I'm using El Capitan 10.11.3 on a Macbook Pro 15". My question is how did those photos get into Photos when I've never manually saved them to the Mac, they only appear in Photostream--that's confusing to me if in fact they have no relationship to each other. AFAI'm concerned Photostream is temporary, just a way to easily move photos from my Iphone to my iPad (which is easy for anyone to understand other than I reiterate to friends they MUST save them to Camera Roll or into an album which automatically saves them into Camera Roll---or lose them when Photostream rolls) and Mac because I know it rolls at 30 days or 1000 photos. I want to choose what photos get actually saved to my Mac from Photo stream. Maybe my recourse will be to disable photostream on Mac and use Air Drop to add to the Photos I choose to the Mac, then add to Albums. Otherwise if PHotostream is automatically adding photos to Photos as I am understanding from some of you (otherwise how would they have gotten there) I have to go back and delete print screens, original photos before editing, etc.
In looking at preferences in Photos in iCLoud I have Photostream enabled as well as iCloud Photo Sharing which I use to share with other Apple photo friends. In General/preferences under importing I do not have enabled "Importing, copy items to the Photos Library"--not sure that has anything to do with it but it keeps my RAW files from being added to Photos when I'm importing to Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop.
In my Photo view if I drill down to years, years and locations, etc I have some older photos from 2001 forward (moving them from Ipad Air to Ipad Pro they appeared in Photostream due to my selecting them on Air and Air dropping to Ipad Pro) that I've never saved to this Mac, only to my Ipad Pro. They are in my Photostream as I said, but why in my Photo view. SMH
I realize this is redundant--but IF my Photostream photos are automatically being installed in Photo view (and where would i find it to change that) then I assume when I put them in an album they will remain on my Mac. Yes, I agree I shouldn't need to delete from Photostream at all, just let it roll over--but i just want to be sure the photos I save to an album are actually ON the Mac.
I think I'll just forget Photos on the Mac and view on big ipad Pro or in Adobe Lightroom on Mac and, as I said, use Air Drop to add any photos I want on the Mac in Photos--or view in Adobe Lightroom on my Mac.
Thanks for all your help. No wonder my non techy friends are so unhappy with the move from iPhoto to Photo---at that time I was still using my custom Win PC and iPads LOL. And then the loss of Aperture too I guess was a blow to some photographers using Macs.
Diane