editing rig questions.

[Twix]

I'm not made of money but I'm looking to get an Apple MacBook pro to edit my photos. I looked at Lightroom 5 and it says it only requires 2gb of ram.

I guess my question is, would a 13.3" with 8gb of ram, 256gb hdd and the 2.4ghz i5 processor do well for the job? Or should I save a bit more and get a loaded out rig?

[M_Six]

That'll work fine. Photo editing isn't as much about RAM as it is about the graphics card. The MBP is ok in that respect. I was rendering a large 3D object in Photoshop this week on a Mac with 16GB RAM and it never exceeded 6GB of RAM use, so 8GB should be plenty. The one thing you need to be aware of is that screen, especially if it's a Retina. Your images will look way better in LR5 on your laptop than they will online. I see that all the time with mine. Same with printing 8x10 or larger. The Retina will show your images with extreme detail that you'll lose when moving them to a lesser device.

Having said all that, RAM comes in handy if you multi-task. If you can swing a jump to 16GB RAM, go for it. The Retina equipped models can't be upgraded, so what you buy is what you're stuck with. Go big if you can afford it.

[Twix]

Going to see if the Apple store has a rig with 16. It's only $200 more

[druu]

if for just LR5 you're not going to need a super crazy rig, PS can get more intense.

I built myself an editting rig with just an SSD 8GB of ram and a half decent video card at the time. Didn't cost me a ton and it is very snappy.

[kgolles]

Originally Posted by Twix

Going to see if the Apple store has a rig with 16. It's only $200 more

Just a heads up. Anything with above 8gb (i.e. 16gb) of memory will require custom configure order online.

Also the 256gb is SSD, much more responsive than older HDD storage.

8GB of memory is definitely the minimum I would go if you plan on running memory intensive programs like PS or Lightroom. Just like M Six said, once you start multitasking that 8gb or greater really comes in handy keeping things running efficiently. FWIW, I'm unfortunately still running PS and Lightroom on the previous gen MBP w/ 4gb of memory. I want to throw it on the ground every time I have to edit. I'm a big multitasker, so I run things like iTunes, Safari, iMessage, iPhoto, etc. while I edit and it's a horrible experience. Can't wait to drop $$ on an 27" iMac w/ 16 gigs of memory w/ solid state drive. Just running Lightroom by itself is totally fine on 4gb, but that never happens.

[Itsed65]

Also keep in mind you will need external storage if you save a lot of RAW images. The 256gb drive is super fast, but not super big. So far this year, my LR5 Folder is 292GB

[happos2]

I have a 2009 model at 2.26 GHz and upgraded my ram (maxed out at 8 gig) and switched to a solid state drive and have absolutely no problems with LR5.

[Twix]

I'm going to order one with 16gb while I'm at work next week, hopefully it'll be here at home by the time I return from work. I do plan on getting an external drive once I get more used to the computer. I also don't have very many pictures right now, I need to get out there and shoot stuff.

I need portability, I always have my desktop with way more power than most extreme gamers will ever need.

Thanks for the input guys, knew I could count on y'all

[dcstep]

PS will make more use of the RAM than LR. Also, file size is a huge factor, so if you've got a D800 you'll need it all the more. The 30MB files of my 5D MkIII can be RAM hogs with DxO Optics Pro, if I elect to use DxO's PRIME noise reduction, then my 8GB is maxed out for around 5 to 8-minutes per file.

With my software, the graphics card isn't a huge deal, but, working in the Windows environment, being OpenCL enabled is big with DxO and some other softwares. Is OpenCL used with Apple's OS?

Dave

[Twix]

Just bought a 15.4" rMBP with the dual video cards and 512gb storage for $2449CDN. I think it was a pretty good deal

Now that I have a rig, what are some places I should know about to photo share? Something where my photos can be protected against theft etc? And would LR5 be good for a beginner to use for editing?