Getting It To Work
When I finally took some shots with my new Canon R7 I was excited to load them into Lightroom and take a look at them. They weren’t recognized as acceptable files! Why? Because I have an 11 year-old computer (it works fine, thank-you-very-much) and because of its age the computer can’t be updated with the latest System Software, which in turn means I can’t update Lightroom to the latest version (which would know how to handle the newer camera’s files). So here was my workaround:
- Curse at the computer and complain to Karen.
- Go on the web and search for “how to import CR3 files [the type of files generated by the new camera] into older version of Lightroom” and found that you can convert CR3 files to DNG files (Digital Negative is a type of TIFF file which is used as a “universal” RAW file).
- Go on the web and search for how to convert CR3 files to DNG on a Mac. Found Adobe offers a free DNG converter!
- Go to the Adobe site to download the DNG converter. Found that the current version would not work on my old computer.
- Curse at the computer.
- Go on the web and search for “how to get older versions of Adobe DNG converter” and found an FTP site (I haven’t used FTP [File Transfer Protocol] since the ’90s).
- Connected to the FTP site. It froze my computer. Hit Restart.
- Connected to the FTP site. It froze my computer. Curse at my stupidity for thinking it would work a second time. Hit Restart.
- Used a different browser to connect to the FTP site. Found that there were many older versions of Adobe DNG Converter there.
- Go on the web and searched for which version of Adobe DNG Converter was compatible with my (old) Mac software system.
- Went back to the FTP site and downloaded the compatible version of the Adobe DNG Converter.
- Installed the DNG Converter on my computer and opened it with no problems.
- Followed the instructions to select the CR3 files from the new camera. It would not process any of them (said the files may be corrupted).
- Cursed at myself for thinking an old version of Adobe DNG Converter would recognize the new CR3 file type. Went to have lunch.
- During lunch I realized that I have a new Mac laptop which could operate the latest Adobe DNG Converter.
- Used the correct browser on the laptop to connect to the Adobe FTP site and downloaded the latest version of the converter.
- Opened the Adobe DNG Converter and selected the CR3 files I wanted to convert to DNG format. After about 20 minutes of processing 70 files it worked! I had DNG files on a thumb drive.
- Took the thumb drive to the (old) desktop computer and loaded the DNG files into Lightroom.
- It worked! I now have the first pictures taken on my new camera in Lightroom on my (old) computer! No problem!
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