Hmmm, just had my comment censored:
'Apple removed your post titled, "Re: iPhone isn't transferring photos taken with built-in filters" because it contained non-constructive rants or complaints.'
What I was trying to say is that emailing pictures from an iPhone is a clumsy workaround (or a "kludge" as we say here) to bridge a lacuna in the iOS / OS interaction - it is not an elegant solution.
It's certainly not the Apple way, as we have come to expect it.
I also described this situation with iOS 7 as a "dog's dinner" - meaning an ill-conceived mess, which is how I am experiencing it. However, my intention was not to "rant non-constructively" but to illustrate my frustration with the status quo and lack of an elegant, Apple-sanctioned, non-third party solution (so far as I am aware).
Put simply, I cannot access photostreams on iCloud from my Mac, I do not have iLife 11 in order to benefit from akajules' brilliant tip and I find emailing pictures an absurd workaround (grateful as I am for Dirty Vegas' for this small grain of hope). My Mac is barely three years old and all software is up to date (although I have not moved from Snow Leopard for operational reasons).
So I must query again, is there *really* no method provided by Apple to get photos straight off my iPhone and onto my Mac with filters intact (using iOS 7 and OSX 10.6.8 / iLife 9)?
Such a glaring omission would seem to be bordering on incompetence, and I like to think more highly of Apple than that - even if it is just a case of waiting for this mistake to be fixed in the next update of iOS 7.
Any ideas, anyone?