Question on Computers?

[patrickt]

Editing photos is not a very computer-intensive activity. Most new computers will handle editing photos. From there, it simply depends on the nature of the work you're doing and how much you obsess about it.

You can get an Eizo 22" monitor for only $4,500. I'm sure it's excellent. But, do you really need that? I don't.

I am not competent to build my own computer but a friend of mine in the business is. I pay him a modest fee to help me construct a computer from the parts I've selected.

There is a big difference, imho, between graphic art and photographic editing. There is a big difference between shooting weddings professionally and taking photos for fun.

 

[DennyCrane]

Editing photos is not a very computer-intensive activity. Most new computers will handle editing photos. From there, it simply depends on the nature of the work you're doing and how much you obsess about it.

You can get an Eizo 22" monitor for only $4,500. I'm sure it's excellent. But, do you really need that? I don't.

I am not competent to build my own computer but a friend of mine in the business is. I pay him a modest fee to help me construct a computer from the parts I've selected.

There is a big difference, imho, between graphic art and photographic editing. There is a big difference between shooting weddings professionally and taking photos for fun.

Absolutely spot-on. If you're editing HD video, you need lots of processing power. To edit photos... not so much. A ~decent~ video solution is preferable... I like nVidia video cards... because they have very good calibration settings over basic on-board graphics chips. Again, if you're editing movies, or doing serious gaming, you might need a top card... but for photo editing, a very basic one will do fine.

 

[Village Idiot]

You can get a quad core 2.8ghz AMD phenom II dell with a 500GB HDD and 3GB of memory for $560. I think that would handle most any photo editing you'd throw at it, especially with my $2000 MBP is running slowly when editing a 150mb fraternity composite with several other files open.

 

[SrBiscuit]

add another fan of HP here.
just got one from best buy (i know, i know) for $679 with a phenom quad core chip, 8gb ram, and 650gb hd. it;s been great at multitasking with hi res pshop editing, illustrator...etc...

 

[thoughtcryme]

Yeah, you can run the hacked version of OSX on cheap hardware if you want, or buy a Mac clone.
Although it's an option, it might not be the option for you.
Do you(the OP) have confidence in your ability to install the Hackintosh version and get it running?
Do you have confidence in maintaining this system if at some point Apple makes attempts to disable it?
Or do you just want a reliable machine that will allow you to do exactly what you want to do?
Without having to disable hardware keys in order to get it running?

Personally, my machines are my bread and butter.
I just don't see hackintosh as a viable alternative when it comes to machines that I make my living with.
Apple computers have much tighter integration between hardware and software.
This is possible because Apple has a hardware certification policy, and they don't support every generic device out there like microsoft does.
So if I were to go with hackintosh, I would want to know that all of my hardware was fully supported by the hackintosh OS and was tested and found to have no problems.
But I don't think that's even possible when talking about hackintosh because after all it is a hacked version of OSX that's being made to do something it's not actually supposed to do.
It may have no problems, but it could be a nightmare too.
Clients wouldn't understand that I was unable to meet a deadline because of computer problems.
All they'd see is that I failed to come through for them, and that would be what they tell other people when it comes up in discussion.
So for those reasons, I can't in good conscience reccommend hackintosh.
Add to this that the OP would be switching from windows to OSX, so he doesn't have any background with using OSX.
Which could spell disaster for a young student who really only wants to practice his chosen craft, photography.

 

[Big Mike]

Again, if you're editing movies, or doing serious gaming, you might need a top card... but for photo editing, a very basic one will do fine.

:thumbup:
Actually, a new feature of CS4 is that Photoshop can finally take advantage of the video card to out source some of it's required computing.
And still, you need to use a compatible video card (and maybe the 64 bit version of CS4).

 

[Garbz]

Just double up on what Mike has said, anyone who has ever used a CUDA enabled application knows just how much a good video card can mean to many applications.

One example is rendering panoramas. Autopano pro now supports GPU acceleration and it's a lightyear ahead of previous versions in the speed department because of it.

 

[szaydel]

One bit I would add is that a ton of memory does little for you if you are using a 32-bit operating system such as XP (not XP-64bit), since only part of that memory will ever be addressable. I think most people are opting for Windows 7 now, but I am not sure if there are any issue between it and Adobe products such as Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. As far as storing images goes, I always recommend a separate device for storage, such as a small NAS server, or something of the sorts. While I build my systems, I often recommend Dell to people, because their internal componentry is more stock than manufacturers like HP, Gateway and perhaps even Asus. It is often easy enough to re-purpose some of the components later, in future builds. I often do that, by reusing only certain items, such as power supplies, heatsinks/fans, sometimes MoBo's, etc.