Laptop for professional photography?

SingItOut

Hi all, for the last two years I have been getting more work professionally and I really need advice on which Laptop would be a better choice for editing images but also have a large enough memory to run photoshop. I never wanted to use photoshop but there's only so much Picasa can do for the work I get. My own laptop, sony vaoi, is pretty much on its last legs so I'll need something ASAP after Christmas

sumo12

Forget laptop, you won't get one powerful enough or a screen big enough. I dicked around editing photos in LR on a laptop and finally bit the bullet and bought a 27inch imac this year. Upspecced (is that a word?) as much as I could afford and yes it was eye-wateringly expensive but it's worth every penny. Screen is awesome for editing, processing power is phenomenal and I reckon it saves me about 4+ hours in time when editing a set of wedding photos. No regrets.

SingItOut

Thank you for the advice. I was looking at imacs, but I wouldn't have the space for one unfortunately. I don't think I could afford one either, the laptop is to get me through until I can afford a bigger system and house

sumo12

Make the space!! Don't forget there is no box, no wires, no clutter. Just a big telly and a wireless mouse and keyboard.... Go on, treat yourself, you know you want one...

SingItOut

Of course I want one!!! Maybe I'll find a spare €1000 lying around haha

CabanSail

I use a MacBook with a 13" screen to do all my editing. It runs Photoshop CC quite well, even though it's a few years old now.

having a couple of 1TB USB drives gives me the memory. Setting up Actions & Droplets means I am not there when it's processing my shots.

sumo12

SingItOut wrote: »

Of course I want one!!! Maybe I'll find a spare €1000 lying around haha

€1000? For the deposit is it?

Pound for pound (or € for €) when I priced the equivalent spec and screen on a windows machine, there was little or no difference in that and the mac. From then on it was a no-brainer for me. Yes you can do it on a laptop, but that is ALL you can do - try and batch off a set of photos while continuing to edit - freeze, have an internet browser open while editing photos - freeze.

sheesh

op how much did you pay for your camera and 1 of your lenses? a couple of grand? you could get a pretty high speced PC or mac for that

Dells Alienware laptops start at €1400 they are made for gaming so fast and good graphics
But as the other poster said when you get up to the higher speced machines there is not much of a price difference between mac and pc.

the only advantage of a pc is that if you got a desktop you could install an SSD drive to run your applications from (big difference in Speed) and have a large HD to store your files. A gaming friend of mine has done that for his stuff.

M5

I have a Asus Taichi for photo processing on the go. Still use my PC for final edits though.

Most laptops wont have 100% Adobe RGB coverage so sometimes your prints might not look exactly like you see on screen

SingItOut

Yeah I only have my brand new camera a year next month, it and 3 lenses plus flash gun cost a bomb! But after thinking about all your responses and advice I'm going to go with getting an iMac. It's going to take a while to save up but it's something I'll need for a long time so it will be a good investment

sebphoto

SingItOut wrote: »

Yeah I only have my brand new camera a year next month, it and 3 lenses plus flash gun cost a bomb! But after thinking about all your responses and advice I'm going to go with getting an iMac. It's going to take a while to save up but it's something I'll need for a long time so it will be a good investment

Take into consideration Thinkpad W series.
Also consider high spec PC + nice monitor (e.g. EIZO SX2262W or SX2462W or NEC PA241W or PA242W or EIZO CX240).
If you're very serious about photography then consider other options than iMac.

Gehad_JoyRider

sebphoto wrote: »

Take into consideration Thinkpad W series.
Also consider high spec PC + nice monitor (e.g. EIZO SX2262W or SX2462W or NEC PA241W or PA242W or EIZO CX240).
If you're very serious about photography then consider other options than iMac.

I mac screens are crap, Id recomend getting a mini mac and a really good screen there more then capable of getting the work done. ex dell ultrasharp.

Im currently editing, 3000 pictures on a 13inch mac book pro with an external monitor eizo color-balance cg246 and its fine. I am upgrading to a 15 inch mac book pro. Id love a mac pro but I cant afford one and my work generally has me travelling around the macbook pro screens are ok once you calibrate them but being honest they are not a patch on the eizo which is worth every penny

dinneenp

If you're getting a lot of work professionally can you not buy the computer for your business as an expense?

lordRothery

sumo12 wrote: »

€1000? For the deposit is it?

Pound for pound (or € for €) when I priced the equivalent spec and screen on a windows machine, there was little or no difference in that and the mac. From then on it was a no-brainer for me. Yes you can do it on a laptop, but that is ALL you can do - try and batch off a set of photos while continuing to edit - freeze, have an internet browser open while editing photos - freeze.

I've just done a similar comparison and seems you are right , have Apple changed their pricing ? they used to be way more expensive then an equivalent PC ..

Wabbit Ears

Ive been researching this a lot and there is loads of info on great monitors to buy but the imac is NOT a great option as its got a really reflective screen. A dell ultrasharp or asus proart is far better value and, so long as your laptop has a decent processor and graphics, it can be used with that via hdmi.