Camera Labs

I have been using computers for all my life almost, but tbh it has mostly been for gaming purposes
So i'm not all sure which features (etc. RAM, CPU, Harddisk and so on...) that are most important for editing of photos, like in photoshop.
So if you haven't guessed already i was hoping some of you could help me out here

P.S. If you can tell not only "what", but also "why" it would be awesome

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Jake

Canon EOS 400D + EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS + EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS + EF 50mm f/1.8
My Photos - My webpage (danish)

Loads of RAM (4GB upwards is ideal), fast hard drive (7200rpm+).

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Nikon D700 | 20mm f2.8 | 28mm f2.8 | 50mm f1.8 | 70-300 f4-5.6 | SB800 | flickr | serial photography

Been thinking the same thing myself.

If you do a lot of compute intensive editing/processing work, then faster CPU would help. This is one application where multi-cores does help in, at least photoshop understands how to use them although I don't know how many it does support. So if you do a lot of processes on large images, or batch processing, faster would help. I think a low end quad core would be better than a fast dual core in this application.

Ram is harder to quantify. Generally more is better, providing you use it. I find 2 GB to be adequate providing I'm not doing a multi-image combine. More ram in excess can help too, as it acts as a huge disk cache and make file operations faster. Note unless you run a 64 bit operating system, you're likely to be practically limited to around 3GB of usable ram due to the addressing in a 32 bit system.

Hard disk - doesn't make too huge a difference. If you have more than one HD in the system you might get some speed benefits from keeping the OS swap file and PS temp area on different drives. But that generally means you should have got more ram in the first place.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

My plan was to go for the 4gb(3gb) limit of the 32bit system. But speaking of which, is photoshop and stuff like that able to run in 64bit (true 64bit that is)

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Jake

Canon EOS 400D + EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS + EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS + EF 50mm f/1.8
My Photos - My webpage (danish)

This link might help with understanding PS CS2. I don't know if they updated CS3 to be better.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

just my 2 cents:
ram, cpu, gpu etc. are all vastly inferior to a good monitor when it comes to photo editing. The most important part imo is that your monitor show you the pictures as they will be shown on other (calibrated) monitors and as they will be seen in print.
As far as processing speed is concerned, your guess is as good as mine. I suppose 3 to 4 GB of ram would be usefull and a nice cpu too to reduce rendering time. gpu isn't really important i think because it's mostly used for 3d acceleration, which is more of a gaming issue. (can someone confirm this?)

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flickr
Canon 5D + 17-40 F4L + 50 F1.4 + 70-200 F2.8L
Velbon Sherpa 200R

Then which monitors is good when it comes to that?

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Jake

Canon EOS 400D + EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS + EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS + EF 50mm f/1.8
My Photos - My webpage (danish)

For monitors, get an 8-bit display that will display the full 16.7million colours. Refresh rate is not an issue with photo editting.

IPS displays are usually the ones of choice for creative work.

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Graham
Flickr

For Photo editing it is down to want vs needs.....A good display is a want not a need for example. Where a dual/quad core CPU and high RAM is a need.

For intensive application like CS3 etc the more cores you have in a CPU the better the same as in RAM. So if you have a Quad Core with 4GB you are pretty much sorted (Like Me) 3GB if you have a 32bit O/S as was previously stated. No point have 4GB RAM and a low end single CPu as the cpu will bottle neck the RAM. So a balanced well taught out system is the order of the day.

I use Vista Ultimate 64 and CS3 has no probs running on this O/S and updates fine. The more RAM the better the cache levels (Undo levels you can store etc) and the faster the touches are applied to the image. A decent GPU is nice but not a need.

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Canon 40D - EFS 17-85mm IS - EF 50mm 1.8 II - EF 70-200mm f.4 L - Speedlite 580EX II - GF Lightsphere Cloud - S.I.L.K 300DX PRO Tripod - Manfrotto 679 monopod - LOWEPRO Trekkar Backback - Adobe CS3 -