Computers for Photographers

August 14, 2009 @ 3:33AM

Computers for Photographers

By Haje Jan Kamps

If you’ve dabbled in computing much, you’ve probably come across Moore’s law – basically; as Wikipedia so succinctly puts it, “Since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years”

All good and dandy, but recently something funny has happened – people seem to simply not need faster computers anymore. This is relevant to photographers, because there’s a parallel between computing and photography: Just like you eventually don’t need more megapixels in a camera (one group has gone as far as saying that 6mpx is all you need, and – with a few notable exceptions, I think I am inclined to agree), you eventually have all the speed you need from a computer.

This one became clear to me when I started looking into replacing my now-3-year-old MacBook. It’s a black one, with a dual-core 2Ghz processor. It started its life as a 1GB/120GB configuration, but I since upgraded it to 4GB/250GB (an upgrade you can do today for about £70/$100). You know what’s odd? If you look at the current-spec 13-inch unibody MacBook Pro, it’s got essentially the same spec: 2.26 Ghz / 2GB / 160GB… I think Apple have realised what the rest of the world realised, too: Computers are finally Good Enough.

new-macbook Sure, there are always groups of people who will perennially have an insatiable hunger for more processor cores, more memory, and more storage space; serious gamers, video editors, and scientists spring to mind – but even for the power-users (I do count myself as one), we’re starting to hit a plateau where it’s perfectly okay to own a 3-year-old computer. Which just messes with my brain; when I first started getting into computers, the second you bought one, it was out of date. I remember the first time I plonked down a serious amount of money on a new computer (before then, I’d always had hand-me-downs or I’d bought second-hand computers) – it was a Dell, which had a Pentium III, 600 Mhz. I’m telling you, it was the cream-of-the-crop, one of the fastest computers you could buy. It had a whopping 1GB of memory, too, which was insanely expensive, and made it incredibly fast indeed. Six months later, I found myself upgrading several of its components, and six months after that, again. And again. And again.

So I’m no longer a serious gamer (or indeed, a gamer at all – I moved to the place where I live now, about four months ago, and my poor Xbox has never been out of its box), but I am a pretty serious photographer. I run the CS3 suite by Adobe, and I take all my photographs in RAW format. It’s not that long ago that editing RAW photos was a huge chore which would take bloody ages, but with 4GB of memory (which is a trivial upgrade, both in DIY-skills and in monetary investment) is of huge help.

The thing that dawned on me the other day is that no, you no longer need the cutting edge of computer equipment to play with the big boys: while I love the design of the new MacBook Pros, i’d be spending the best part of a grand without actually upgrading my kit all that much: I’d still have to buy extra RAM and harddrive space to make the computer faster than the one I’ve got now.

So what do you recommend

I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re in a very good place for photographers when it comes to computers: You don’t need a new, or even a fast computer to be able to edit your photos at a professional level – and the longer this plateau stays around, the cheaper computers are going to get. Which, again, is good news.

Of course, the real reason I wrote this rambly-rant of a blog post is so I have something to point people to when they ask what kind of computer they need to buy to be able to edit their photos properly; my answer is simple: Even the cheapest Dell computer will do the trick: Right now, you can pick up a Dell Inspiron with a 2.6 GHz dual-core processor, 3GB of memory, a 20-inch widescreen monitor, 320 Gb harddrive, optical mouse and built-in card-readers for under 375 quid. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a lot of computer for not-a-lot of money.

Specifically, however, I’d recommend you make sure you have enough memory (2GB should be enough, 4GB is plenty), and a screen which you like to work on – bigger is better, I’d recommend 19-inch or bigger. An optical mouse makes precision-work a little easier (I know a lot of photographers who buy expensive gaming mice for increased precision, but I think that’s probably a bit overkill), and beyond that, a copy of Photoshop (which will cost about the same as the computer outlined above, but is a must-have for anyone who is serious about photography), and you’re done.

So Haje, what is your set-up, then?

Thought you’d never ask. I use a MacBook 2Ghz / 4GB / 250GB hooked up to a Samsung 23-inch monitor and a Logitech LX710 wireless keyboard and mouse. Not technically part of the computer set-up is a set of nice studio monitor speakers and a Pioneer amp to play tunes – but I can’t work without music (right this very second, for example, I’m listening to a spot of Gatas Parlament, a Norwegian hip-hop group – if you want to take your aural stalking to a higher level, look me up on Last.fm), so the music bit of all of this is completely essential.

But ultimately, personally, I’d be perfectly happy with any laptop with an Apple logo on it, manufactured in the past 3-4 years or so.

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Comments

Anonymous

2 years ago

Nonsense is to talk about computer (hardware) and say no word about the display which is the main part for photography. Almost all laptops have TN display panels which are rubbish for working with graphics. The point is that if you are serious at photography you must start with something like PVA or IPS LCD display.

Anonymous

2 years ago

Very good point, Evaldas – which is why there’s a second article coming up about computer screens especially :)

Anonymous

2 years ago

I wouldn’t recommend a Dell. The pain of Windows is not worth it.

Anonymous

2 years ago

I have to agree about processing power on computers now being perfectly acceptable but graphics power is another thing to consider especially when working with images etc. Also, as said the quality of the display is a big thing as well.

You don’t always need a new processor for a faster computer even if it is over 5 years old, sometimes more RAM will make a HUGE difference.

Anonymous

2 years ago

I use a pentium 4 with a good graphics card and 2gb on the motherboard. Yes good monitor also. Everything’s tweaked and I get good performance from photoshop. I built this system myself about 10 years ago.
Still kicks for me. The only upgrades have been HD’s for more space for the photos.

Anonymous

2 years ago

You talked about Mac and Windows, but there is also Ubuntu/Kunbuntu a Linux distribution. I don’t like the default image software, but just add the program digiKam (http://www.digikam.org/) and you’ll see a nice program made by photographers for photographers! A new version every 6 months, and did I said it was free?

Anonymous

2 years ago

“I think Apple have realised what the rest of the world realised, too: Computers are finally Good Enough.”

This is typical Mac fanboy behavior. Any decision Mac makes must be the correct one even if they are trying to sell me a setup that is essentially the same as my old one for about $1200.

I like Macs, and I think they are great systems, but I can’t stand the fanboy attitude of many Mac users.

BTW – Love the site.

Anonymous

2 years ago

I must admit to still being on the upgrade hamster wheel – year old Core 2 quad extreme, 8GB RAM, mirrored 150GB 10k rpm OS/app drives, dedicated 10k rpm swap drive, mirrored 750GB SATA drives for storage, GeForce 8800GTX card, Vista x64, Lightroom & CS4 64-bit.

Shame the idiot driving it can’t be easily uprgaded!

I am getting into big photo-quality prints & panos, and sometimes handle pretty big files, so the extra horsepower helps.

Already daydreaming of the next upgrade though…

Anonymous

2 years ago

You sir are completely out of your mind!

My friend tweeted this and i knew from the start it was crazy.

I shoot with a 5DMkII with RAW dusl 22″ 1680×1050 screens using Adobe Lightroom. I Also use 15,500 RPM SAS Server hard drives for my OS and another for my Cache/Scratch Disk/ Page files.

I use dual Maxtor 500GB drives with 32MB Cache in Raid 0 and a Samsung 1TB Drive with 32MB cache as a clone of the raid.

Hard Drive spin speed/cache is a very important factor, and the same goes for SSd’s tranfer rates, they arnt all the same! laptop 5,400 drives are completely unacceptable. 7200 is ok. but for a laptop i’d prefer SSD 64-128GB since it wouldn’t be my main workstation.

The speed is Good, everything is almost instant…almost. There is a few milliseconds which is noticeable for me, yes im nit picking but my point is any slower hardware would not be sufficient for me. Hence I’m not buying a laptop till they have Nehalem tech in them. Core 2 Duo’s arn’t up to the job.

I’m rocking the following:

ASUS P6T Workstation Pro
Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6GHz (From 2.6) 8MB L3 Cache
6GB DDR 1333Mhz CL7
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB (320bit)

The Graphics is a little outdated but i’m waiting for the GT300 Chip from nvidia since the GT200 series was nice but not a big enough improvement and no DX11.

Also just looking at a spec sheet doesnt help. The processor may be dual core and 3GHz but that tells you nothing. You need to know what core its using, how much L2/L3 Cache it is, the FSB etc. These effect the performance as much, some more so than the raw GHz speed. RAM is nothing these days your right about that, 8-12 GB is about the max of usefulness just now for 99% of people.

Also display, 19″ is nuts. 20″ is much better since the average resolution is 1680×1050 on those higher DPI. I got 22″ a couple year back because of the PVA panels. I wouldn’t mind a trio of 27″ 2560×1600 IPS Screens. (30 is to big, plus I prefer the higher DPI)

Basically I’d just like to say that this article, just does not hold true for everyone. If your shooting under 14MP and dont mind a bit of waiting and don’t work with 100,000+ RAW File photo libraries – sure, go grab a Core 2 Duo System with 4GB ram and a Geforce GT210. That’ll do most people.

If you want some advice on computer systems feel free to add me on msn DD_41@msn or follow me on twitter http://www.twitter.com/danieldevine

Anonymous

2 years ago

You can get a plenty good processor in a cheap laptop these days, and the ram upgrade is cheap too, but to get a dedicated graphics card, you usually have to get out of the bargain bin. The GPU is specifically designed to render images, and a good one can make a big difference.

Anonymous

2 years ago

Love your posts, and definitely agree with your point that the computers are fast enough for most. However, the limitation of the processor speed is imposed, especially in the laptops, by the Moore’s law actually almost “running out”, so to speak. The minituarization of the semiconductors has reached the point where increasing the number of transistors per square inch leads to the molecular level interference and the speed cannot be improved much without layering them which leads to the overheating… So the production costs are going up and Apple and others had to “realize that Computers Are Good Enough”.

Another limiting factor is the speed of hard drives, which is solved by adding more RAM, like you mentioned.

One of the possible future ways to overcome this physics problem is to go into organic checmical processors, instead of semi-conductors.

I know it’s not the topic of your post, but being a geek, I thought I’d share this article, as it describes “what’s next” – rather short and has cool pictures: http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanscimag/volume4-2/articles4-2/electroni...

Thanks for sharing your passion – my wife and I are learning quite a lot about photography from you.

Anonymous

2 years ago

yah editing is mostly about creativity and software, not so much about hardware. doesn’t hurt to get thing done faster though. batch processing can be good too.

Anonymous

2 years ago

Haje, I too thought my laptop was fast enough…and then I upgraded to CS4. Boy oh boy does it eat up resources. After upgrading the videocard drivers and tweaking some of the video options on CS4 I got it to speed up, but it’s still not as fast as CS3 was on my machine.

I’m considering a stand-alone desktop for my photo editing when the funds become available.