CS3 not opening .CR2 files

Question

I can't get either Photoshop or Bridge to recognize/open .cr2 files. I have Camera Raw pug-in 4.6 installed, fully updated CS3, Snow Leopard 10.6.4 and the pictures are taken with an EOS 7D. Can't get my head around what's going on here. The funny thing is that in Bridge pref the .cr2 format was listed as supported.
Anybody got a clue?
Best regards,
Jan

Answer 1

bigusmacus wrote:
I'm Adobe's customer. Why wouldn't Adobe simply make Camera Raw compatible with earlier versions of CS? Can you give me a real clear and logical reason why?
Because that's not the way software is developed...the code for CS3 and CS4 is "old" meaning Adobe no longer is writing that code. The code base has been altered/changed by later versions. The SDK (software development kit) for Photoshop has changed...plug-ins that work for Photoshop CS5/5.5 are using the current SDK. Older versions of Photoshop have an older and in some cases, incompatible SDK.
For example on the Mac, Photoshop CS5 requires that the plug-in be written in Apple's Cocoa API. Camera Raw 5 required a major update to be able to run in Cocoa...retrofitting Camera Raw 5 to run in a PPC platform (supported by CS3 but not supported by CS5) would be difficult. As a result of the engineering challenges of backwards compatibility Adobe has the policy of only updating currently shipping software to current customers. Truth be told, you are not a current customer...you are a former customer. Having Adobe spend R&D on supporting former customers would take resources away from supporting current customers. As a current customer, I wouldn't like that.
Really, I think you have a problem of expectations...you buy a brand new camera that wasn't even around when you bought your software and you expect after several years that Adobe will re-engineer the old software for compatibility with your new camera? That's not a reasonable expectation. Since you don't really understand software development–as most people don't–I do as I develop plug-ins, I understand why you and many people just assume that Adobe is refusing to update old software as some ploy to make you upgrade your software. Yes, there is an element of that, but there are technical reasons why updating software for backwards compatibility isn't a good business decision.
You made the decision to upgrade your cameras, part of that decision should have also included updating the software to use that camera. You are welcome to use the Canon software–for free–to process your images in your older software. The other alternative is to use the free DNG Converter (which Adobe doesn't HAVE to provide, but does, for free). The other alternative is to upgrade your software, and yes, that comes with a cost. So did your new camera.
In point of fact, the advances to Camera Raw in particular are a strong reason for upgrading to Photoshop CS5/5.5. Call that an evil plot to force photographers to buy the upgrade, but i call is progress on the ability to get maximum image quality from your raw captures. I call that a good return on the investment.