Building a Photoshop machine for editing BIG files

[sully75]

Have you considered the "guide flow workflow":
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/...guidefile.html

Might make a lot of sense and save you a lot of money/time.

[jp]

You need a 64 bit OS for editing files that size conveniently. Yes, Ram is cheap right now, so max that out.

You have a preference for Intel processors, but AMD's 6 core processors pack a lot of punch for a $150 part, perhaps providing money for a bigger solid state drive (I use ocz Vertex 2 and 3 drives at work). The AMD 8-cores are affordable, but not many motherboards are available that support them last I checked.

On my home photo editing machine, I have a solid state boot/windows drive, and a traditional WD black hard drive for programs and images. You should not need a swap/pagefile on a computer with lots of memory.

[Rider]

my scanner comp needs a 32bit OS, so that's whats installed. I'd imagine that for my editing machine 64bit would be best for future-proofing software-wise when it allows for 64bit expansion. If it isn't already available currently(IDK if it is)

-Dan

I agree with whoever said that you need lots of RAM, and 32bit Windows has a RAM limit, if I remember correctly.

My copy of Win 7 came with both 64 bit and 32 bit CDs, so you can install 32-bit now and "upgrade" to 64 bit for free when the time comes. OEM copies do NOT come that way, however.

You could also probably do a dual boot.

BUT, there is an easier solution to 32-bit scanner drivers, depending on your scanner. Vuescan from Hamrick comes with 64bit drivers for thousands of scanners. And the beauty of it is that once it's installed you don't have to use it; you can use just about any scanning software, and it will work like magic. Vuescan is also a very small, clean install.

For example, I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000, and as everyone is painfully aware Nikon does not make 64 bit drivers for their scanners. So with Vuescan installed, and I can use either Vuescan or Nikon Scan; they both work beautifully.

Btw, buying a PC over a Mac Pro has the nice advantage of leaving some money in your pocket for more interesting things, like film, cameras, photography trips and food.

[Rider]

On re-reading your question, another easy solution is to have a cheap computer for scanning and a fancy Win 7 64bit machine for editing. Unless Vuescan makes drivers for drum scanners.

[buggz]

Here is another good source of information on PS performance:
http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/20...rformance.html
This site allows you to save this as a handy .pdf file also.

[John Rodriguez]

Have you considered the "guide flow workflow":
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/...guidefile.html

Might make a lot of sense and save you a lot of money/time.

I second the guide file approach. One big advantage of the smaller file sizes is it allows you to make much more use of Smart Objects, something that will choke any computer no matter how much horsepower if working with full size scans.

[Preston]

One thing to keep in mind regarding the Guide File Workflow is that you can't use 'pixel altering' layers such as cloning or burn/dodge. These types of layers won't resize properly when you create the targeted file. This point is made in the tutorial.

If you use only adjustment layers or smart objects, you'll be fine.

Regarding Vuescan (slightly OT): I use it with Win 7-64 bit and my Microtek 1800f. It works wonderfully, and once you get into the swing of things with it, you'll be amazed at how easy it is to get great scans. Vuescan also has the capability to easily create a profile from an IT-8 target. This will make a huge difference in the quality of the scan.

--P

[John Rodriguez]

Just to be clear - with the Guide File Approach you don't want to change the underlying pixels, you use adjustment layers. You can still dodge and burn, just use adjustment layers to do so (better anyways). The only caveat is do your spot cleaning before you reduce the file (you should be spot cleaning first no matter what your workflow). One great thing is color space changes are fine using Smart Objects.

[Daniel Moore]

Data transfer rates are the bottleneck, as usual with large images. I'd focus on that. Despite the inherent risk I'm still an advocate of RAID 0 to handle this issue. RAID 0+1 is safer still. I prefer onboard RAID over a dedicated card to handle it for smaller arrays.

There are a couple ways you could go about it. SSD's or HDD's. Given disk drive prices are still extortionate I would lean towards a pair of >450Mbps 64GB SSD's in RAID 0 for working on your files and a larger HDD for storing them. That's a temporary configuration until drive prices come down again, being twice what they were pre-flooding of several mfgrs factories. This is riskier if you buy the cheaper SSD's and gets less so if you buy Intel (which are typically slower than other brands). If stability trumps higher speed go Intel, the reviews will bear this out. Personally I don't mind living on the edge and go with speed (and ironically lower price) and do sometimes have to deal with hardware stability issues. Backups take the sting out of it for me. A pair of super fast SSD's is really asking for trouble but it's speed the likes of which you have to see to believe. Not much space at all, but after scanning and working on the file park it on a larger capacity HDD. I use Microsoft's SyncToy to backup with a couple clicks.

Anandtech has a good guide to start with. Their build pushes 2 grand and a lot of it can be knocked down to your budget. Starting with the processor, you don't need to spend 600.00! The 32nm, 325.00 i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz is an obvious excellent choice instead. The recommended Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 has quad channel memory and 32GB capacity, a great choice. You can easily get by with a Coolermaster Hyper 212 cooler instead of water.

Have fun!