Q: photostream on Yosemite

How are you using Photos?  Do you have iCloud photo Library enabled on any device?

My Photo Stream will only download from and to devices, that are not using iCloud Photo Library.  And with iCloud Photo Library enabled you will not see May Photo Stream as a separate album.

You don't have to us ePhotos if you do not like it.  iPhoto will still be installed on your computer. It will just have been removed from the Dock. iPhoto 9.6.1 is working fine with MacOS X 10.10.3.

If you did not uninstall iPhoto, it will still be in your Applications folder.  Drag iPhoto from Applications to the Dock, then click it to launch.  When you launch iPhoto again you will see a warning, that the library has been migrated to Photos.  Click the "Open iPhoto" button in this panel.

With Yosemite you need if version 9.6.1.  If you did not yet update to this version, the iPhoto icon will be crossed out. In that case update to version 9.6.1.

if you missed the update: You can no longer buy iPhoto from the App Store anywhere, and also not update it from the "Updates" tab of the App Store. You can however reinstall it, if it is showing among your Purchases at the App Store and associated with your AppleID.

Sign into the App Store and look at the Purchases tab.

Reinstall as described in this User Tip:

Get iPhoto 9.6.1 if you didn't update before OS... | Apple Support Communities

The main idea is to move the incompatible iPhoto app to the Trash, so Spotlight does not see it as installed, reload the App Store by pressing ⌘R, and then to try to download again from the App Store - from your Purchases tab, not from the main page, since you can neither buy iPhoto nor update it, but you can reinstall, if your AppleID is associated with it.

So move iPhoto to the Trash (don't empty the Trash), relaunch the App Store. The button to the right if iPhoto should change to Install on the "Purchases" tab.

If you do not see iPhoto there, try to unhide your Purchases as described on this page:   Hide and unhide purchases in the Mac App Store - Apple Support

While the editing in new photos (terrible name for the program - hard to distinguish) is better.

 

So it seems that, unless you store all your photos in iCloud, photo stream is gone from the mac. It still works on the phones and tablets but it disappeared from the computer side of things, correct?

My Photo Stream and Shared albums are still there and are working.

But it is a mess, if you have unsymmetrical settings. Either enable iCloud Photo Library on all devices or on none.  It is o.k. to have iCloud Photo Library enabled on your Mac and on all mobile devices, or on your Mac and "My Photo Stream" active on your Mac and older iPhones with iOS 7 or earlier.

But iCloud Photo library active on iOS devices and not on the Mac will cause problems.

• Disable iCloud Photo Library on your Mobile Devices.
• Enable My Photo Stream on all devices as described here:  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201317

My Photostream is still there, but doesn't operate as it used to. Previously, I would delete photos from Photostream after creating & moving them to a New Album, but now when I delete the photos in Photostream, they disappear from the New Album. Does anyone know why this is happening?

In iPhoto the "My Photo Stream" album was was showing you the buffered iCloud photos  outside the iPhoto Library. You could import these photos to events and deleting from My Photo Stream did not delete photos from the library. This is now different. All photos from My Photo Stream are automatically imported to the Photos library, when you enable it. The My Photo Stream album showing you Photos, that have been imported to your Photos library from My Photo Stream, and if you delete from this album you are deleting from your library and all albums that are using these photos.