Apple's Photos app and the approach to storage are among the biggest changes you can look forward to in iOS 8. The new iCloud Photo Library gives you the option of replacing the confusing Photo Stream, which is limited to your most recent 1,000 photos. All your photos and videos will now automatically live in the cloud if you enable this feature. Photo Stream is free, but with iCloud Photo Library you'll need to pay for this storage if you exceed the 5GB of free space. iCloud storage, though, will now be much cheaper, at just $0.99 per month for an additional 20GB and $3.99 per month for an additional 200GB.
As Macworld says, Apple's current approach to photos is "messy," with Photo Stream, Cameral Roll, and your synced photo Library together making it more complicated than need be. iCloud Photo Library reconceptualizes your photo storage and makes it simpler. Your original photos, no matter the size, live in the cloud. As with iOS 7, they are automatically organized into Moments, Collections, and Years. You can create albums, mark favorites (by tapping the small heart under each photo), and reorganize your photos. Any change you make to organization is reflected on all your devices. A great feature of iCloud Photo Library is that it can automatically store original images in the cloud and leave a version on your device that's a smaller file size suited to the screen of your device—thereby saving space on your iPhone or iPad.
In addition to making it easy to store and organize your photos, Apple's new approach to photos adds powerful and smart search capabilities. When you do a search, the search field prompts you by showing a collection of photos taken nearby, a collection from a year ago, and your favorites. You can also search by date, time, location, and album name. Plus, in the Albums view you can sort your photos in a variety of ways, such as according to the app used to edit them and according to the type of file (photo, video, panorama, time-lapse video, etc.).
The new Photos app will have more powerful editing capabilities. Any edit you make will automatically be registered across devices. But if you mess up, you can always go back to the original version. The Photos app lets you crop photos and, in an interesting twist, can even automatically straighten the horizon for you if the photo is a bit skewed. The app makes it very easy to adjust lighting and color just by moving a slider. You can fine tune facets such as brightness, contrast, exposure, highlights, shadows, and vibrancy. And you can rotate photos and control aspect ratio. The Photos app includes filters and the opportunity for third-party developers to create additional filters.
Finally, a cool new feature in iOS 8 is the ability of the Camera app to shoot time-lapse videos using an interval that you specify.
All of this is pretty exciting, and took everyone by surprise.