Photoshop 12 is better known as CS5. It's is an older version that, along with it's older version of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), will not support a newer camera model such as the 7DII.
Or, maybe you mean Photoshop ELEMENTS 12... that's newer than CS5, but still has
also has been superseded and uses an older version of ACR which does not support 7DII and never will.
The update to CS6 was the correct thing to do. Actually, the update to ACR was what was needed. It's now able to handle 7DII RAW files. If I recall correctly it's ACR 9.1. I believe it also works with the even newer Canon DSLRs: 5Ds/5Ds-R and T6i/T6s.
But those will likely be the last Canon DSLRs that will be supported in CS6 and it's related ACR version. Adobe has announced that this will be the last update of ACR for CS6 (and Lightroom 6). They're discontinuing support for the stand-alone, licensed products.
The next update, ACR 9.1.1, will only work with Photoshop CC, the cloud-based, subscription version of PS (and LR CC). So you'll have to rent the software and pay monthly, if you want to contine using PS in the future, with as-yet unannounced new camera models.
Something else you could have done and we can do in the future is convert our cameras' CR2 RAW files to Adobe DNG files, which are another form of RAW file. Adobe DNG Converter is free to download, to do this. And DNG is backward compatible with older versions of Photoshop, Elements and Lightroom.
If all this sounds rather monopolistic on Adobe's part... well, it is.
I expect once they've done away with the stand-alone versions of PS and LR they'll start ratcheting up the price on the CC versions. It's reasonably priced right now at $10 a month (which happens to work out close to what I tended to spend on stand-alone upgrades of PS and LR over the years). Who knows when the prices will start to go up or by how much. But, I imagine they will. After all, when they first announced Photoshop CC, Adobe offered an "introductory discount" to existing licensees of $30 a month, for PS CC alone. I guess it didn't sell very well because they spent the next year gradually lowering the price to where we are now... PS CC and LR CC bundled together for $10 a month.
However, I take that initial $30/month as an indication of what Adobe thinks their products are worth and would like to charge for PS CC in the not-too-distant future. So personally, after 20 years using PS (starting with Version 4) and using LR since shortly after the first version was introduced, I'm exploring my alterantives.
P.S. You don't really need to use EOS Utility to download your files. You can simply use Windows Explorer to create destination folders, then open the memory card, highlight all the files and drag/drop/copy them over to your hard drive. (Similar can be done on a Mac, if that's what you're using.) It takes less time to do than it does to write about it here!
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Alan Myers
San Jose, Calif., USA
"Walk softly and carry a big lens."
GEAR: 5DII, 7D(x2), 50D(x3), some other cameras, various lenses & accessories
FLICKR & EXPOSUREMANAGER
