ICloud Photo Library basics

TL;DR - how do you populate iCloud Photo Library with pictures if it forces you to delete them before you even get started??
I have an iPhone and iPad (both on 8.1) and Macbook Pro (10.10 Yosemite). Both iOS devices sync with iTunes for the last 12 months of pictures - just to keep it from overwhelming the capacity.
Today I thought I would try out the new iCloud Photo Library. So, I bought into the 500GB limit for iCloud (thinking it will eventually be my pictures and videos), and went to set it up.
First, I went to Settings on my phone and turned it on. It immediately wanted to delete all my pictures, saying it could not be sync'ed with iTunes if I am going to use iCloud Photo Library. So, I went back to my computer, ensured I had all the pictures on my computer already, turned off sync'ing in iTunes for pictures, and deleted all the pictures from the phone (I left Photo Stream on, since it works independently. I confirmed that all albums were empty (all albums were deleted except for All Photos, Recently Deleted, Tagged on Facebook, and Instagram).
After turning iCloud Photo Library back on, I took a picture. I then logged on to beta.icloud.com and there it is. I went through the same process for my iPad and it worked, too. So far so good - basic functionality is working.
BUT - I have 23,000 pictures (about 50GB for the originals) in iPhoto and 100GB of home movies in iMovie. If I'm not sync'ing with iTunes, the only pictures in the iCloud Photo Library are the ones that I take from this point forward. That seems pretty worthless, although I understand it's in beta and the Mac software should completely transform this process - in 3-5 months?
So, I tried turning on Sync'ing with iTunes and selected just one file; then turn it off and select "keep photos on iPhone". Still, the Settings on the phone said it had to delete the photos because "it can't be sync'ed with iTunes" - even though it wasn't being synced. Same experience on iPad (i tried it on both devices in case there was just a glitch).
Next, I tried to put the images on the phone manually, without iTunes. Having never done that, it took me quite awhile to figure out that you need third party utilities. Even in my Fusion VM, the drive letter from the phone is read only. So, I bought a $3 photo transfer program. Using that, I moved a single picture over to the phone. When I went to the iCloud beta site, and to the iPad, the picture was not there. I rebooted the devices, still not there. I took pictures on the devices, they appeared everywhere. But that one picture that was moved manually never appears.
If anyone has any ideas how to get all my content over to one of the iOS devices to be sync'able, and not trigger the delete function, please let me know.
Thanks!

This might help: http://www.imore.com/troubleshoot-icloud-photo-library-sync-images-from-iphoto.

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