I can't find an easy way to download my photos from my iphone?

I'm honestly so frustrated right now.

I'm using a windows 7 computer, and the quickest way I have found to get my photos off of my phone is by emailing them to myself, which is still extremely time consuming.

I've tried using icloud, but it won't let me take the photos out of the icloud file for whatever reason. I've downloaded icloud onto my computer, but it just doesn't seem to work. I've tried saving them through the thumbnails, but it only saves the thumbnails, not the actual photo. And when I click to enlarge them (which opens them in windows photo viewer), it doesn't have a save option.

When I try plugging my phone into my computer, the only option I can find to access the photos is through icloud, which I already explained why that is pointless.

I've tried other photo sharing apps, but it takes days or longer to download all of the photos I have, as well as other complications. And even without those complications, I'm not sure if it would be any easier to access them than icloud (and I'm not going to risk spending days to download photos for that to happen).

I've tried looking up how to do it, but none of the articles are helpful. I couldn't find one that explained why I can't just get them straight off of icloud, since no one else seems to be having the problem I'm. I don't understand why it won't give me the option to save them from the icloud folder without just saving a thumbnail.

The iPhone will appear as an external disk in Windows when you plug it into a USB port, if you give permission to the phone to do this. You can then drag and drop photos from the phone to the PC.