What to look for in a computer for photography?

[ArtFreak]

I am looking to buy a new laptop, with a price range topping off at around a thousand. I'm not a computer expert or anything, but I'm sure since I'm going to be editing my photos on this computer it will in some way influence them. Is there a particular brand or model that anyone would recommend, and is there anything that I should be looking for in a computer? I understand my price range won't include top of the line computers, but if anybody has a right direction to point me in I'd appreciate it.

 

[SpikeyJohnson]

I would recommend looking for something with an Intel i7 cpu or a high end AMD cpu. Have you looked anywhere yet? If so what are your options, I have a little over a decade in computers and can help you decide.

 

[Stevepwns]

Whats you budget? What software are you going to be using? Thats important information if you have a specific task in mind.

 

[JerryLove]

I am looking to buy a new laptop, with a price range topping off at around a thousand. I'm not a computer expert or anything, but I'm sure since I'm going to be editing my photos on this computer it will in some way influence them. Is there a particular brand or model that anyone would recommend, and is there anything that I should be looking for in a computer? I understand my price range won't include top of the line computers, but if anybody has a right direction to point me in I'd appreciate it.

Yes.

You should look for a laptop with a very good, and very consistent screen so that you can calibrate it and expect WYSIWYG.

If you are going to store images on it: I'd consider a dual-drive Laptop. SSDs are awesome for laptop performance, but still a bit expensive for large drive sizes.

Not much else to worry about, unless we are discussing the bottom of the barrel. Even a very mediocre modern machine, with average RAM (4GB, say), will edit stills faster than you can work the interface.

Unless you are planning a bunch of *video* work. That can be a bit more demanding (esp if you are going to do a great deal of transcoding).

 

[JerryLove]

I would recommend looking for something with an Intel i7 cpu or a high end AMD cpu. Have you looked anywhere yet? If so what are your options,

i7 is a line that stretches back some time. It's trivial to find an i7 slower than an i3 just by looking at different generations; and you've not even remotely touched on the varying GPUs which would have more effect on his interface than processor.

Further: AMD's single-core performance is abysmal. Without knowing editing software: he might do better with a low-end Intel than a high-end AMD. Not to mention concerns about power consumption (which is a big case for Haswell over Ivy Bridge).

Indeed: given the fact that a very basic CPU is major overkilll for a 36MP image in Photoshop: I'd be far *more* worried about battery life than I would about CPU horsepower.

I'd also consider an SSD.. not specifically for PS work, but because laptops are annoying without them in general.

 

[KmH]

You will want a lot of RAM, 6 GB or more.
You will want an IPS type screen.
You will want a video card with 1 GB or more of GPU memory and that is Open GL capable.

Basically, what you really need is a desktop computer.

Laptops generally make poor image editing devices unless the laptop is attached to a dedicated external display.

System requirements | Photoshop
System requirements | Lightroom

 

[SpikeyJohnson]

The reason I didn't include anything about GPU's is because generally under the 1k limit on laptops you won't find a GPU that will process faster than a 3770 or 4770. I have a 4770k matched with a Radeon 7850 and unless I'm in premiere exporting and encoding videos the video card is never faster. I was purely thinking export speed when I threw out the i7 or high ended AMD (such as 8350 octocore). I almost never talk low-ended CPU's when editing is involved because my old C2Q 9650 wasn't up to the task with the pre mentioned video card backing it. That C2Q can even match some lower end i5's these days. So I'm definitely not trying to BS the guy but I'm just trying to make sure he gets something he isn't going to be sad about buying when it might not hold up as long as he wants.

Edit: not a 4850, 7850 was the correct videocard. I had the 4850 years and years ago.

 

[SpikeyJohnson]

Here are a few models over at Tigerdirect.com that looked promising, much lower in price and we started hitting i5 models.

Dell Inspiron 17R Intel Core i7 16GB Memory 1TB HDD 2GB AMD Radeon HD 8870M 17.3 Notebook Windows 8.1 64-bit - I17RM-16452SLV at TigerDirect.com

Lenovo Z710 Intel Core i7 16GB Memory 1TB HDD + 8GB SSHD 17.3 Notebook Windows 8.1 - 59406361 at TigerDirect.com

Both of these have i7's with 16gb of ram, which will rock for photoshop, lightroom, etc... I wouldn't go any less than 8 GB if your are using photoshop with multiple documents open. Photoshop gobbles even my desktops memory if allowed to.

 

[IgsEMT]

When I was looking for an upgrade, I used adobe's website 'min req' as a reference.

 

[weepete]

At that budget I'd be trying to look for an i7 with loads of RAM. Intel is generally ahead of AMD as far as proceessor speed goes. An SSD would be great but a sub $1000 computer might be pushing it. Go to your local computer shop and ask them

Stay away from anything with AOL on it, nightmareto uninstall. Budget for a calibration device too

 

[JerryLove]

The reason I didn't include anything about GPU's is because generally under the 1k limit on laptops you won't find a GPU that will process faster than a 3770 or 4770.

My apologies. I mis-assumed shared knowledge.

Most modern CPU's, especially those designed for laptops, now include embeded GPUs. For example: the Intel HD4200, or HD5000 found in some Haswell processors. Because of the way Windows uses 3D-layer space to store 2D windows (since Vista), there's some inherent advantage to a reasonable on-board GPU over none (though if any current laptops have none: I'm not specifically aware).

The reality is that relatively little in PS is going to tax a modern x64 CPU... any modern x64 CPU, so the need from a PS standpoint is about nill... but we are really worring over nits to be discussing any useful improvement from a stock laptop: so that would seem to be a reasonable place to start.

I have a 4770k matched with a Radeon 7850 and unless I'm in premiere exporting and encoding videos the video card is never faster. I was purely thinking export speed when I threw out the i7 or high ended AMD (such as 8350 octocore). I almost never talk low-ended CPU's when editing is involved because my old C2Q 9650 wasn't up to the task with the pre mentioned video card backing it. That C2Q can even match some lower end i5's these days. So I'm definitely not trying to BS the guy but I'm just trying to make sure he gets something he isn't going to be sad about buying when it might not hold up as long as he wants.

I'm editing on an old i5-2500K without trouble.

Both of these have i7's with 16gb of ram, which will rock for photoshop, lightroom, etc... I wouldn't go any less than 8 GB if your are using photoshop with multiple documents open. Photoshop gobbles even my desktops memory if allowed to.

PS CS6 is usually eating well under 2GB with several open 22MB RAWs plus layers on my PC.

 

[JerryLove]

You will want a lot of RAM, 6 GB or more.

Not in my experience photo-editing. What are you doing in PS that is getting near that high? The requirement from Adobe is 1GB; though any PC with less than 4 these days is odd.

You will want an IPS type screen.

You will want a high-quality scree which is calibrated. Following this recommendation as rule would get you away from many even better alternatives (OLED for example).

You will want a video card with 1 GB or more of GPU memory and that is Open GL capable.

Only if you are doing 3D modelling: in which case get rid of PS and grab 3D-Studio. Also, at that point: It is time for a workstation. You won't get the horsepower in a $1k laptop.

 

[KmH]

1 GB is the minimum.

Exceed the minimum requirements.

I do most of my edits in 16-bit mode and the extra RAM helps.
In Photoshop's Peformance settings you can set how much RAM is allocated to Photoshop.

Yes, Open GL helps 3-D modeling but some of the 16-bit filters and tools can render a lot faster using Open GL.

 

[JerryLove]

1 GB is the minimum.

Exceed the minimum requirements.

I do most of my edits in 16-bit mode and the extra RAM helps.

In Photoshop's Peformance settings you can set how much RAM is allocated to Photoshop.

I didn't recommend the minimum. I wouldn't recommend running any modern Windows PC on 1GB. But I opened 4 20GB 14-bit PSD files (originally from RAWs) and PS is not even eating up 700MB of RAM. Even if I gave it 2.5GB to work in, I'd still have enough with a 4GB laptop. (My PS has been told it can use 8GB)

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for running 8-or-more (I'm running 16). I just don't think you'll see real improvement in PS performance (unless you are running many other things or opening a *lot* of images at once or something).

Yes, Open GL helps 3-D modeling but some of the 16-bit filters and tools can render a lot faster using Open GL.

Open GL 2.0 has been supported since at least the HD 2000. Again I refer back to my earlier post and the discussion of on-die GPUs.

I will have to experiment on my laptop (HD3000). Which filters in specific do you see performance variations from? On my desktop mine are nigh-instant.

 

[table1349]

What to look for? A desktop. No matter the quality of the screen, it is not going to be consistent. Consistent editing requires consistent conditions. Same angle on the screen, same lighting conditions etc. to insure that you calibration remains consistent. Yes to properly edit you need to hardware calibrate you screen at least once a month. If I am doing a lot of editing I calibrate once a week. These things never seem to get mentioned when someone asks about a computer for editing. You might want to read this as well.

Color management and color science: Introduction