Photo pc what is realy needed ?
Discussion
Hi
I hoping that you can point me in the right direction. My ageing dell somthing or other freebie finaly gone phutt. The use of the replacement will be roughly the same web browsing (PH of course) ,kids homework ,the wifes urgh umm what ever and photo editing for me.Clearly I'm no photo or computer expert but would like to try photo shop . So what do I need to get me going with out breaking the bank.
Any advice would be greatly appriecated.
Cheers Andy
Edited to add camera is a canon 500d no idea if this matters or not thanks again .
I hoping that you can point me in the right direction. My ageing dell somthing or other freebie finaly gone phutt. The use of the replacement will be roughly the same web browsing (PH of course) ,kids homework ,the wifes urgh umm what ever and photo editing for me.Clearly I'm no photo or computer expert but would like to try photo shop . So what do I need to get me going with out breaking the bank.
Any advice would be greatly appriecated.
Cheers Andy
Edited to add camera is a canon 500d no idea if this matters or not thanks again .
Edited by SWT on Tuesday 20th July 14:10
Hi
I hoping that you can point me in the right direction. My ageing dell somthing or other freebie finaly gone phutt. The use of the replacement will be roughly the same web browsing (PH of course) ,kids homework ,the wifes urgh umm what ever and photo editing for me.Clearly I'm no photo or computer expert but would like to try photo shop . So what do I need to get me going with out breaking the bank.
Any advice would be greatly appriecated.
Cheers Andy
Edited to add camera is a canon 500d no idea if this matters or not thanks again .
I hoping that you can point me in the right direction. My ageing dell somthing or other freebie finaly gone phutt. The use of the replacement will be roughly the same web browsing (PH of course) ,kids homework ,the wifes urgh umm what ever and photo editing for me.Clearly I'm no photo or computer expert but would like to try photo shop . So what do I need to get me going with out breaking the bank.
Any advice would be greatly appriecated.
Cheers Andy
Edited to add camera is a canon 500d no idea if this matters or not thanks again .
Edited by SWT on Tuesday 20th July 14:10
Have you thought about Lightroom? It's a bit like photoshop but simpler and I would imagine therefore doesn't need as much processing power. A lot on here have it and love it. Couldn't get on with it myself, just seemed a bit odd.
Anyway, computer wise if you want Photoshop then you need at least 2GB of RAM but 4GB would be much better. Processor wise pretty much any of the current crop will run PS happily. Hard drive look for a 1TB drive and consider a second one as a backup so if something goes wrong you don't lose anything.
How much money are you looking at spending? Do you need a new monitor as well?
Anyway, computer wise if you want Photoshop then you need at least 2GB of RAM but 4GB would be much better. Processor wise pretty much any of the current crop will run PS happily. Hard drive look for a 1TB drive and consider a second one as a backup so if something goes wrong you don't lose anything.
How much money are you looking at spending? Do you need a new monitor as well?
Dual core and 4GB RAM to give yourself processing power and space to work in. Video card to suit your monitor and then some, go for a 1920*1200 monitor if possible as they tend to be better than the 1080 versions.
They key is storage capacity. Get a machine with plenty of drive bays and a medium size primary hards drive. Just use this to put the operating systema dn program files on. The second HDD is where you put your pictures, 1TB as a minimum. The advantage here is that you will gett faster access to loding images and have easier backups. 3rd HDD is the backup drive which can be external or hot swappable, 1TB but it does not need to be as fast.
They key is storage capacity. Get a machine with plenty of drive bays and a medium size primary hards drive. Just use this to put the operating systema dn program files on. The second HDD is where you put your pictures, 1TB as a minimum. The advantage here is that you will gett faster access to loding images and have easier backups. 3rd HDD is the backup drive which can be external or hot swappable, 1TB but it does not need to be as fast.
I'm in the market for one too. Started with a £600 ish budget. By the time I got into looking at one, Ive been semi-convinced by a few knowledgeable bods in the local Currys/Comet that Mac is the way to go. I notice the new iMacs are IPS panel monitors, which seem to be about £300 for the cheapest of a similar 21" size.
Without going down the Mac vs PC argument, is a Mac the answer for photo editing? Would I still need to use a calibration tool on the IPS panel?
Without going down the Mac vs PC argument, is a Mac the answer for photo editing? Would I still need to use a calibration tool on the IPS panel?
Photoshop and Lightroom together will chew memory, depending on which release you end up with there's the possibility of memory leaks....so as much of memory as is reasonable.
Hard drives - wouldnt bother with anything local, so whatever size suits the family for anything else. Pair of 1TB external (network) drives should be a couple of hundred quid.
Monitor - HPLP2475W
Processor - quad core
Or just get a Mac and some drives (and I say that as a Windows fan)
Hard drives - wouldnt bother with anything local, so whatever size suits the family for anything else. Pair of 1TB external (network) drives should be a couple of hundred quid.
Monitor - HPLP2475W
Processor - quad core
Or just get a Mac and some drives (and I say that as a Windows fan)
All graphics software loves processing power and lots of ram 
A lot of the bottleneck with dealing with photo processing and editing actually seems to be 'I/O bound'. That is the process of loading your photos of your hard drive becomes a bottleneck.
So a fast hard drive would definitely be on my shopping list
(Ideally I'd put a couple of hard drives in a 'raid array' to get more performance. I'm keeping an eye on the SSD (solid state drive) options as well, though its probably a bit early to make the jump as they are still pretty expensive. They are however, scary fast
)
That said, if you prefer to work in OSX on a Mac then go for it - its a great system (that's coming from a PC user)
Personal note - only thing that has ever put me off buying an Apple machine is the lack of a marketplace for the hardware - and the cost. I'd jump to OSX without much worring
(Ok, slightly close to the Mac vs. PC argument
)
IPS panels also need calibration tools
Cheers.
A lot of the bottleneck with dealing with photo processing and editing actually seems to be 'I/O bound'. That is the process of loading your photos of your hard drive becomes a bottleneck.
So a fast hard drive would definitely be on my shopping list
(Ideally I'd put a couple of hard drives in a 'raid array' to get more performance. I'm keeping an eye on the SSD (solid state drive) options as well, though its probably a bit early to make the jump as they are still pretty expensive. They are however, scary fast
)Rob13 said:
Without going down the Mac vs PC argument, is a Mac the answer for photo editing? Would I still need to use a calibration tool on the IPS panel?
Unless you really need software that is only available on for a Mac (Aperture, Final Cut, etc.) then I don't see any specific reason to presume that Mac is the 'best' route.That said, if you prefer to work in OSX on a Mac then go for it - its a great system (that's coming from a PC user
)Personal note - only thing that has ever put me off buying an Apple machine is the lack of a marketplace for the hardware - and the cost. I'd jump to OSX without much worring
(Ok, slightly close to the Mac vs. PC argument
)IPS panels also need calibration tools
Cheers.
Edited by flat-planedCrank on Tuesday 20th July 21:43
I can reccomend the Intel i7 range of processors, i have an intel i7 920 in my home PC and it handles what i need it to do pretty well(Photoshop,3D Software,Games) for a pretty low cost. Although photoshop runs pretty well on the Dual Quad Core Xeon system i use at work, that came with a pretty hefty price tag though.
I wouldnt worry to much about a high end graphics card for what you will be using it for, as said before speed of the Hard drive(s) will affect performance as well. I would love a solid state set up, really cant justify the price at the moment.
Id go with at least 6GB of RAM nowadays, and use the x64 version of photoshop
.
I wouldnt worry to much about a high end graphics card for what you will be using it for, as said before speed of the Hard drive(s) will affect performance as well. I would love a solid state set up, really cant justify the price at the moment.
Id go with at least 6GB of RAM nowadays, and use the x64 version of photoshop
.Edited by ...Mole... on Tuesday 20th July 22:44
Alternatively if you want to avoid costs about the size of the national debt ...
What do you mean by 'Photoshop'?
Must it be 'Photoshop' in one of its guises or do you really mean you want to try editing a few snaps when the family allows you access to the mechine? PS is an expensive solution for part time usability and there are other similar (and even dissimilar) products that will provide excellent photo preparation facilities, often at a fraction of the cost - unless you can swing an educational discount. Some of those are free.
Not all of them currently make use of the potential benefits of multi-core and/or 64 bit systems and those written in Java won't need 8Gb of memory since old style Java only allows them to address 1.5Gb anyway.
So, for the same sort of money (or less) you could get the family something like a regular spec notebook to keep them happy and get yourself a second user hi-end server - at this stage something like a 3Mhz or more Pentium 4 would work rather well for many applications. Add soem memory if required (probably will be required) and a large internal disk (ex corporate systems of a certain age tend not to have large primary drives) and a 'better than motherboard' spec graphics card, install Windows 7 and you should be in good shape subject to having (or buying) a half decent monitor.
A 1Tb internal drive should be around £50-60 or less now - it's clearly re-allocatable so think of it as an extra rather than part of the system. Server, memory upgrade (choosing carefully) and graphics card should be around £200-£250.
So lets say 400 for a notebook, 300 for your photo editor server and then maybe up to £300 more for a decent monitor (much more for the really good stuff) that you may need anyway. About the same as you would pay for a higher spec single machine as proposed above. maybe less. Plus twice the 'screen' time available within the family.
If you, perhaps, seek a notebook with a decent screen (not sure whats best with all the new tech but in the old days a Dell WUXGA was about as good as it got) you will probably be over £1000 anyway.
How much you add for software is up to you - but of course that is a re0usable resource if you decide you like to play with pictures and go for an upgrade a little way down the road. The total write off loss would be about £200 if you can the used server after a few months and scrap rather than sell on - unless you keep it available as a batch processing device of coourse, which is the backstop part of my plan. Why do I have a backstop plan? Well, my favourite editor is just going through a re-write at the moment, as is another primary business application and both will be able to take full advantage of new OS and hardware when released but I needed some additional power now, purely for photo work as things stand. The low cost approach has worked as well as I had hoped and improved the flexibility of how I operate without costing a fortune. Next year my money should buy more performance (if I decide I need it) that it would have done this year - an in any case I would not be in a position to use the performance with the current software.
I thought you might like to consider a slightly different view taking into account your 'without breaking the bank' comment. Of course I guess that depends on which bank you are thinking of.
What do you mean by 'Photoshop'?
Must it be 'Photoshop' in one of its guises or do you really mean you want to try editing a few snaps when the family allows you access to the mechine? PS is an expensive solution for part time usability and there are other similar (and even dissimilar) products that will provide excellent photo preparation facilities, often at a fraction of the cost - unless you can swing an educational discount. Some of those are free.
Not all of them currently make use of the potential benefits of multi-core and/or 64 bit systems and those written in Java won't need 8Gb of memory since old style Java only allows them to address 1.5Gb anyway.
So, for the same sort of money (or less) you could get the family something like a regular spec notebook to keep them happy and get yourself a second user hi-end server - at this stage something like a 3Mhz or more Pentium 4 would work rather well for many applications. Add soem memory if required (probably will be required) and a large internal disk (ex corporate systems of a certain age tend not to have large primary drives) and a 'better than motherboard' spec graphics card, install Windows 7 and you should be in good shape subject to having (or buying) a half decent monitor.
A 1Tb internal drive should be around £50-60 or less now - it's clearly re-allocatable so think of it as an extra rather than part of the system. Server, memory upgrade (choosing carefully) and graphics card should be around £200-£250.
So lets say 400 for a notebook, 300 for your photo editor server and then maybe up to £300 more for a decent monitor (much more for the really good stuff) that you may need anyway. About the same as you would pay for a higher spec single machine as proposed above. maybe less. Plus twice the 'screen' time available within the family.
If you, perhaps, seek a notebook with a decent screen (not sure whats best with all the new tech but in the old days a Dell WUXGA was about as good as it got) you will probably be over £1000 anyway.
How much you add for software is up to you - but of course that is a re0usable resource if you decide you like to play with pictures and go for an upgrade a little way down the road. The total write off loss would be about £200 if you can the used server after a few months and scrap rather than sell on - unless you keep it available as a batch processing device of coourse, which is the backstop part of my plan. Why do I have a backstop plan? Well, my favourite editor is just going through a re-write at the moment, as is another primary business application and both will be able to take full advantage of new OS and hardware when released but I needed some additional power now, purely for photo work as things stand. The low cost approach has worked as well as I had hoped and improved the flexibility of how I operate without costing a fortune. Next year my money should buy more performance (if I decide I need it) that it would have done this year - an in any case I would not be in a position to use the performance with the current software.
I thought you might like to consider a slightly different view taking into account your 'without breaking the bank' comment. Of course I guess that depends on which bank you are thinking of.
I'm looking medium to long term, to be able to take photos to a standard where I could exhibit them in a local gallery or be considered for taking photos at functions. I know the basics need to be considered (composition etc) but having the right tools for the job makes the job a lot easier (and quicker)
I think a dedicated graphics card processors wil come into more general app use as time goes on, there very quick at doing specific tasks.
High up on the list if your that keen realy has to be an 8 bit IPS(like) calibrated Monitor.
Everything else will just take mroe time with a slower PC, you need to get it right you need a right monitor.
High up on the list if your that keen realy has to be an 8 bit IPS(like) calibrated Monitor.
Everything else will just take mroe time with a slower PC, you need to get it right you need a right monitor.
RobDickinson said:
I think a dedicated graphics card processors wil come into more general app use as time goes on, there very quick at doing specific tasks.
High up on the list if your that keen realy has to be an 8 bit IPS(like) calibrated Monitor.
Everything else will just take mroe time with a slower PC, you need to get it right you need a right monitor.
There are a few apps that are starting to leverage the GPUs, but its slow in coming.High up on the list if your that keen realy has to be an 8 bit IPS(like) calibrated Monitor.
Everything else will just take mroe time with a slower PC, you need to get it right you need a right monitor.
Badaboom does a reasonable job of taking AVCHD Lite files and converting them to regular MP4 so they can be played back on the PSP/iPod. Even on my lowly ION netbook it can convert videos at 25+ FPS (a little faster if you overclock the GPU).
Latest versions of the NVidia drivers are apparently able to accelerate some CS5 processing.
I'm currently tying some Blurb book production on my netbook - N270, NVidia ION, but the main problem is only having 1gig. Running blurb on it with a 40 page book open, basically 100% of physical memory was in use. Time to invest in £40 on 2 gig of DDR3.
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