How to stop photo stream automatic downloads

You can't . It's either on or off. Every picture taken will be uploaded to the stream. You will need to reset as you can't delete individual shots.

You can't pick and choose what photos are uploaded. If you turn it off then nothing will go to the stream. If it's on then every picture taken after will show up.

FYI: Automatic downloads are separate.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4539

That's actually the whole idea of photostream.

If you want to be selective, put the ones you select into their own album or event.

You can drag pictures from iPhoto to photo stream, but every picture taken on your IOS device will be displayed on photo stream if enabled. You can only do a full reset and not delete single pictures. If using a 3rd party app with it's own private camera roll you can then pick and choose what you want to export to the iPhone's camera roll.

That's how Photo Stream works, it takes every shot and you can access it on any device.

Maybe that's how it will be sometime, but it's not for now. I think the primary function of photostream presently is convenience.

I go to a job, carry out a survey, take some pictures, back to the office, draft a schedule of dilapidation and drag selected photo's from those I've just taken from my pages media browser straight into my report, no fiddling with connections or iPhoto. (oh and my audio notes do the same thing too)

I also wonder if you miss the point that they will only be there for 30 days, you are going to need to put them into albums at some point or you won't be able to watch them on the Apple TV at all.

You can delete Individual photos as well. You have to go into the photo stream on your Apple TV. Click on the photograph that you want to delete. Then click on it again and hold the button down until you see the "delete photo" option. This allows you to delete photos from photo stream one at a time. It's still not optimal because photos that you don't want displayed will still make it there until you delete them. I would prefer more control on what gets uploaded.

You can do the same thing from any iOS device. You just select the photos you want to delete from the photo stream from the iOS device. I believe this can be done from a Mac as well.