The makings of a good photo editing machine

08/18/2005 03:50:36 AM · #1

I am looking for input on what would be inside a good machine for photo editing. One that would run photoshop CS2 easily.

Budget is an issue, but only in the sense that I am looking for the best bang for your buck.

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

08/18/2005 06:24:50 AM · #2

bump for hope

JayWalk

Canon EOS-6D

08/18/2005 06:28:25 AM · #3

Any new computer can run photoshop, I would just bump up the memory a bit and it shouldn't be a problem if that is all you focused on. Also pictures tend to take up a large amount of space on a computer so make sure you get a good amount of storage space. Not knowing your particualr needs and how many pics you take it's hard to tell your exact requirements.

Dr.Confuser

Nikon D800

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

08/18/2005 06:40:02 AM · #4

A good photo editing machine will have lots of memory (at least 1 GB & more would be better), lots of Storage (at least 250 GB), the ability to read and write DVD (DVD +/- RW), a fast processor (at least 3 GHz, 2 processors at that speed would be better), a good backup solution (2nd external hard disk possibly), and at least one (2 would be better) large (1600x1200) high resolution monitors. I use a Dell Precision workstation similar to the above.

As JayWalk said, Just about any machine sold new today for more than $1,000 will work. What I described above would be more expensive but it would be sweet!

digitalpins

Canon EOS-60D

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

08/18/2005 06:45:12 AM · #5

even one of the newer pc's or dell's that are always on sell for around 300-400 would even be good. All you need is ram and at least abot 10GB of hard drive space. You are going to be just editing images so just look at one of those new pcs or dells that are on sale and that should do you just fine, you will have hard drive space and ram. You can always get a external hard drive for backups of your photos and files.

Balko

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF 28-135mm F/3.5-5.6 IS USM

08/18/2005 06:45:29 AM · #6

Check Dell's refurbished section. I have bought 5 computers from them this way and am very happy. I presently have an Inspiron5160 and I run PS CS2 along with Dreamweaver on it without a problem.
For storage, I have an external HD (400Gig), and another 250Gig ext HD for Dreamweaver files and Drive C backups.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

08/18/2005 06:53:47 AM · #7

It's pretty much true that any good, current computer will run PS, you'll benefit greatly from configuring it to enhance performance.
As previously posted, memory is the first thing to consider. For PS CS2, 1GB is the minimum I would suggest, and 2GB woudl be better. Make sure the system you're buying uses the fastest available bus speeds and that the memory is capable of operating at these speeds.
Hard drives are a whole 'nother area. You probably don't want the hassle of configuring a RAID array, so let's leave that option aside. You might want to consider two SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives. They should be 7200rpm drives with larger buffers. Size is up to you, typically they start at 80GB these days and unless you have a TON of pics and/or a data-intensive workflow (e.g. you shoot RAW and save your working files as TIFFs) the two 80GB drives should be more than enough. Configure one drive as the boot drive and one as the "data" drive. When you set up Photoshop, configure the "scratch disk" to be on one physical drive, and your data files on the other. I also recommend an external hard drive for data backup.
Your graphics card need not be anything incredibly powerful, but should have good 2-D performance and support high resolutions at 32-bit color depth.
Make sure the machine has a FireWire interface, and get a FireWire card reader, like the Lexar RW-019. Fast, incredibly fast.
Optionally, you might want to consider a tablet input device if you're going to be doing a lot of spot editing work.

08/18/2005 07:20:48 AM · #8

Hi, thanks for all the input

about the RAID array.. if they are better, they sound enticing.... What are they. I am into a little work (and into building the machine myself) I don't have a ton of experience, but i have done a little machine mechanics and built a web server and such.

My machine I have now is 2.6 GHZ, with 1 gig of ram.. and photoshop is having problems running a proper speeds (certain tasks take a 5-10 seconds to complete, which is too slow for me).

Will things go faster if one drive is a scratch disk that is fairly empty?

Is firewire much faster than USB 2?

thanks again

08/18/2005 07:23:37 AM · #9

So I guess what i was saying is that, I DO allready have a 1 gig of ram, so to others and in response to this thread, I think more, like 2 or 3 would be adviseable.

But how much does speed depend on the ram and how much is on the processor?

cainn

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

08/18/2005 07:29:39 AM · #10

Leaf, did you look into the possiblity of a gaming machines? They are designed for fast processing to keep up with the new games out on the market. I too am looking to upgrade my pc and I'm considering one of Alienware's pc for editing. I use photoshop cs and right now find that it sucks the power out of my current pc. I looked at dell's top of the line and compared to to alienware's midline and found that apples to apples, alienwares pc was, for the price, a much better deal. (almost $2,000) I'd heard from some gamers that alienware machines are by far the best right now on the market. Plus they look cool. hope this helps...

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

08/18/2005 07:34:59 AM · #11

Originally posted by leaf:

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Typically you use from two to four or five drives and the data is either split across disks (improves performance) or duplicated (for redundancy) or both. A properly configured RAID array can both increase performance over a single disk, and also provide data security if one drive fails. The basic RAID configurations are supported by some of the better mother boards, but full-featured RAID configurations usually require a separate controller. Unless you're really willing to do a lot of reading to come up the curve, I'd suggest not depending on RAID for fault tolerance. You could consider setting up a basic two-drive array and striping for performance.

Originally posted by leaf:

Will things go faster if one drive is a scratch disk that is fairly empty?

Having the scratch disk be a different physical hard drive than the one your data files are on saves Photoshop from trying to read and write to the same drive simultaneously when opening or saving files and also reading/writing the scratch file. The scratch disk does not need to be mostly empty, but of course it should not be approaching full (say, within 10%) but that goes for any drive.

Originally posted by leaf:

Is firewire much faster than USB 2?

It typically is, though you wouldn't know it by the specs. Firewire also places far lower demands on the processor than USB. One note regarding WinXP and FireWire; if ou have SP2 installed, all FireWire device performance will be slowed down, unless you install a patch from Microsoft. This patch is not installed by the automatic update system, you need to do it manually.
BTW, the reader I referenced is the one that Rob Galbraith uses to test CF card speed. It's the one I use, and it is very fast.

Message edited by author 2005-08-18 11:36:56.

theSaj

Canon EOS-20D

08/18/2005 07:57:51 AM · #12

Key to a good production machine for photo editing.

I. RAM (512mb bare min, if you plan to just use PS and for a desktop I'd recommend 1gig. 2gig if you've got the $$$)

II. This is the one time that I would say NO to a Sempron or Celeron. Many photo processes use floating point math. In this case, going for a commercial processor can actually hurt performance. Go with a P4, PentiumM (Israeli engineered laptop processor but mhz for mhz is faster than a P4 and a decent choice for laptops), or perhaps the best choice an AMD64.

III. Hard drive...now here is where I will say something different than most. Spend $50-$100 on the drive, get a 7200RPM drive in the 80-120gig range. This is to be your "install drive". In otherwords, you install Windows, PS-CS2, etc. on this drive.

The reason I am saying buy the cheap budget drive is that you really do not need much more than that for application install. And I am going introduce you to a philosophy of "seperate and unequal". You see, too many people use their "application/system drive" for their storage drive. The result....when system crashes they also lose their data. Or...in 3-4 yrs they find their hard drive full and are forced to try to find and migrate everything. "Multi-Media Data" (photos, video, mp3s) takes up the most hard disk space. Now the philosophy I am showing you here will enable easy growth. By keeping all of those files in a secondary location.

Now, go out and buy one of the following configurations in addition to the above:

1. 2 x 250+ gig drive - mirror both drives in case of hard drive failure (unless you have the money to go RAID) ;) Adds some safety by mirroring.

OR

2. 1 x 200+ gig external drive (the idea is that you can easily add storage as needed). You can also buy cases for "hot swapping" drives akin to HP's media drives. Many people do this so as to have one drive for photos. One for audio. And one for movies.

Then purchase a DVD+R/W (Allows you to archive images/media as need. Sadly, with the advent of DSLRs, MP3s, MPEG4 the DVD burner does not provide an adequate size storage media. We are in desperate need of an 80gig writable disc. But this is the best option we have for reasonable $$$ investment.) Now back up your files to DVD-Rs. If you do not think you're the type to do this. Go with 2 mirrored storage drives. Or one storage drive and an external hard drive for back-up.

IV. THe next important item is the video card. I would strongly recommend a "dual-head" video card. Most any mid-range gamer card will do adequate 2D rendering. Some might add benefit for photo processing as well. However, I'd recommend NOT buying the latest generation processor. Buy the 6-12month cycle just past. This will usually have much more stable refined drivers. Stability is key.

V. Ports, ensure you have 4 USB Hi-Speed 2.0 ports (not all 2.0 are hi-speed, the standards group re-labeled USB 1.1 to be 2.0 but they are slower speed....it was a marketing ploy that benefited a lot of manufacturers....in truth...it was very scammy), firewire

VI. Powersupply.... this is often one of the leading causes of computer instability. Many cases come with uber-cheap power-supplies. Drop the $50-$100 and buy a good solid power supply. Adequately cooled and one that has internal mechanisms for keeping the current clean and level.

VII. Monitor....not one...but two. I would argue for a combination of a 17" flat panel and a 19" CRT. This will allow you to view on both. (They view differently, it's very akin to looking at a print and looking at a slide.) Look for a good dot pitch.

VIII. Case...make sure you case has room to upgrade, and had front USB ports, and possibly video/audio ins/outs.

But of everything I said two points are most key... RAM!!!! And "seperate media storage". The reason being...if you get infected with a virus, or system corruption. If all your data files (I mean every data file from photos to word docs) are on your media drive. Then simply blowing out your old system and re-installing is but a day or so chore. But no worries....cause you didn't have to extract data. If your system completely dies. You can simply remove your data drive and put it in a new system. In fact, you can install your system and Ghost it and easily re-install it.

As for RAID...this is really not necessary unless working with extremely large files. Benefits of RAID are "Mirror" and "Striping"

Mirror mode = two drives, that are identical, no performance gain but you do have a back up drive in case one should fail or die

Striping mode = two or more drives alternating read/writes. Improves write and read performance greatly

RAID 5 = a combination of the three. It requires a minimum of three drives and preferbly 5. Much faster read/write performance as each drive writes a small chunk. RAID 5 also uses a parity check (a math equation) so that if one drive were to die by using this equation the system can re-construct the lost data.

a simple laymen's example: you have 5 drives (A-E) the parity check is 100. Meaning the data write for all 5 drives total a hundred but drive C just died. Oh no, we lost all our data - right? Nope...because we can check for parity against the other four drives. We know our total should 100...

So lets say we have the following values:

A=5
B=13
C=
D=27
E=38

We can re-construct the data on drive C because we know that a 100 - A,B,D, & E leaves us with 17. Thus the value for C was 17. We put in the new drive and the system writes "17" onto it. And our data is restored.

Of course, it is much much much more complicated than this but this gives a simple conceptualization.

However, it's all really moot. If you back up the files and if you have adequate RAM (1g-2g+) then you don't need RAID.

a) your files are backed up and already safe

b) RAM is much much much much much faster than a hard drive, and with 1g-2g of RAM you should be able to work with any file in memory.

This leaves the only benefit being the few milliseconds during file saves and file opens. And these should be fairly insignificant unless you're working with 100-500meg images.

theSaj

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

08/18/2005 07:58:43 AM · #13

Firewire 1 & USB 2.0 are about the same performance speed. Firewire 2 is about twice as fast. But not everything supports either.

Firewire 1 is WAYYYY faster than USB 1/1.1

Brent_Ward

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L USM

08/18/2005 08:41:12 AM · #14

Get a mac...preferably a g5. but even my dual 500 g4 runs large files with ease...