Have to upgrade my computer

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Moab Man

Senior Member
If the photo needs to be right, then no on the laptop. For an in field quick make-over, yes. But it would not be my primary machine.
 
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Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
I used to only use laptops for everything. When I started getting serious about my photography I made the decision to get a new Desktop. Depending on how much post processing you plan to do you are going to need better graphics, more memory, faster processor and lots of hard drive space. I have 24GB of memory and 7.5 TB of hard drive space available for photos and backup drives. I also have dual 23inch monitors to make editing so much easier and better. You just can't do that on a laptop.

My laptop goes on vacation with me and I do have Photoshop loaded on it but mainly use the laptop to store the photos from that day and to also view the day's photos and maybe edit and post a teaser from that day to Facebook.
 
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paul04

Senior Member
I always use a desktop, And just updated mine, with a better CPU and 16GB of memory,
and put in a extra hard drive for back up.

And also have a 3TB network drive for backup as well.
 
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cbay

Senior Member
Just a laptop here, but will eventually build a desktop after finding out how demanding post work can be on my laptop. I thought it was pretty good before doing any editing; ([email protected], 8GB RAM), Task manager shows that it's all CPU for the editing.
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
Like Don and Moab, I use the lap top (an old Lenovo 32 bit running Windows 7 Pro) for in the field work or at a client's house. At home, I use the desk top with 22" Samsung monitor, I5 processor, 16 GB memory, heavy duty video card with 2 GB memory, all on Windows 7 Pro and a 2TB hard drive. Everything works ticketyboo! :)
 
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J-see

Senior Member
I think I'll disagree that you can't edit as well on a laptop since you can buy one that has the exact same processing power as a Desk but on average, that desk will be the cheaper option and it can be upgraded easier. There's only that much to upgrade in a laptop.

But for the rest, you can plug as many screens, drives and tools into your laptop as into any desktop.
 
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Moab Man

Senior Member
J-see said:
I think I'll disagree that you can't edit as well on a laptop since you can buy one that has the exact same processing power as a Desk but on average, that desk will be the cheaper option and it can be upgraded easier. There's only that much to upgrade in a laptop.

But for the rest, you can plug as many screens, drives and tools into your laptop as into any desktop.
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My reasoning is the display. I use a calibrated monitor for photo editing. The laptop I have has plenty of power & memory, but like most laptop screens can't display the full range of color as well and confirmed with my Spyder. IF I had to use a laptop for my editing, in spite of hating their business model, I have never seen a laptop screen as good as Mac laptop screens and would be my only choice (and pay three times the price of an equivalent laptop) if the laptop was going to be my ONLY option.
 
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J-see

Senior Member
Moab Man said:
IF I had to use a laptop for my editing, in spite of hating their business model, I have never seen a laptop screen as good as Mac laptop screens and would be my only choice (and pay three times the price of an equivalent laptop) if the laptop was going to be my ONLY option.
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My Macbook has a sweet screen but about everything else is a traumatic experience. ;)
 
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Daz

Senior Member
I do things a little different, I use a Surface Pro 1 that has better specs than my Laptop I used to use, If I need to use a bigger screen, I just plug it into my Television
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
tea2085 said:
I hope you computer experts can help me out. I'm looking at the following computer . Do you think it will be fast enough for photo editing? Paul

HP Envy 700-216 Desktop PC - AMD A10-6700 3.70GHz, 12GB DDR3 Memory, 2TB HDD, DVDRW, Windows 8.1 64-bit (Refurbished) - RB-888182661154 at TigerDirect.com
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Depends on what you mean by "photo editing" and how patient a person you are. Would I want to run Adobe Photoshop and process D810 RAW files on that machine? In a word, no. The CPU is fine for spreadsheets and emails but little more than that. And "integrated graphics" means a basic (typically underpowered) onboard chipset will be doing the graphics processing by stealing precious CPU cycles from your processor as well as system memory (RAM) to get s--t done. Pretty much everything you DON'T want going on right there.

I'd tell you to take a pass on this machine, personally.
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tea2085

Senior Member
J-see- wow, that CPU doesn't rate very well. I'll have to reconsider. I need a computer with at least 8 mg ram(upgradeable to at least 16) and I want a quad core-minimal. I can't spend over 500$. That chart you sent will be very helpful. If you see a computer that meets the requirements-please let me know. Refurbished is OK. Thanks, Paul
 
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J-see

Senior Member
I'd directly go for 16Gb memory. These days I have 5-6Gig in use only when going through my shots in NX-D. Any post-processing will quickly eat what's left of the memory the system didn't claim.

When I check mine now, I have 5+Gig in use and I'm just browsing.
 
Bourbon Neat

Bourbon Neat

Senior Member
Never checked that stuff before. Lightroom 5 open and sitting idle draws about 2GB. Web browsing with 3 open tabs draws under 2GB here. This system has 8Gb memory and does all I need, so far anyway.
 
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