Installing Canon software without a CD ROM?

Canon seems stuck in the stone ages... You can only install their software from CD. There is no downloadable full version of their DPP software anywhere! All their updates will only work if the software is already present.

I don't have a CD ROM drive in either my Mac Pro or my MacBook Air (can't remember the last time I used a CD - maybe to install Snow Leopard back in 2009?)... WTF Canon!

Am I the only one?

joemod said:

No. It happened to me before. There are various workarounds for it though.
1) Ask someone you know to upload the software. As a Canon owner you own a license to that software so it's not illegal.
2) Contact Canon. As far as I know they send CD
3) The update software is actually a full version. You can modify it to install without checking for an installed version. If I recall correctly you modify a text file inside the package. There are instructions available if you search. That's how I did it few years ago when I had my CD misplaced. Unfortunately I am at work now so I can't do the search for you. Also I am not sure if it violates the forum rules.

Click to expand...

Thanks, but none of the workarounds for installing it as a full version appear to work on this latest release... the text file you need to modify is no longer there. I ended up finding an ISO online of an old version that worked... but it's just ridiculous that Canon makes this so difficult. :roll eyes:

BTW, I also LOL'd when it made me restart my Mac to finish the installation... What cave do these Canon developers work in?!

joemod said:

For the last part my wild uneducated guess is that you (we) had to restart so that DPP launches automatically when you connect the camera to Mac. Perhaps some drivers, daemons etc.

EDIT: nevertheless I agree fully that the whole Canon software user experience is bad.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Canon makes some killer HW, but their software is a bit stone-age.

Artful Dodger said:

Side note for happy happy thoughts: Your photos have really jumped with color since the upgrade to the new unit. They have added a greater level of a bunch of things which I will add elsewhere for you but overall the new camera is making a difference with your photos, awesome work

Click to expand...

Thanks very much!

BTW, here are my DPP observations...

It's interesting but after finally getting DPP installed last night, I spent some time comparing the RAW processing between DPP and Aperture. Interestingly, with both apps at defaults (no adjustments in Aperture and "faithful" in DPP) the images in Aperture looked better... they were a bit more contrasty and saturated with a bit more visible in the shadows than DPP. Now to be fair, these differences were really only visible by pixel peeping so it wasn't that significant.

Of course, both apps could tweak the dull RAW images into beautiful images. I found DPP's Unsharp mask sharpness similar to Aperture's Edge Sharpness and a "3" (Standard) on DPP was about equivalent to the default settings of Apertures Edge Sharpness setting. However, for low noise (low ISO) images, I prefer the "Sharpen" adjustment in Aperture which produces less contrast artifacts to my eye. There is no equivalent to this in DPP. Their other sharpening choice is a mushy mess.

I also could not see any benefits to the new lens correction... but I must not be doing it right. Need to play with that more.