EOS Software

[1alfie]

I just purchased Elements 12 software.  Is there any value in retaining the EOS editing software that came with my T4i camera?

[Skirball · Accepted solution]

Retaining as in, keep on your computer, or keep the disks? In general, if you're not using something there's no need to keep it on the computer.  But I'd always keep the disks for backup.  Even though you can DL most of it off the internet, Canon used to protect some of their software, like EOS utility, by requiring original disks.  Not sure if they still do that.

If elements 12 is doing everything you need for post process then that's fine.  I don't care for Canon's post processing utility, personally, but some like it.  However, I use EOS Utlility all the time.  It lets me shoot tethered with my laptop.  Even though Lightroom has this function I prefer the Canon version.  It's all personal preference, you can do anything you need to with third party software, or you can do it all with Canon, or a mix of what works best for you.

[1alfie]

Thanks very much for this...

[TCampbell]

Yes - there are a few things that the local utilities do that Elements wont do.  For example... if you need to flash the firmware, update the owner info.  Also there are some things that the Canon utilities do such as tetherered shooting and RAW processing.

These are things you may not want to do often... but you probably don't want to toss that software away either.  If you don't use it often enough to justify it occupying a bit of disk space, just store the media so you can retrieve it when you need it.

[1alfie]

Good idea..

[ebiggs1]

EOS Utility is a keeper mainly for the reasons Tim Campbell stated.  But PSE 12 is so, way very much, better than any of the Canon free software, there is no need to retain it.  And of course the ulitamate softwarer is Lightroom 5 and Photoshop.

There is a reason 99% of all pros use Adobe software.  

If PS can not do it, it likely can not be done.  LR is more of a catalog system that does simple editing to large numers of photos quickly.  It is by nature non-destructive.