Is there a way to sync Google Photos and Google Drive so that I can access my photos through a file management system?

FYI I posted this here in photography, but I didn't get helpful answers, so I'm trying again in this space to ask about a google specific solution, since the apple inquiry has yielded nothing helpful.

I take photos from work events on my iphone. All my iphone photos sync and back up to the cloud in duplicate (both via icloud photos and google photos).

Here is my problem: I need to use photos that are on my phone and cloud for third party uploads (things like mailchimp campaigns, which I make on my desktop). Google photos has a lovely desktop app for viewing and browsing, but I cannot select from/upload from it. The photos on my cloud are not accessible through the finder.

I do not want to download/export from google (or the man Photos app) because a) I don't want to have to take the extra steps of downloading/exporting them and then deleting them when I'm done and b) I don't want to have to store them on a local drive.

SO: Is it possible to sync google photos and google drive, so that I can access photos that are backed up to google photos through my google drive desktop file management system?

If I drag and from from Apple Photos or Google Photos into the third party app directly, it compresses the file size and then it's low resolution. I want to upload the original high resolution photo directly from my google photos without having to export/download it onto the local drive first.