Transfering old photos in the cloud off my phone I linked my iPhone to my account in hopes of transferring the photos off of my phone to free up space. What happened was four years of photos transferred to my phone and it will not let me transfer the older ones off - what can I do to reverse this?
iCloud isn't for keeping photos permanently. 

Bring them into iPhoto [Mac] or Photo Gallery [part of MS Essentials, Windows] for permanent storage.
After transfer you will get the choice to delete the copies on your phone.