One of the big new features in each version of Elements - to persuade people to pay for an upgrade - is new camera support. I haven't double checked, but so far as I know Elements 11 - 2011. Canon 7D Mk II - 2014. So I'd expect you'd need to upgrade. Expect to need to pay for an upgrade with each new piece of hardware you buy - include it in the budget. (Extra notes: Subscriptions to Photoshop include Camera Raw upgrades while you pay; it can take months for Adobe to buy the camera, do the work, and update the software, so brand new models are a danger).
Please read all this tech doc. It explains what you need to know about the availability of raw converters. Mainly that each new camera comes with its new raw format and that older softwares can't read new cameras.
Use the two links to find the ACR version necessary for a given camera and which Elements version can support that ACR version. PS11 is too old, so read down to find how to download the free Adobe DNGconverter that can batch convert a whole folder of raw files to the universal DNG raw format. An additional batch step, but free and with the same quality.
The 7D Mark II was first supported in Camera Raw 8.7 which is only compatible with Elements 13 or later. There's no update, free or paid, for Elements 11.
So your options:
Pay to upgrade to Elements 2020 (to edit the Raw CR2 files from the camera), or
Stay with Elements 11 and use the free DNG converter as mentioned above. You then edit the converted DNG files in Elements 11, not the Raw CR2 files from the camera. The downside here is that you must first convert every CR2 file you want to edit to DNG format before editing in version 11.
Many thanks for that info. Very very helpful so now I need to make a decision!
Two more quick questions. When converting to DNG does one lose information from the original RAW file or is it exactly the same content? Do any of you now work in DNG ?
4
Replies
AdChoices