Is there a way to access iCloud's Photo Stream from the Finder, similar to Windows? On Windows, Photo Stream works in a way that all the files are automatically copied to your 'My Pictures' folder or the like. 

I currently have Photo Stream working in Aperture, but every once in a while I think it would be nice to have direct access to Photo Stream in the Finder, so I could possibly script something (i.e., copy photos to Dropbox, add automatically Evernote, etc). 

Is there a way that I can reach this, outside of iPhoto or Aperture on the Mac? And do one of these apps have to 'trigger' a sync from iCloud? Or is Photo Stream syncing automatically somewhere on the file system?

This could be a direct path, a smart folder, etc.
After doing some research, I finally found where they were located, and then figured a quick way to get back to them. 

The files themselves are stored in hashed folders under ~/Library/Application Support/iLifeAssetManagement/assets/sub. 

I then created a Smart Folder using this path, and then selecting Kind as "Image". This then provides me with a directory with just the images in Photo Stream, outside of their folders. 



I also verified that this was working on a machine where iPhoto didn't have Photo Stream enabled itself, the only Photo Stream part was enabled in System Preferences. Therefore, it was syncing on its own, and not with a relation to iPhoto having to launch to trigger it. 

You can't cd into a smart folder, but it looks like I can use some actions with it it. I moreso wanted a direct folder, so I could copy stuff out quickly.