Download images from iCloud WITHOUT zip?

iCloud is nice. But on my PC, I had to download each photo as a zip file, and then extract the file from the zip, and then delete what I did not want. It was tedious, when I just wanted to download a few jpg files. Ctrl + Select did not work to select multiple files on either my laptop or my desktop. I finally figured out how to bypass the zip issue. I had to turn Live Mode off when taking photos. This saves both storage and allows me to easily download the files as jpgs instead of as a series of zip files.