Can't adjust aspect ratio in DPP4

[Lundavra]

I do my initial editing in DPP4 and the first thing I do is change aspect ratio to "Free".

But tonight I cannot change aspect ratio, seems to be greyed out.  Any ideas what I am doing wrong, must have changed a setting without noticing.

Never been able to understand why aspect ratio can be set to default to "Free"!

[jrhoffman75]

Are you trying to edit a file direct from a Canon camera?

[Lundavra]

No chance, I gave up trying to download direct from the camera ages ago.  Have to take the memory card and put into the computer to download.

Very fed up with Canon's inability to provide software that will download direct from the camera.  Does anyone know of any third party software that will do the job?

[jrhoffman75]

I meant was it a camera file and not just a JPEG from somewhere else.

I never noticed the crop tool grayed out in my use of DPP; sorry I can't help.

[Lundavra]

Sorry, never happened to me before.  I will try again shortly and try on the laptop to see if I can find what has changed.

I always copy the RAW file to another folder before editing - rather paranoid about not losing / altering the original!

[Lundavra]

I think I might have solved the problem.

I normally use DPP with the thumbnails of images in the folder, displayed across the bottom of the window.  But it had somehow switched to having thumbnails on the work area which had to be opened rather than just selected as I would normally have done.  When in this mode I could not things like change all the aspect ratios so it was greyed.

Put it back to the original way and OK.

Now if only Canon would get the downloading of images from the camera working again!