What windows laptop for digital photography?

[Peeb]

My current laptop (toshiba) struggles with Photoshop Elements 13 when I tone map multiple RAW large (18MB) images in a session.

CURRENT:
Win. 8.1
Intel core i3 (2.5 MHz)
6 GB ram
640 GB HDD (40% full)

Will adding RAM get me going, or is it time for new hardware?

At some point I'll jump to win10, but am not in a particular hurry, so if a quick/dirty upgrade keeps me going, that fine.

OTOH, I won't stubbornly cling to current rig if it I've simply out grown it.

Thoughts?

 

[Peeb]

BTW, here are the graphics and HDD deets:

 

[Peeb]

and the RAM:

 

[Peeb]

And... based on this research into my current system, I've ordered 8GBx2 memory chips.

I'll report back to see if upping from 6GB to 16GB is all I needed!

 

[jcdeboever]

What's the exact version of Windows 8.1? Is it 64 bit?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Peeb]

What's the exact version of Windows 8.1? Is it 64 bit?

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Oh, yeah- sorry. It's x64

 

[jcdeboever]

Have you looked at CPU / memory usage when running the application/ process in original post? That program doesn't have any huge hardware requirements. RAM can help but you might have some other issue(s) going on.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[Peeb]

Norton (which is a resource hog in it's own right) has a pop-up that notifies that the system is getting taxed, but I forget the precise message. Will try to re-create...

 

[jcdeboever]

Norton (which is a resource hog in it's own right) has a pop-up that notifies that the system is getting taxed, but I forget the precise message. Will try to re-create...

You don't need Norton as the footprint is too large, uninstall it. Windows has Microsoft Security Essentials built in, they call it Windows Defender and it's not the same as it was in XP and Vista. Good surfing habits and keeping system updated is all you need. If your into porn, install the paid version of Malwarebytes but all bets are off. I would at least download Malwarebytes free, install it, and run it in safe mode asap to rule out PUP aand/or maleware issues. A lot of laptops have a bunch of crap wear loaded on them, especially if you bought it at Best Buy and had them set it up for you. You can uninstall a lot of that unnecessary bloatware but I would make a set of recovery discs first, then start uninstalling crap. The recovery discs are good for when you sell it. Make system images (different than recovery disc) after everything is uninstalled, updated, and running well, that way in the event of catastrophic issue, it can be recovered quickly without the need for a lot of the updates being re-run. I had a buddy that recently bought a laptop. He did not listen to my recommendation and bought one from BB and it was loaded with crap. I told him to take the POS back since it was within 14 days... he did and now is happy. I built him a new desktop for photo editing (i5/16gb ram/ssd for OS/large data drive/used entry level workstation card/ W10) and we found him a nice Thinkpad lease turn in for travel... just for a couple hundred more than the new POS laptop cost him. He signed up for LR on line subscription and loves it.