I am almost full on my icloud storage, what is the best option for saving photos somewhere and then clearing them from my iphone to free up storage
Another option might be to subscribe to an iCloud+ plan with more storage.
It sounds like you need to copy or import photos to some place on your computer that is outside of the iCloud Photos system. Then back them up. Then go back to your iPhone (or to any other device synchronized to it through iCloud Photos), and delete the photos. (A regular deletion, followed by a permanent deletion from the Recently Deleted album.)
Note that a Mac can have multiple Photos libraries – with one being the "system" Photo library (which can be synchronized to iCloud Photos), and the others being strictly local. You can hold down the Option key when launching the Photos application to create or switch between libraries. Unfortunately, Apple does not provide any tools to work with two libraries side by side, and easily move photos (including both original and edited versions) from one library to another.
iCloud full: Save photos and clear iPhone storage
