Images imported in photo not showing in file-open?

[Lisat78]

Hi,
I use an rmbp running Yosemite for work and was intrigued by the new Photos app as I'd always found iPhoto slow and Aperture overkill for my needs. I need to be able to:

• Take photos on my iphone/ipad
• Send them to the rmbp for processing
• Have them immediately available for use system-wide.

My old system involved taking the photo>sending it to Dropbox via the PhotoSync ios app>using the image. The main problem was the difficulty of finding images again later, although tagging has helped with that somewhat. In theory Photos should have allowed me to do all of the above—and with minimum input from me! In practice, I've observed the following:

• Sync could be painfully slow, regardless of the internet connection. Sometimes items would be visible in the browser via iCloud and not show in the app, regardless of the iCloud settings. And again, slow!
• More seriously, getting the photos into Photos was the (comparatively) easy bit. Getting them out, on the other hand! Drag and drop/export works, but it clutters my system up. I only have 128GB, if the photo is in Photos I don't want to have to duplicate it just to use it! And consistently I've experienced issues with recently imported images absolutely refusing to show in the Media/Photos section of the Finder file open dialog. It does show up eventually, but not quickly enough for my needs.

For the meantime I've returned to Aperture. Combined with my original iPhone>PhotoSync>Dropbox workflow plus a little Hazel magic for automation it does exactly what I need it to do and it does it quickly, reliably, and without fuss. And imported images are instantly available for use! Win.

However, given Aperture's EOL status it's not a long term solution. Therefore my question is, is there something I'm missing re Photos? Why aren't newly imported photos showing up in Media/Photos? Is there anything I can do to increase the sync speed? Incidentally I also had trouble when I disabled iCloud sync and tried to automate the importing-into-Photos process with Hazel, as I've done with Aperture: Photos threw a hissy fit more often than not and complained the file couldn't be imported.

Any advice/pointers would be great!