Many CD’s that also contain the software will also come with drivers for the camera. I think it’s just kinda a “Well, we need to use some more space on this CD” type of thing.
And some people actually use the software that comes with it. I know my grandma does…
There was a question just like this not too long ago.
It’s generally for people who don’t really know what they’re doing. It’s a lot simpler to just press “upload” on a piece of software that automatically pops up than it is to find the appropriate folder and drag-n-drop. Also, a lot of those programs allow you to name your photos and perform light editing on them.
When I got my first Nikon digital camera 4 years, I HAD to load the disc in order to get it to work with my programs in my computer. But the one I just bought a couple weeks ago, I didn’t. It just said “new devise found” & that was it. Maybe the new ones youdon’t have to have the disc loaded.
With my Nikon DSLR I capture NX pro, which is a photo management suite, worth a couple of hundred dollars. But I ditched it and now just use Aperture. If i was to use ‘Drag and Drop’ i’d have hundreds of folders to organize, by using software it does it for me, handy when you have almost 30GB of photos
I agree that there’s a lot of unnecessary software bundled with cameras, however the import/browser that comes with Sony cameras does import and file okay.
If you have a somewhat higher-end camera that will store your pictures in RAW format there is usually a utility that will allow you to manipulate the RAW data to produce TIFF or JPG files. – That’s if you chose RAW mode, you can usually chose to store the shots in regular jpg mode instead of RAW or also.