What computer for editing photos

[Kellym77 0]

Need to buy a new computer. What are important features in a computer for photo editing

[hyp 112]

A good screen. That’s pretty much it. Photo editing is relatively easy on the machine, especially compared to video. Even a current iPad has plenty enough power. Use whatever you like or can afford but make sure that you can calibrate the screen if you intend to print. 

[JohnLiddiard 31]

Plenty of RAM and a good SSD. Processing a large image eats up RAM and once RAM is full most software either fails or pages memory to the disk. 

[TimG 62]

I find with Lightroom that 16GB of RAM is good on a Mac (iMac or Studio).

[davehicks 99]

It's a bit more complicated these days depending on your expectations. 

The traditional requirements are:

* Modern CPU model no more than 1 year old from time of purchase

* Massive number of cores found in higher end CPU's don't help with photo editing. They are useful for video but not Lightroom or Photoshop. A mid-range CPU like the Apple M1, Intel i5, or AMD 6 or 8 core will work as well as higher priced models.

* 16GB of RAM is the minimum and 32GB is better. When you have Lightroom, Photoshop, and an AI program running 16GB gets exhausted pretty quickly.

* For a Laptop you should get a screen no less the 14" and in a 3:2 or 16:10 aspect ratio. Stay away from 16:9 screens

* For a Desktop get at least a 27" screen and don't go cheap. A screen with 95%+ AdobeRGB color accuracy is best.

* For years a discrete GPU was not needed. Now it is very useful in Photo editing. Lightroom & Photoshop have added amazing new AI driven features and more will be on the way. The TopazAI suite is really useful and needs a GPU to run well. So a modern GPU in your laptop or desktop is very nice to have. 

Edited February 13 by davehicks

[Gudge 58]

I've been using a Dell XPS laptop with 15inch screen, Intel i7 processor, 32 GB RAM and a GPU with 4GB of RAM for the last 2 1/2 years as a desktop powering external monitors and occasional travel; the performance has been fine.  Recentlhy I purchased the latest Macbook Air with M2 processor and 16GB of shared RAM for overseas dive trips and it blows the Dell XPS out of the water for performance with LR, PS and plugins running at the same time, specially when using AI software such as Topaz Photo AI and DXO PureRAW 2.  This was a pleasant surprise as I was expecting lower performance as a trade off for smaller weight/size for flying. It is was also about AU$400 less than I paid for the Dell.  I'm now planning to replace the Dell as my desktop with a Mac Mini with M2 Pro processor when my finances recover.

Edited February 14 by Gudge

[LarryHallas 44]

I bought this MacBook Pro on Amazon for $715 US and it is great! I needed something that would edit 4K video. I added a 2TB external SSD.

Apple 15.4in MacBook Pro Laptop (Retina, Touch Bar, 2.6GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD Storage) Space Gray (MR942LL/A) (2018 Model) (Renewed)

Edited February 14 by LarryHallas

[diggy 54]

The new Mac mini with M2 pro is more than sufficient at a great price if it's only photos you want to edit in my honest opinion.

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini/apple-m2-chip-with-8-core-cpu-and-10-core-gpu-256gb#

 

Diggy

[makar0n 67]

So I was trying to avoid being involved in this discussion but I cannot stand idle anymore with all the Apple fanboys being out in force.

 

Time to ruffle some feathers xD

Firstly, as some put above, you should concentrate on things, in this order:
1) screen - 4K and make sure it covers 100% of whatever spectrum you are working in (ie. SRGB, AdobeRGB, DCI-P3). Ideally go for OLED, these usually have 99% of each color spectrum and provide an unparalleled image quality.
2) RAM - 16GB would be enough but given the low prices there is no reason not to go with 32GB just in case. Aim for speeds matching CPU ideally, so for AM4 you want 3600 CL16, AM5 6000 CL30. No need for anything faster.
3) SSD - helpful when opening larger files, since RAWs can be 20-30MB on average. No need for PCIe 4/5 speeds unless you are running database for 300 users. Firecuda 510 models offer a nice choice now with enterprise grade reliability, PCIe 3 3000MB/s speeds and prices as low as 90 EUR per 2TB
4) CPU - basic 6/8 core. AMD AM4 platform is a great choice price wise (so say 5600X/5800X + B550 motherboard), unless you want the latest AM5 instead (7600X/7800X + B650). If laptop aim for 6800h(s) or 6900(h) Lenovo 7 Pro or Asus Vivobook 16X are great choices if you are in US.
I would avoid Intel at this point - AMD motherboard allow for CPU upgrades in the future (though AM4 is EOL), Intel does not, so for a new gen CPU you will need a new motherboard, increasing the cost of any upgrade later on. Also you better have your own power plant if you have Intel, they are notoriously not energy efficient. Vladimir Putin approved.
5) GPU - whatever, can even go with integrated one (in case of 6800h(s) or 6900h(s)). This barely matters in photo editing.

Secondly - Apple....what can I say other than - do yourself (and your wallet) a favor and stay away, its a fashion accessory not a computer. Hardware made by company known for their greed,  locking users in a limited ecosystem, and making sure more eWaste is being produced by making every effort to make the devices irreparable and even unusable after support is dropped, including designing those to fail or be obsolete as soon as possible (just look at the battery throttling on iPhones to make older models look bad and force user to buy new ones, or that lovely lawsuit about Ipod battery)

Also price wise is a complete nonsense, to give you an example:
-Apple MacBook Pro 13" (2022), M2 8-Core CPU, 256 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM lists at 1199 EUR (USD). And absolute joke for a hardware that should be forbidden to be sold in such low spec configs in 2023, as it is nothing but eWaste, capable of perhaps internet browsing. 256GB SSD? 8GB RAM? in 2023? really ?
For comparison:
-ASUS VivoBook Pro 16X OLED Ryzen 7 5800H, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, GeForce RTX 3050 - as low as 1134 EUR, 4K 16" OLED screen, more RAM, more SSD space AND a dedicated GPU (so you can even play some games).
M2 CPU has advantage in some workflows (vs older gen x86 CPUs) but that will be of 0 use in photo editing. And according to leaked benchmarks latest AMD 7xxx mobile CPUs will blast M2 to outer space. And 6000 series is not really behind, trading blows with Apple, you can find some interesting, non game benchmarks below, including Darktable. Literally 50/50 split vs 6000 gen.

https://www.phoronix.com/review/apple-m2-amd-ryzen

 

And then there is what perhaps gets me most  - SSD upgrades.
On PC? Go to any shop, pick your SSD (like above, 90 EUR for 2TB), install in 5 mins utilizing only screwdriver. Sell old one to recover cost of the upgrade.
On Apple? Uuu sorry, we are such a great company we have now soldered the SSD to the motherboard. You cannot upgrade it yourself. Now come to our shop where for a lowly price of 1000 USD we will sell you that 2TB (actual price from Apple.com). You will have to send the laptop over, trust us with your private data, and no, you cannot sell your old SSD. We might throw it to the bin actualy.
Och and my second favorite - 1000 USD monitor STAND. That is some expensive furniture.

Apple might have its advantages, if you are in 0.000001% of the people who actually utilize their specific OS or ARM architecture. And I can guarantee you that editing photos does not qualify. And if you feel like you have too much money, I am sure there is yet another WACP or something you can spend it on.

 

Edited February 14 by makar0n

[TimG 62]

.... I always enjoy makar0n's take on Apple computers. Fabulous as always .... 

Hey, you pays your money and your takes your chances.

[makar0n 67]

5 minutes ago, TimG said:

.... I always enjoy makar0n's take on Apple computers. Fabulous as always .... 

Hey, you pays your money and your takes your chances.

Always there for you, I could not pass such an opportunity for a flame war, it is sometimes too quiet around here xD

Edited February 14 by makar0n

[hyp 112]

As I said in the first post for photo editing it really doesn’t matter. My MacBook from 10 years ago still did alright before I upgraded. It wasn’t buttery smooth but certainly workable. Honestly Lightroom runs on a potato, whether you like your potato in apple flavour or not is totally irrelevant. If you want to merge 360 drone pano hdrs maybe getsomething with a bit more ram, but with typical file sizes of 50mb how you would ever need more than 16gb of RAM is beyond me. Video is of course a different ballgame. 

Edited February 15 by hyp

[Interceptor121 769]

On 2/13/2023 at 7:58 AM, Kellym77 said:

Need to buy a new computer. What are important features in a computer for photo editing

1. A good monitor that is at least 100% sRGB better if it has DisplayP3 and/or AdobeRGB though the latter is going in disuse

2. Unless you use noise reduction software or some CPU intensive software like stacking and process hundred of images you will find many computers digest photos just fine

If you are in the apple universe the new mac mini with a good screen works very well. You can use SSD if you have libraries with many images however I only do that on my laptop and store my library on a professional grade hard drive.

I cannot stress how important is a good screen but also to keep it calibrated

[LarryHallas 44]

7 hours ago, Interceptor121 said:

I cannot stress how important is a good screen but also to keep it calibrated

I agree! I use 2 x 27inch BenQ 4K color calibrated monitors with the laptop I mentioned earlier. I upgraded from 2 high-end Dell monitors which turned out to have a “blueish” tint, as I learned later is the case with many of the office monitors. The difference is absolutely noticeable in my images now. 

[theocean 2]

Not sure if it was mentioned, but it helps quite a bit if you store the images in your SSD/hard-drive at least during the editing process, rather than attached external drives. It helps speeding up the flow due to the changes being locally made.

[bfreliche 4]

Ah, Apple vs. Windows.  I too am in that battle vs Apple users.  My quote is "Viva la Resistance!!"  Seems that Apple is the "trendy" way to go. 

I was an Apple guy in college, but after graduating, getting a new computer was more expensive than the windows.  And my father-in-law worked for IBM, so we had discounts on top of that.  But I always kinda wanted to go back to Apple.  That was until I was given an iPhone for work, and it was the most frustrating thing to use.  

I would say you can get a solid laptop/desktop computer with whatever floats your boat.  Mac will cost you, for sure.  But its not like the windows is going to cost you pennies.  Both will be some sort of an investment.  I personal have a Dell XPS 15, and a HP Omen for my desktop.  Both are powerful, and can run both LrC and Pc at the same time.  I can even add DaVinci Resolve in the rotation.  

[phxazcraig 116]

I'll throw in my two cents worth with some Dell XPS 15 experience.

About 14 months ago I bought a new Dell XPS 15 9510, with i7 CPU, 64GB of RAM (maxed out), 2TB M.2 SSD boot drive and a beautiful OLED almost-4k screen.   I immediately added a second 2TB M.2 drive for my photo working drive.   All seemed great at first, and as a bonus I found the sound to be better than expected.  Nice for watching movies.

All was mostly well for months, though the laptop has always had an issue with the screen 'freezing/stalling' here and there for several seconds at a time. (Move mouse, nothing happens, wait 5 seconds, mouse moves.)

Then I went on a 2-week diving vacation to Roatan.   During this time the laptop started refusing to turn on the screen when Windows loaded.  Dell logo comes up ok, spinning circle for Windows loading ok, then you hear the Windows sound and the screen goes black.  Obviously some sort of driver issue - but what do you do when you are on vacation with no other computer and sketchy internet?

Of course you keep shutting it down - as best you can since you can't see what is going on at the time, like patches.   And eventually something breaks and Windows won't load.    I had had inklings of this happening on a 2-week dive trip to Bonaire, but the laptop eventually would load with the screen running after several reboots.

In my Roatan case I had to use the Dell built-in 'Restore Windows' option to reinstall Windows when something broke on one of the shutdowns and Windows simply would not load or repair itself.  (And lost allmy apps.)  And so I did, then painfully downloaded Lightroom in the middle of the night (when wifi worked) and reinstalled.  And patched.

When I got home, I mostly didn't use the laptop, mostly in disgust.   Fast-forward to this month on a dive trip to Truk.  Again the laptop refused to come up with screen on, and after about 30 attempts I went into the BIOS and set 'factory defaults'.   And then Windows wouldn't even boot!   So once again, reinstall Windows, lose all my apps, spend a night getting things going again with Lightroom.

Why mention this?   Because in researching this on the internet I see this problem goes back at least four years, and Dell never acknowledges an issue.   The problem tends to come down to the Intel UHD driver, with a lot of people saying to back-rev to a particular version. Except of course that version gets replaced when you patch the system, so you eventually end up with the problem again.

I'm currently looking for a replacement laptop (to one that is 14 months old) simply to get reliability.

In the meantime I'm trying to cure the problem, along with the 5-second freezes.   At least some of this seems related to running hot, and having 64GB of RAM and two 2TB SSD's may be partly to blame.    I've not had a freeze in a week (but it was always maddeningly random before) since I went into the bios and changed the cooling parameter from 'auto or balanced' to cooling priority.   Fan runs a bit more now.

I also found an Intel UDH config utility and turned off a feature relating to independent screen refresh. 

So far, no screen blacks, but I'm still getting some 2-3 second screen pauses.   I may try reseating the CPU with new thermal paste next, but I hate having to work on a nearly new laptop to get it to run.

Aside from this incredibly annoying issue, the laptop has proven itself worthy in photo editing.   I calibrated the screen with DisplayCAL and a Spyder5 puck.   The colors have been well-controlled, the dynamic range is excellent, and in general the screen is just beautiful.  I will only look for OLED displays at this point.   My best TV is also OLED, and the dynamic range differences over normal screens is easily discernible.