PSE conflict with Canon DPP?

[Jbass99]

Hi Experts!
I'm having some trouble and I wonder if anyone can help. When my camera was new, I used Canon's Digital Photo Professional (DPP) to edit my photos and life was simple and good.

As time went on, I felt the need to do more advanced editing than DPP was capable of and purchased Elements 5. When confronted with everything Elements had to offer, I gritted my teeth and set to learning (I subscribed here, first). Because I didn't really understand the Organizer, I continued to use the Canon software to download photos off my CF card.

As time went on, I became more comfortable with Elements, to the point that I began using some of the power of the Organizer. I set my copyright information, started using custom file names, and began to download with the Organizer. Here's where the plot thickens-

Now, when I open DPP, everything works as before, except when I try to open a file that was downloaded with Organizer. If I double-click on one of the files downloaded with DPP-no problem. But, if I try to open one of the files downloaded with Organizer, I get an error message telling me that "DPP has encountered a problem and needs to close. Sorry for the inconvenience."

I feel that DPP does some things better than Elements and Elements excels at some things DPP won't do, so I would like to be able to use them both. I contacted Canon and spent a bunch of quality time with them, trying to fix the problem. Alas, after deleting, upgrading, registry-changing, segregating .psd files, etc. I still can't open DPP on files Organizer downloaded. Files downloaded with Canon software open fine.

Has anyone encountered this problem before? Am I changing the EXIF data when I use Organizer to list copyright information? And finally, what the heck is a .xmp file and could they be causing DPP to hiccup, since they seem to be exclusive to Elements?

Well, sorry for the long post. I thank you for reading, and hope you'll reply with your ideas. Frankly, I'm stuck and just don't know what else to try. As I read through the forums, I can't help but be impressed by the huge amount of knowledge out there and the willingness to help.

[Michel B]

I'm not an expert, but I do use DPP and PSE and I have no such problems. The main difference is that I never use Canon's utilities or the PSE organizer to upload from the camera. I am not alone on this, and there may be good reasons...
I just tried using DPP with *.CR2 raw files edited with PSE without problems. The *.xmp files are just a recording of the editing settings you made in PSE. I don't think they may be the cause of the freezing of DPP. You could delete or move them to another folder to test it.
Did you try copying the files from the folder where the PSE downloader has put them to a new one, and opening them in DPP?
Not sure we can help you if the people at Canon could not?

[NickLewis]

I use Organiser's Photo Downloader exclusively to download all my photo files (Canon CR2 RAW files from a 20D) via a card reader and have no problems, so I don't think the problem should be laid at its door necessarily.

I very rarely use DPP, but I've just tried it, on files both with and without sidecar (xmp) files, and it's opened them with no problem. I'm running DPP v2.1.1.4.

Can you step through precisely what your workflow is, and give details of what file type, camera, DPP version etc.? I've no idea what the issue might be, but if we could reproduce it, that'd be a start.....

Nick

[Jbass99]

Whaddya mean you're not experts? You asked enough of the right questions to give me a proper start on tracking down the problem. Thanks, Michel and Nick! Canon was super helpful, but there is tendency to blame problems on the "other guy's" software and give up. I was ready to contact Adobe and get the same line from them.

Anyway, I believe I've found the problem. I had never bothered to use the EOS Utility to put my name into the camera, so that line in the file contained the word "unknown." Then, I had embedded metadata into the Organizer downloader. The result was that field contained something from the camera and something from Elements.

I believe that was the problem. At least, DPP now opens and does not crash. I first tried Michels suggestion to move a RAW file from the download location into another folder. DPP was able to open it there and remain running. I then started a long, laborious processing of opening files one-by-one and comparing Metadata. The problem only occurred when there was two sources of Metadata on the same line. Easy fix; I just used the EOS Utility to change "unknown" to my name, removed all text from the downloader and then experimented to find that I could also have PSE supply copyright info without crashing DPP.

I'm feeling pretty good right now and I owe it to your willingness to help out. Nick, this is the second time you've bailed me out of trouble. Thanks again, folks!

[Jbass99]

Whoops, spoke too soon. My gratitude is as strong as ever, but I should have known better that to brag. I'm still having some intermittent issues. I tagged one of the test files I just downloaded and DPP crashed. I thought I'd ruled that out, because some of the tagged files without the metadata worked OK. Oh well, I can see this will take a little more effort. I hope this is really an issue I can understand and correct and not some problem with machine code or other witchcraft.

Nick, for what its worth, I'm using a Canon 30D, shooting small, fine JPEG and RAW. DPP version is 3.2.0.4, fresh off the Canon Download Library. I generally download the files and before I go back to "all photos", I tag them. Then, its a quick look to assign stars and weed out the junk. From there, things vary. Because I've been unable to use DPP, I open the RAW file in PSE, tweak them and then go to the editor. Then, its usually crop, resize if necessary, levels, enhance and save.

[NickLewis]

Well, it's about time I upgraded DPP, I suppose, so I'll have a dabble. I probably won't be able to do that for a couple of days, though.

Nick