Computer vs Photography and Photoshop

[Sirene]

Do you need a really powerful computer to be able to do amazing things with your pictures ?

How can I know if my pc is up to par ?

Thanks guys !

 

[MarcusM]

You can make amazing photos without PCs. It all depends on what you want to do.

If you want to do a lot of post-production work with a program like Adobe Photoshop, then you will want a PC with lots of RAM and good processing power in order to handle large files and run filters and things quickly.

 

[RKW3]

An average computer should work fine with photoshop, if you have an under-average old computer it may run slowly. Kind of obvious, but yeah.

For me and a lotta other photographers photoshop is a neccessity, not just a privelige.

 

[MarcusM]

One thing to keep in mind...if you learn photography and learn your camera and lenses well enough, the better your shots will be in camera, and also the higher percentage of "good" shots you will have.

I have been doing a lot of reading and learning lately. One thing I hear a lot of professional photographers say often is, that they want to spend time taking photographs. They don't want to spend a lot of time on the computer making adjustments when they can try to get it right the first time in the camera.

 

[doobs]

Shoot film.

 

[Socrates]

Do you need a really powerful computer to be able to do amazing things with your pictures ?

How can I know if my pc is up to par ?

Thanks guys !

You need a CAMERA to do amazing things with your pictures. The computer is helpful to correct the mistakes you made when you took the shots.

Of course, it's another story if you want to pose Forrest Gump with the president of the U.S.

 

[Sideburns]

a gig of ram or more, and a good processor..and you'll be fine do use CS3.

 

[Sandspur]

I run Photoshop (full size) on an 8 year old Mac G4, with 768 RAM (mismatched 256 & 512 chips). I did upgrade the processor not long ago - from 400 to 1 gig, and had to upgrade my graphics to accomodate my new 23" Apple Cinema Display.

Would more RAM and faster processors be better? Maybe ...
Faster? Of course ...
Necessary? No.

A lot depends on your workflow, how you choose to work, and how patient (or impatient) you are.

Having the latest, greatest, fastest ... whatever! ... is nice. But it's hardly necessary.
Before you buy the software, check the spec requirements. If your current computer meets the minimums, don't worry about it.

 

[AlexParlett]

Shoot film.

Somehow a dark room to do post processing is a lot more work than digitally doing it, a lot of film users scan their stuff in now and post process it digitally.

 

[astrostu]

I run Photoshop (full size) on an 8 year old Mac G4, with 768 RAM (mismatched 256 & 512 chips). I did upgrade the processor not long ago - from 400 to 1 gig, and had to upgrade my graphics to accomodate my new 23" Apple Cinema Display.

Same here ... I was running on a 733 MHz 6-year-old computer with 1.5 GB RAM that I upgraded to a 1.6 GHz processor about 2 years ago. It got the job done.

Granted, I just upgraded (as of 2 hrs ago) to an 8-core 2.8 GHz computer with 6 GB RAM and a 30" monitor, but the only thing this will allow me to do differently is everything much faster and have more things open at once. It will also allow me to get into 3-D modeling and animation, made practical by the much-increased processing power, but that's not really photography.

 

[The_Traveler]

The computer is helpful to correct the mistakes you made when you took the shots.

This is a catchy sentence but very short-sighted.

There are three important points:

• Digital cameras allow you to control the circumstances of the exposure - raw balance, white balance, sensitivity of the sensor, etc that could only be roughly done before.
• The computer allows you to do the post-processing that either the lab did before or that couldn't be done.
• Digital photography has expanded photography into a new art and taking the picture with a camera is a very important step, but only one step, in the creation of an image.

 

[BYoung]

I do some of my PP on my laptop that totally sucks. Its 1.8ghz with 512ram. It only slows down if you do heavy filter adjustments. Or get real impatient with the healing brush and just do to much to fast.

I have a nice duel core, duel screen computer in my house but this laptop is fully able to use CS2, I would use CS3 like I do on the home computer but it won't load on Windows 2k3.

 

[Sirene]

Thanks for all the help guys !
I guess my pc is perfect then