Which hardware for photo editing ?

[sanchi heuser]

Which computer, monitor and software would you recommend
for photowork, especially editing files from 4x5 photos?

I'm a bit new in this field, made first experiences with
photoshop elements on my acer aspire one...
Now after some weeks it's sucks a little bit that I don't know
how the photo really looks
Forgot: spotting the dust is a real pleasure with that tiny monitor:D

Andi

[photobymike]

I bought a 7 years old PPC Quad MAC 2.5 for 500 bucks on ebay.... Its faster than any PC i have ever used. I added some memory and it really smokes with photoshop CS4. I open CS4 when the computer starts and editing and photo work is instantaneous. Even my sons Mac Mini is faster than my Sony I5 intel and he even runs windows programs on it.

[Lenny Eiger]

Which computer, monitor and software would you recommend for photowork, especially editing files from 4x5 photos?
Andi

Either a Mac or a PC. Lots of RAM, lots of Hard Drive. This kind of question is an invitation to a flame war.

Lenny

[sanchi heuser]

Either a Mac or a PC. Lots of RAM, lots of Hard Drive. This kind of question is an invitation to a flame war.

Lenny

Mac or PC, OK!
But which one?

[Henry Ambrose]

I'd get an new iMac with a big hard drive, add a bunch of RAM and go!

[mdm]

A computer is a comodity. Go for the cheapest option from an online seller.

[Mike Anderson]

I think the first decision to make is Mac vs. Windows. I would summarize the issue by saying Macs are easier to use (but if you're already familiar with Windows you'll have to relearn a little bit and maybe buy new software) but Windows machines are less expensive with more options.

This is close to a religious discussion, so we must be careful here. :)

...Mike

[Preston]

Sanchi, I don't know if they ship internationally, but you might want to check out Puget Sytems (http://www.pugetsystems.com/). They have several levels of PC's and very responsive customer service.

Monitor: NEC MultiSync-P Series. I have a 22" and love it.

--P

[sanchi heuser]

I'm not very familiar with windows.
I got my acer some months ago, did internet communication and a little photoshop
work and nothing else. Before that I never had a computer,
went to the internet café:)
I suppose beginning with a mac would not make such big difference for me, or ?

Another question: Is the monitor of the Imac suitable for calibration ?

[Darin Boville]

>>Is the monitor of the Imac suitable<<

New iMacs should be out soon, if you can wait a month or so.

--Darin

[Larry Gebhardt]

I'm not a huge fan of the all in one design of the iMacs, hence I use a Mac Pro. For editing large format scans the most important factor will be the amount of RAM you have. So get a system that can be expanded past 8GB. I have 24 now and it feels like enough, even with several large scans open. With 8GB I was frequently shutting things down, or closing images in an attempt to manage memory. I have better things to do with my time than managing memory.

Mac or Windows really doesn't matter once you are in Photoshop. But frequently Windows machines are made with lesser components to keep the price down, so be sure you really know what you are buying. With like hardware Apple is still a bit more expensive, but nothing like it sometimes seems when you compare a bargain windows machine to Mac.

[Ron McElroy]

I might add that Photoshop likes having a seperate harddrive for its scratch disc.

[John NYC]

I'm not a huge fan of the all in one design of the iMacs, hence I use a Mac Pro.

Just a note to the original poster if they decide to go Mac Pro instead of iMac (if they go Mac)... Photoshop is really awful at taking advantage of the multiple cores that give the Pro a lot of its typical speed advantage. So, an iMac can perform really well in comparison on PS tasks.

For myself, I am going to wait for six weeks until the new iMacs come out and get a completely loaded one. Currently, I make do on a 4 year old 13 inch iBook Mac, with 4 gigs of RAM. And I edit 8x10 scans done at 1600 dpi with this! It's doable, but not fun.

John

[Mark Sawyer]

Mac or Windows really doesn't matter once you are in Photoshop. But frequently Windows machines are made with lesser components to keep the price down, so be sure you really know what you are buying. With like hardware Apple is still a bit more expensive, but nothing like it sometimes seems when you compare a bargain windows machine to Mac.

I'd agree with this; I have a nice PC at home and an iMac A1224 at school. Not "pro" stuff, just good newer $1000-1200 range machines. I go back-and-forth constantly, and they run CS3 and CS5 pretty equivalently. (Both are pretty fast, but the biggest files I work on are 8x10's at 600 dpi.)


Forgot: spotting the dust is a real pleasure with that tiny monitor :D


I don't know if you're considering a new scanner, but if you are, find one that will let you clean both sides of the scanner bed glass! That light bar seems to generate static electricity, and dust clings to the undersider of the glass. (I got a great deal on an Epson 1640XL just because the glass was dirty and no one could figure out how to clean it!)

And BTW, I have yet to find a wireless mouse that works as smoothly as a hard-wired mouse. (Anybody know of one?)

[Mike Anderson]

...
And BTW, I have yet to find a wireless mouse that works as smoothly as a hard-wired mouse. (Anybody know of one?)

I have an older version of this logitech mouse (http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice-pointers/mice/devices/5845?WT.ac=psE|6135||Image).

I think it's as smooth as the wired Mac mouse that came with my computer. I certainly prefer it to the 2007 era Mac mouse. It's bigger and feels more solid and I really like the scroll wheel - I can just flick it and it will keep spinning to zing to the top or bottom of a document.

...Mike

[Frank Petronio]

You really need to tell us your budget, expectations, and the file sizes you anticipate using?

You can do fine work with an older, less expensive computer if your files are moderately sized. But if you listen to some of these guys you may feel like you must spend a fortune on the best of everything. While you are welcome to do that, it's a shame to waste too much money on one aspect of photography and not having enough to buy film, travel, etc.

In terms of productivity, the best places to apply upgrades is to buy additional RAM, then an extra hard drive for backing up, then a larger monitor so you scroll less. for instance you may want to spend 60% of your budget on the computer, then 40% on the upgrades - RAM, hard drive, monitor in that order.

[John NYC]

In terms of productivity, the best places to apply upgrades is to buy additional RAM, then an extra hard drive for backing up, then a larger monitor so you scroll less. for instance you may want to spend 60% of your budget on the computer, then 40% on the upgrades - RAM, hard drive, monitor in that order.

+1. Exactly right.

I went from 2GB in my little MacBook to 4GB and suddenly I could handle 350MB scans where before I couldn't. When your computer has to swap to disk space because of lack of RAM, no amount of fast hard drive or CPU is going to make up for that.

[gnuyork]

Just a note to the original poster if they decide to go Mac Pro instead of iMac (if they go Mac)... Photoshop is really awful at taking advantage of the multiple cores that give the Pro a lot of its typical speed advantage.

John

I have read that the 6 core 3.33Ghz is better for photoshop than the 12 core models because photoshop does not take advantage of multiple cores... For now.

I went with the 12 core because I needed the machine for Video work and After Effects which does take advantage of multiple cores, but if I was going to use it for Photoshop only I would have went with the 6 cores.

I am guessing photoshop will be able to take advantage sometime in the future.

I am of course seeing a HUGE performance difference from my Macbook pro that's about 4 years old. My LF scans open in seconds and most of any of the adjustments I make take seconds. I can do things to an image in 5 minutes that may have taken a half hour to an hour on my laptop.

For now I think the best Mac machine you could get for photoshop would be the 6 core 3.33 and more RAM (at least 24 Gigs). I just got the NEC 27' SpectraView monitor and so far it's great, but the world of color calibration is all new to me so I am still learning.

This is of course is all dependent on your budget... If I were not using this machine professionally I would NEVER spend this kind of money on a computer. Luckily it can pull double duty with my photography hobby.

[sanchi heuser]

I had worked on files with around 250 - 300 MB on my acer
while using photoshop elements and had no problems.
The loading needed some seconds but that's not so important for me.
Mostly I work on only one file, then go to another file.

The exact model is: aspire one KAV10
I tried to find exact specifications but found only ads (buy this-buy that :rolleyes: )

The only issue was the size of the monitor and I assume that
it don't reproduce the true colors of the file.
If I could use a bigger monitor that can be calibrated
together with the acer I would be happy.
Could that be an option?

Of course it's true what Frank says "not wasting too much money on it"
My expectation is just to see the picture on the monitor
in it's real colors. The working speed of the acer is very OK,
I don't need more speed and I don't need to work on a dozen files at
the same time.

[rdenney]

The exact model is: aspire one KAV10
I tried to find exact specifications but found only ads (buy this-buy that :rolleyes: )

The only issue was the size of the monitor and I assume that
it don't reproduce the true colors of the file.
If I could use a bigger monitor that can be calibrated
together with the acer I would be happy.
Could that be an option?

I have an Aspire One (first generation) that I use as a digital wallet when traveling. It includes quite a slow Intel Atom processor intended for small form factors and low power consumption. With 1G of ram, the Aspire One will not handle large image files very well. But you can always put a second monitor on it as a dual-monitor display. The calibration tools should be able to calibrate that monitor, though doing so may make your primary monitor on the laptop look a bit strange.

I find the performance of my Aspire One to be similar to my very old Athlon-based desktop computer, which I first bought nearly 10 years ago. My 3-year-old laptop runs circles around both.

I think you would find that any decent new Windows desktop computer, even from the low-price end of the range, would provide enough of a performance improvement to be worth it to upgrade, especially if you pile memory into it. You'll end up putting a video card in it that will support dual monitors, and you'll need a large hard disk to store image files. 4 Gigs of ram will make a world of difference, even when working with one file at a time.

Rick "the great is the enemy of the good" Denney

[Jehu]

Without considering price, Mac... hands down.

For about $700, you could build up a PC that will perform better than just about any single processor Mac I've ever used. I have CS4 on an Intel iMac. When I bought CS5, I went with the PC version and I'm running it on a 3 year old PC that I built for about $900 with both monitors. It's a bit glitchy at times but it performs well overall.

Nobody addressed the issue of the monitor. I was told by a professional in the field that CRTs are still the standard for accurate editing. It's the first time I've heard that but it makes sense. Every time that I calibrate my LCD monitor it ends up very dark.

[paulr]

I got by with very old Mac hardware for years. I was working on 500MB photoshop files on an imac g3, if you can believe it. 1gb memory, 13gb hard drive and an external firewire drive. I'd hit GO and then make a sandwich and come back to see how the file looks. Not ideal, but never once crashed. The crappy built-in monitor was the actually the most serious limitation.

So you can slum with just about anything, at least on the mac side. But if you can afford better you'll be happier.

I recently upgraded to a 3 year old mac pro from a 9 year old g4. The difference is staggering. The machine is so good that I can wholeheartedly recommend getting a slightly used mac pro over a new one for anything but the most time-critical work. The hundreds of dollars you save can go to a good monitor, lots of ram, big hard drives, and a serious backup strategy.

All these added elements are easier with a mac pro than with an imac. You have basically unlimited memory capacity, room for five internal hard drives, unlimited external expansion (through esata cards, etc.). The beautiful ease of upgrading and replacing hard drives makes the machine especially comforting.

I find that photoshop cs5 makes very good use of multiple cores for most operations. There are a few operations that are perversely single threaded (saving and opening .PSD files, which entail extensive compression/decompression, all falls on a single core ... so this is processor limited rather than disk limited). But most operations, like resizing, rotating, unsharp masking, etc, use my 8 cores fairly efficiently.

Benchmarks I've seen show that currently, the 6-core mac at the highest possible clock speed, is the best photoshop performer. Lots of cores are nice if you multitask like a short-attention-span teenager, as I do. I run photoshop in the foreground while big indesign files are open, along two dozen browser tabs, itunes playing, and a feature film ripping or transcoding in the background. The OS does a great job of using the cores to keep you from feeling any slowdown.

There's very little difference between a mac and a pc once you're in photoshop, but I think the industrial design of the mac hardware is worth a couple of hundred bucks easy, and the elegance of OS is worth many hundreds of bucks. Windows makes me hate the world.

As far as monitors go, the best CRTs are fantastic, but are a dying breed (literally ... they haven't been made in years, and they have limited lifespans). The best LCDs are actually better than the best CRTs now, but are very, very expensive. I'm not sure where the price / performance sweet spot is right now. I'll have to find out when my current CRT dies.