Best Bang for Your Buck Machine for Photoshop?

[theSeb]

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All of the world's photographers that do this for a living, besides your wife and the 5 "awesome" photographers that you've spoken to, use RAW for professional work. They are probably all wrong. Sounds like you guys need to so some reading and figure out your workflow.

Awesome story Bro ... the OP was asking about running Photoshop on certain iMacs ... thanks for your opinionated help though

And then he was asking about RAW as well. I am sorry for giving an opinion based on experience on a forum.

 

[maxinc]

I don't know what a 1ghz or a 2ghz graphics card is - I'll leave you to figure it out and enlighten me, but I can tell you that having extra video card ram (measured in GBs) has no effect on things like image refresh times or anything else that you've mentioned.

I just hope that you don't include anything to do with computers in your class.

Surely you must have known that it reefers to the GPU and / or VRAM clock. And you should really try working on a 500MB PSD file with a few complex layer composites using OpenGL hardware acceleration which would easily reveal the strengths or drawbacks of your video card.

In the end it all boils down to what you use PS for.

 

[theSeb]

Surely you must have known that it reefers to the GPU and / or VRAM clock. And you should really try working on a 500MB PSD file with a few complex layer composites using OpenGL hardware acceleration which would easily reveal the strengths or drawbacks of your video card.

In the end it all boils down to what you use PS for.

Yes, but you missed the point. Please show which of the GPUs in the iMac range have a gpu with a 1 ghz core clock speed or a 2 ghz core clock speed (lol).

I am pretty sure he was talking about the size of the VRAM and you can now choose between 1 and 2 GBs on the top 27". The extra VRAM is not going to help photoshop to run faster. This has been discussed ad-nauseum.

 

[pcypert]

Simple answer then, if you have to consider the 100 bucks for extra VRam you're probably not shooting enough to need the extra seconds top of the line gives you 😀

I'm amazed at how short sighted some can be. I've given up counting how many times I've uttered the phrase "how could I possibly need more than that" in regards to a computer...and here we are saying the iMac refresh isn't high end enough 😀

How could anyone need a 64mb memory card? Who would use a 2 gig hard drive? LOL. Just because things don't make a difference now, doesn't mean they won't in a year or two. Just about anything in computing seems to go like this "I don't need to get that now" so you don't...cue 3 months later and CS6 is announced and heavily relies on "I don't need that now" 😀

 

[AppleDroid]

Considering many people here run Photoshop on an older C2D intel machine any of the current iMac lineup would handle PS just fine.

As it stands it isn't currently multi-core/thread aware but that could change in next years update to CS6. (Don't hold your breath though).

 

[drew.bowser]

Not to deviate too much from the original topic, but why does she NEED to be shooting in RAW? Because she can? Because those that don't get the picture right the first time need to tweak it later? Or because it sounds cool and high tech?

All of the most famous wedding photographers that charge north of $10k a wedding that I have spoken to personally do not use RAW. So maybe I am missing something.

I estimate with my wife's volume, she would use around 8TB a year if she shot in RAW. That is not including local backups (along with online backups).

First off, I meant no offense to you or your wife in my last post...

Just curious, who might those photographers be? I probably know them 🙂 Feel free to drop names!

The reasons for shooting RAW have nothing to do with being cool. It has everything to do with having a way out when you screw something up. Everyone botches exposures, the camera is not perfect with getting white balance and God knows what happens with shoots... Shooting in RAW gives you the flexibility to save images that would be lost when shooting JPG. I mean one example is shooting in a room with fluorescent light that pulse different white balances due to the frequency of the lights, or shooting in a situation where light is completely different all over the room and you dont have the time to independently meter all the different areas on the fly while the bride and groom are speed walking through it. My experience with all the "famous wedding photographers that charge north of 10k a wedding..." is that they actually firmly believe in shooting RAW.

If you have a workflow that allows you to shoot JPG and get perfect results, don't let me be the one to stop you... in all seriousness. Good for you.

Now addressing the files size and storage in RAW.

In all honesty if she is shooting more than 1500 images a wedding, then she is making her job much more difficult than it should be. (unless she is shooting indian or other non us traditional weddings that last for days). Not only will it affect the amount of images she shoots, but it will shorten the life of her shutters, and force her to use MASSIVE amounts of storage. Talking about 8tb a year...are you sure about that?

At 2k shots per wedding with a 5d2 shutter rated at 150k. that equals 75 weddings. (2 years at 37.5 weddings a year) not including portrait and personal use.

If your wife is shooting 8tb a year in RAW...that is around 285,000 RAW captures (averaged 28mb per image at 8,000,000mb a year) then she is shooting a lot!! WOW! (This is assuming no video) The shutter is only rate at 150,000 clicks assuming no premature mechanical failures. Are you sure about that 8tb number? If you are using lightroom or aperture you should be able to sort by date shot and see the actual count of images.

Honestly, if she is shooting that much, then she should keep shooting JPG, because otherwise you would need rack mount raids to handle all the data after a few years of business and a server to manage it. This is more enterprise level than small business.

I dont archive my RAW files, I shoot raw and process to JPG. I keep the RAWs for 6 months and then delete them. Only storing the JPGS on a local drive, networked server and then my online sales and proofing site. I average about 2tb of data per year in my business. Multiply that by the backup I run in CCC, and then I uplad the JPGS. SO, I use around 4.5 tb of data per year including all my backups. I shoot on average 25-30 weddings a year plus quite a fe family and commercial sessions.

 

[trssho]

Not to deviate too much from the original topic, but why does she NEED to be shooting in RAW? Because she can? Because those that don't get the picture right the first time need to tweak it later? Or because it sounds cool and high tech?

All of the most famous wedding photographers that charge north of $10k a wedding that I have spoken to personally do not use RAW. So maybe I am missing something.

Again not to deviate from the point, as this is not a photography forum, but the volume of shots she seems shoots seems way more eschewed, than the theory of shooting RAW. Raw gives so much latitude regarding white balance, and saving blown highlights, or pulling out some from the shadows, it would be silly not to utilize it. As for these hi end pros, show me. Seems like people that don't utilize RAW capture, are intimidated by Photoshop.

My advice would be to shoot RAW, edit,and then archive in JPEG.

 

[sammyman]

First off, I meant no offense to you or your wife in my last post...

Just curious, who might those photographers be? I probably know them 🙂 Feel free to drop names!

The reasons for shooting RAW have nothing to do with being cool. It has everything to do with having a way out when you screw something up. Everyone botches exposures, the camera is not perfect with getting white balance and God knows what happens with shoots... Shooting in RAW gives you the flexibility to save images that would be lost when shooting JPG. I mean one example is shooting in a room with fluorescent light that pulse different white balances due to the frequency of the lights, or shooting in a situation where light is completely different all over the room and you dont have the time to independently meter all the different areas on the fly while the bride and groom are speed walking through it. My experience with all the "famous wedding photographers that charge north of 10k a wedding..." is that they actually firmly believe in shooting RAW.

If you have a workflow that allows you to shoot JPG and get perfect results, don't let me be the one to stop you... in all seriousness. Good for you.

Now addressing the files size and storage in RAW.

In all honesty if she is shooting more than 1500 images a wedding, then she is making her job much more difficult than it should be. (unless she is shooting indian or other non us traditional weddings that last for days). Not only will it affect the amount of images she shoots, but it will shorten the life of her shutters, and force her to use MASSIVE amounts of storage. Talking about 8tb a year...are you sure about that?

At 2k shots per wedding with a 5d2 shutter rated at 150k. that equals 75 weddings. (2 years at 37.5 weddings a year) not including portrait and personal use.

If your wife is shooting 8tb a year in RAW...that is around 285,000 RAW captures (averaged 28mb per image at 8,000,000mb a year) then she is shooting a lot!! WOW! (This is assuming no video) The shutter is only rate at 150,000 clicks assuming no premature mechanical failures. Are you sure about that 8tb number? If you are using lightroom or aperture you should be able to sort by date shot and see the actual count of images.

Honestly, if she is shooting that much, then she should keep shooting JPG, because otherwise you would need rack mount raids to handle all the data after a few years of business and a server to manage it. This is more enterprise level than small business.

I dont archive my RAW files, I shoot raw and process to JPG. I keep the RAWs for 6 months and then delete them. Only storing the JPGS on a local drive, networked server and then my online sales and proofing site. I average about 2tb of data per year in my business. Multiply that by the backup I run in CCC, and then I uplad the JPGS. SO, I use around 4.5 tb of data per year including all my backups. I shoot on average 25-30 weddings a year plus quite a fe family and commercial sessions.

Sorry my post was a bit wrong. I estimated 8tb when factoring in a local backup of the original plus the edited versions of every image. So more like 4tb of weddings and 4tb of backup. Still seems like a lot to manage. She shoots around 1500 per wedding, and does 30+ weddings a year, plus family and portrait shots along with some personal stuff. Sounds about similar to what you use.

This thread is making me rethink the iMac altogether and lean towards a mac pro 🙁

 

[rnb2]

Ok...now I'm TOTALLY confused. I read thread after thread that says a base 27" is more than adequate for PS and then to get such contradicting info. One says i7 will improve speeds considerably, another says the opposite. This will be my first mac, and although I consider myself technically inclined I by no means am up to date on the latest processor or gpu's.

I think the majority of us watching this thread are just wanting suggestions for a great machine for our photo editing. I personally don't want adequate...I want to buy whatever iMac is gonna rock my editing world. If it's gonna make a difference, I want it. But If I wont notice a difference I want to spend that cash on some more glass.

So THAT being said....can anyone clear the mud?

OK, I'm going to try to yank this back to the OP's question. I ran the information here past EJ Peiker, whose knowledge I trust (he's the technical guru at Naturescapes.net, a nature/wildlife photography site). He said that there would be a noticeable difference in Photoshop between a low-end graphics card (like an integrated GPU, or an older discrete GPU) and a decent current GPU. However, it's very unlikely that you would notice a difference between the GPUs in the current 27" iMacs in Photoshop. The 1GB VRAM card might have some benefit over the 512MB, but it would depend on specific use cases, and you would almost certainly be wasting your money upgrading to the 2GB VRAM card.

While it's true that future developments could make use of more features, that is always the case, and if you are actually making money via Photoshop, you're probably better off with a Mac Pro or reconciling yourself with a 1-2 year upgrade cycle on an iMac (vs. a more typical 3-year cycle). Photoshop definitely won't be updated until about a year from now, so for the next year, I would still say that the base 27" machine is the best bang for the buck.

 

[rnb2]

For those who are still wondering at pro wedding photographers shooting JPG, think of it this way: they are almost all former film photographers, and they shoot digital exactly the same way they shot film, only they have a rear LCD to check exposure after each shot if they decide to do that.

They know their exposure for different lighting, they set their white balance in-camera, and they shoot.

They then download their cards, create a proof gallery, the family picks the shots they want, and they send those off to be printed. Like I said, just like film, only the system is more streamlined, with no film processing expense.