New computer

Ok its time to upgrade the ipad and I thought I would as for the opinion of forum members.
I am looking at Apple and am looking the spend slightly above the minni um I need to.

The most intensive application Would be photo pp, so photoshop and lightroom or some, similar software.

Also I have considered the Mac Mini , recently upgraded
I do have an external monitor.
But also the Mac Air and Mac . Are these machines capable of post processing.

Any help is appreciated.

Regards

I am completely non-technical when it comes to computers and the technical specs are meaningless, other than if the numbers are higher then it must be better, right? So please keep that in mind when reading my comments.

I recently bought a 2017 MacBook Pro and it’s ok for Lightroom but a bit slow, and a slight time lag is annoying when adjusting sliders, but that is all right for me as I mainly use an iMac with added processing which is fine. Same with AutoCad which is my work software. Reviewers say the 2018 version is better so maybe I should have hung on for the Black Friday deals! I don’t know whether the MacBook Air would have the oomph to run Lightroom as quickly as you would like, and I imagine Photoshop would be the same. These are just my general impressions so it would be worth researching a lot more reviews before deciding. As for screen size I ummed and aahed before deciding I might regret getting the 13” so bought the 15” and glad I did as the smaller one would be like keyhole surgery if you get my drift, but if you have a separate monitor then the only issue is processing speed and a Mac would be better I would have thought.

All about ram size in whatever unit you choose. To operate Photoshop you need to have a minimum of 8Gb preferably 16Gb.

RobL and Stub thank you for your replies.

I too am. a technophobe .
I did check the photoshop/lightroom website and they advise 8gb ram so, spot on Stub.

RobL , I too have some concerns about the device running slow.

But the shortlist at the moment is between the macbook air and mac mini .

Regards

If you want really fast efficient PP using Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or Lightroom you do need something like this...

I got a new computer a few months back, a desktop. The SSD has transformed working with Photoshop/LR. On my old computer I would start PS and then go and make a cup of tea waiting for it to load !

Now it takes 5 seconds

Reccomendations:

Quad-core 8 thread processor or better (i5 or Ryzen 2500).
8-16GB RAM (DDR4 2400MHz or better).
A good SSD (Crucial, Intel & Samsung are all pretty good).

The SSD will have the biggest impact of any single component on the overall speed and feel of the machine.

If Apple is what you want because it is what you know then by all means. The downside is that they use slower components at inflated prices because they command a price premium on design and software.

However, you will get a lot more bang for buck with a Windows machine.

The Macbook Air has a very low end and slow processor compared to Windows machines half the price.

I recently got an HP x360 13 with an AMD 2500u which was about £600. That is about 75% faster than the processors in the Macbook Air laptops.

The Mac Mini is much better value for money but still at about a 50% or higher premium than a comparably fast Windows machine.

Small size and pretty design comes at a premium price.

Maybe but you have instant start-up, seamless sharing files and other facilities with other premium devices. My old Windows desktop got so slow I would turn it on then go make a tea whilst it was starting up then loading the interminable updates.

Which is where an SSD comes in. A friend's old HP laptop with a dual core low voltage i5 would take 5 minutes to boot off a hard disk. Swapped it for an SSD and even with the old slow processor or booted in 30s flat.

I'm not saying they don't make good stuff, just that you can get the same or better performance and features for less.

Intresting. One salesperson stated that phot manipulation requires little processing power unlike video.
Yet this does not seem to be the case.

Regards

The new iPad Pro looks promising..
as far as photoshop is concerned any new Mac will do the job. but...
the real issue is workflow....
you have external monitor, if you also have external raid hard drive and an external ssd drive then what you want to look for is any Mac with a thunderbolt 3 port.
in your shoes based on what your original post said, I'd opt for the following setup...

buy the mid tier Mac mini, pay for the upgraded processor, do not pay for ram upgrade, buy that separately and upgrade it yourself or pay a friend/shop to install the ram.. at least 16 gigs of ram, 32 is better.

then... plug in ONE Usb3 gen 2 or thunderbolt 3 ssd drive of at least 1 TB capacity and set it up as your scratch disk.

add a usb-c external raid enclosure with a raid 0 setup and at least 2 2-4tb drives.

add a usb3 backup drive with enough capacity to back up ALL your drives.

run photoshop off your computers internal drive BUT use the ssd for a scratch disc and use external storage for your photo library, and to quote Chris Farley "For the love of GOD!!!" make regular backups.

lastly..

look at a thunderbolt 3 egpu (HP omen is the cheapest, razor core is good so are sonnet and akidio) and amd radon 580 or better graphics card... if you want to speed things up a bit for gaming or video editing at some point in the future.
link

that guy's an idiot... buy somewhere else.

Depends entirely what software you are using and the file sizes you are working with.

The salesman is actually spot on. Photoshop doesn't need a very expensive processor. Intel used to be the best, but AMD got their act together and just a quick scan of these benchmarks shows the £170 Ryzen 5 2600 (Amazon) is only 9% slower than the top £550 CPU stitching a large Pano. On general use and Premier it's about 50% slower but most normal editing doesn't take long anyway.

Video conversion is about 15% slower.

I didn't look at the price of the other CPU's so that might not be the best buy.

Mouseclick on the graph bar of each CPU to see percentages. The one you click is set at 100%.

https://uk.hardware.info/reviews/8267/3/amd-ryzen-5-2600-review-the-most-interes...


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