Photos is syncing all photos to my Macbook, how do I delete them ?

I just bought a new macbook that only has 128gb storage so I don't want all the photos from iCloud downloaded to the macbook.

I just noticed that 800+ photos have been downloaded to the macbook (only 500MB so not a huge deal so far) but once I upgrade my iMac to the 10.3 and sync those photos (to photos) then I'll really run into a problem.

I did select optimize mac storage but like others have commented, I can't adjust how much storage and I don't want to use a large amount of space for photos on my macbook.

The weird thing is, when In go into my photos folder into the photos library (on the macbook) and try to delete the photo from my macbook it gave me a warning that "THESE PHOTOS WILL BE DELETED FROM ALL OF YOUR DEVICES" so it seems like I can't delete photos from my macbook without losing them completely?

Hopefully I'm wrong about my assumption but if that is the case I need to turn off photo syncing with iCloud completely in Photos because I don't want these photos on the macbook (Unless I manually download one to the laptop).

Is this case? or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks