How to download photos easily from iphone to PC?

Except I don't want ALL photos in one enormous zip file in one directory, and I can't imageine how many days that would take anyway. I can download photos one-at-a-time to where I want them. But if I select two photos, they download zipped, and the download requires anywhere from 15 minutes to I-gave-up-after-2-hours, and I can't unzip them anway.

I don't want all my iCloud photos on my PC. I want to download the ones I want. It used to be easy.

HIstory: When I could no longer download direct from phone to PC, I signed in to iCloud viia browser on my PC. That's when I discvoered I'd have to do it one. Picture. At. A. Time. I laboriously downloaded a bunch of pictures one-at-a-time. Then deleted them from iCloud, one-at-a-time. My iCloud storage is now down to about 45% filled. But my iphone still won't sync to iCloud because it says my iCloud storage is full. iPad syncs, iPhone doesn't. I've done a hard restart, no joy. I am stone tired of this sh**. All I want to do is archive some old photos and lighten my iCloud storage.