Thanks for your quick response! I am using iPhone 7 (not a plus) on iOS version 10.1.1. Also Photos on my Mac is 1.0.1. When i try to using the iCloud Photo library it says I need 1TB of storge for my Photos and I'm not going to pay another $120/year just to edit my photos. Plus, I don't want the hassle of storing them in the cloud. The good news was that I was able to get the photos back by restoring my phone since it was backed up right before I downloaded (and deleted them all).
Thanks for the second option. I did try that and duplicating the photos had no effect. When I duplicated them and then tried to download them they were still originals that pushed over and said they have been already downloaded to my Mac.
I did try this method so I am posting for others, but it was not pretty. I sent them all to an iCloud sharing folder from my phone and then downloaded them from the iCloud folder into my library on my mac. The upside was that the edits to the photos (Cropping, retouching, etc.) stayed. However, the two downsides here were that the photos look like they were downgraded in resolution (UGH! Do you know a way or a setting I can change to make sure they are full resolution?) and the heart/favorite tag did not push over, but that was easily corrected by putting them all in a folder and then just selecting all and tagging them again. Still, not a fun or easy process. Also, not all my photos would port over either.
It's like Apple has done this just to get you to buy storage and so they can control your photos in the cloud. I've been a mac user since the age of 10 and have owned almost every mac and every iPhone out there but this really takes the cake! Generally Apple has been very good to me but they need to fix this feature.
Sorry for the rant...I am off my soap box now. Thanks for your help!