Lightroom Photoshop laptop.

[MBE2017]

Hopefully someone can help. My daughter is looking for a new laptop, primarily to use with lightroom and photoshop. Having spoken to a couple of guys in shops, I am totally confused by the conflicting advice.

Can anyone recommend a laptop they currently use? Some say 8gb ram, others 16gb, i5 or i7 chips, SSID drives 500gb or 256, but the biggest conflict is the graphics card, some say anything, others say dedicated etc.

Hopefully someone who knows the subject might be of real help, looking to keep this sub £1k or less. Not worried bysize, so 3” upwards, but good screen appreciated.

 

[The Byre]

Daughter is a professional photographer and filmmaker - get a top-of-the-line proper PC (i.e. not a bloody laptop) from Scan. £6k should be enough!

Daughter is an aspiring photographer but then so are they all! - Acer Nitro with 16GB RAM and an i7 CPU and an SSD. She can store stuff on a separate 1 or 2 TB drive. About £1k.

Daughter plays around and is still young - Anything with a 15" screen and 8GB of memory and an i5 CPU. About £400 tops!

 

[MBE2017]

Will lightroom photoshop run ok without a dedicated graphics card? Top staff member told myself today he had no, zero laptops that could run them in the shop, which I was suprised at. Particularly when he is asked all day for laptops to do so.

 

[Mr D]

Have used Photoshop in the past on a pretty basic laptop. Would say generally go for above minimum spec any software needs.
The lightroom controls presumably also have minimum specs?

 

[The Byre]

Wot @Mr D said. I am running Photoshop on a really old laptop with just 8GB of memory that cost £400. I also have whizz-bang servers with umpteen SSDs and the best graphics cards. It's all good!

 

[MBE2017]

Recommended min 8gb ram, but most suggest 16gb. Picking up £1100 laptop, should keep her going for a few years.

 

[Financial-Modeller]

A couple of thoughts, caveated me having almost no knowledge of Photoshop, but:

• I recall being advised that whilst processing speed today is not too relevant a consideration for Excel and Office apps (which I use) it is much more relevant for high-end photo editing and critical for video-editing
• Given the visual nature of the intended purpose, it might be worth attaching greater priority to screen(s) (type, size, resolution) than one might if primarily using for Office apps - perhaps budget for a decent screen or a basic screen on the laptop and a decent external screen on her desk
  
• If your daughter is tending towards photography wouldn't she prefer a Mac to a PC?

 

[alan1302]

• If your daughter is tending towards photography wouldn't she prefer a Mac to a PC?

Why?

 

[gpietersz]

@Financial-Modeller good points, but a few things to add.

Video editing or 3D modelling are much more demanding than photo editing. I think photo editing should be fine on a cheap machine these days. My kids have cheap or low powered machines and the only thing we have had a problem with is 3D modelling (my daughter has a remote login to my desktop for that).

I agree about monitors, well worth the money for a decent monitor. In general, I think people spend far too much on the computer itself and far too little on monitors, keyboards, mice etc. Also look for a more square one than a widescreen. Widescreens are good for watching videos, and sell well because the standard diagonal monitor size measurement makes them look bigger than they are when people compare specs.

A photographer (the one who took the photo I use here) told me that having a second monitor is very useful for photo editing.

It used to be the case that MacOS was preferable for photo editing (and art and publishing generally), as it was the first OS to have colour management - but that was back in the days of real MacOS. These days all OSes seem to have it (I know Linux does, and I am 99% sure Windows does).

Also, for this type of use, make sure you calibrate your monitor. Otherwise its just not going to show colours accurately.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

For Photoshop go as follow. As much ram as possible. Ram is king. The more the better ideally min. 16gb or more. We use 64gb and even this gets used very quickly. Next, high cpu frequency, the higher the better. 4 cores are fine but you want them running at high speeds. 2 cores at 4.5ghz in Photoshop will perform much better than let's say 8 cores at 2.5ghz. Ssd of course with scratch disk min size 500gb. Gpu can be mid range as Photoshop doesn't do much there. Some plugins can take Advantage of better cpus.Your budget of 1k is poor but if thats what you have here are 2 refurb units that fit your budget.

https://www.xsonly.com/collections/...idia-geforce-gtx-1660ti-no-os-90nr0252-m02520

https://www.xsonly.com/collections/...fhd-intel-uhd-graphics-windows-10-pro-3-years

 

[MBE2017]

For Photoshop go as follow. As much ram as possible. Ram is king. The more the better ideally min. 16gb or more. We use 64gb and even this gets used very quickly. Next, high cpu frequency, the higher the better. 4 cores are fine but you want them running at high speeds. 2 cores at 4.5ghz in Photoshop will perform much better than let's say 8 cores at 2.5ghz. Ssd of course with scratch disk min size 500gb. Gpu can be mid range as Photoshop doesn't do much there. Some plugins can take Advantage of better cpus.Your budget of 1k is poor but if thats what you have here are 2 refurb units that fit your budget.

https://www.xsonly.com/collections/...idia-geforce-gtx-1660ti-no-os-90nr0252-m02520

https://www.xsonly.com/collections/...fhd-intel-uhd-graphics-windows-10-pro-3-years

Cheers, picked up an Asus brand new with very similar specs as your refurb unit, but brand new. Have to say, the laptop flies, handling lightroom and photoshop fine, in fact, going to buy one for myself as well.

A mate had a good offer on.

 

[gpietersz]

OP has bought what he needs, but for anyone else, one thing to add to what @Nico Albrecht says. RAM is the easiest thing to expand (typically shutdown, unscrew and open a hinge, on a laptop, pull the old RAM out, push the new RAM in checking its the right way round) so the maximum RAM the machine supports is more important than how much you buy it with.

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

Wot @Mr D said. I am running Photoshop on a really old laptop with just 8GB of memory that cost £400. I also have whizz-bang servers with umpteen SSDs and the best graphics cards. It's all good!

Agree. I have a 6 yr old HP laptop and a 2 year old top of the line bespoke desktop (Chillblast). Both run Photoshop fine, although the laptop puffs/pants when saving. I've used PS in various different forms over the last 15 years on a variety of laptops/desktops (not Mac's) and all have coped fine.

That said, if you're buying new and are looking for a machine specifically for photoediting/graphics, it's worth putting some money into your RAM/processor/gfx card. I would steer away from onboard graphics- nothing wrong with it per se, but a dedicated gfx card will give you a smoother and faster machine.

It's worth checking out Chillblast as above. Like Dell you can tailor the machine to your requirements, but they go one step further and match components that work best together to achieve optimum performance. You can buy off the peg or you can tailor everything from your SSD to your case cooling system.

Dean

 

[MBE2017]

Picked up two Asus laptops, i7, 16GB ram, 500GB ssd. £500 each brand new and very happy with them.

 

[Naheed Mir]

Congratulations on buying the Asus laptop finally.
I hope it will work with lightroom and photoshop.
The performance of these laptops is always good. You can also upgrade its memory, etc., if required.
Is it 3rd generation?