is confusing me. For iCloud Photos, there is no Master. All the Photos Library connected to the same Apple Account have exactly the same pictures, and they have exactly the same status. No masters in iCloud!
The System Library is the one used by other apps, like Safari, when you want to load a picture to a web site or you want to use a picture for wallpaper, and so on. And the System Library can be, but isn't necessarily, connected to iCloud. You connect a System Library to iCloud at Photos' Settings>iCloud. If possible, you select Download Originals, since that allows you to be able to back them up, if they're important to you.
When you connect a Library to iCloud Photos, all the pictures currently in the Library are copied to iCloud.com, adding to the pictures already there. Then all those pictures are copied back to that device's Library and to every other connected Library, with Photos doing its best to avoid duplicates. Every connected Library will then have exactly the same pictures.
If you edit a picture on any connected Library, the edits will be copied to all the others. They all will be kept the same, and any operation you do on any device will be copied to all the others. Including mistakes! Deleting a picture on any device deletes if from all devices. That's why we have backups.
The only differences in appearance will be due to the devices' individual limitations. Mobil devices can't show Smart Albums, for instance, but their Libraries have the information.
What do you think?
