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I loved my M1 air 16/512. I then went to an M1 Pro 16/1TB just for dual monitor support. At work I used an M1 Mini 16/512. I’m surprised OP isn’t having slowdowns in Lightroom. It totally depends on how you use it. I had Lightroom, Safari (about 8 tabs), fantastical and mail open. I only shoot RAW, and sometimes I merge 5 RAW’s to make an “HDR” image. Just browsing my library caused it to hang so long, that before the previews loaded I could go to accounting, request budget for a new computer, walk back and still not have the previews loaded. A few seconds after I returned, the previews began loading. There was just no RAM, and as someone else said, Adobe programs are horrible at RAM management and Lightroom is generally open 1-3 hours at a time for me. My images are 24MP, I can’t imagine 60MP RAW.

good points. BTW. Lightroom. catalogue management is awful. I don't think it matters how much your memory is or what platform you have. I also run it on my main computer an intel gen 13 with 32gb and RTX and it is the same. The only way I have found to deal with it is to not let the amount of photos per folder go over say 60. So the catalogue is composed of 100s of small folders. Also, when the total amount of photos goes to a certain size, I start a new catalogue.

Lastly, the new enhancement process in Lightroom is slow. Definitely an M3 max would make a difference here
 
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good points. BTW. Lightroom. catalogue management is awful. I don't think it matters how much your memory is or what platform you have. I also run it on my main computer an intel gen 13 with 32gb and RTX and it is the same. The only way I have found to deal with it is to not let the amount of photos per folder go over say 60. So the catalogue is composed of 100s of small folders. Also, when the total amount of photos goes to a certain size, I start a new catalogue.

I hate that there’s literally no better organizational alternative for photos. I never used aperture but it sounds like that would have been it. I know Apple believes “Photos” is a proper successor, but it severely lacks in organization (tags, MOVING photos to albums, rating beyond thumbs up). I cannot believe there’s such an opportunity for a new organizational tool for photography and no one is taking it. It could even use LR as an editor (or Camera Raw in PS) and I’d be all over it.

I’d probably pay $20/mo for a tool like that that was smooth and had great tools.
 
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good points. BTW. Lightroom. catalogue management is awful. I don't think it matters how much your memory is or what platform you have. I also run it on my main computer an intel gen 13 with 32gb and RTX and it is the same. The only way I have found to deal with it is to not let the amount of photos per folder go over say 60. So the catalogue is composed of 100s of small folders. Also, when the total amount of photos goes to a certain size, I start a new catalogue.

Yeah this. I’ve got a similarly specced desktop PC here and quite frankly it just eats all the RAM in it if it can as cache and it goes slow as molasses anyway. I think the only advantage was the super quick AI denoise but I don’t need that after a few days of going “ooh” and “ahh” at it. My iPad, an M2 Pro can chunk through my entire Photo library at ProMotion speeds whether it has 2 or 2000 images in an album. Same with my bottom end Mac Mini. Since I discovered the more advanced editing controls and histogram in Photos on the Mac I managed to dump Lightroom entirely and just use that. The ML and catalogue management stuff in Photos is better and my photos are on all my devices always.

If I want a cow, I just search for a cow and I get cows! People can be assigned from device contacts. No tagging required.
 
Since I discovered the more advanced editing controls and histogram in Photos on the Mac I managed to dump Lightroom entirely and just use that. The ML and catalogue management stuff in Photos is better and my photos are on all my devices always.

Ironic since while you wrote that, I wrote a post causing Apple Photos. I wish it did enough for me, but I’m glad you could make the switch because it is undeniably better written. One thing that really bothers me is that Apple saves 1-3 copies of every photo: original, current edits and sometimes a third copy.

This makes libraries way bigger than they have to be, and I feel this is by design to encourage iCloud storage. My newest conspiracy theory :)
 
If I want a cow, I just search for a cow and I get cows! People can be assigned from device contacts. No tagging required.

Not as easy in real estate or automotive photography . Can’t search “16 Madera Street” or “Jake’s 997 Turbo.” I haven’t tried, but I also doubt Photos can understand all parts of a car or house. Maybe rooms, but not “network rack” or “front fender.” I sometimes wonder if Apple’s media team uses it.
 
I’ve been editing on a base m3 mini 8gb since the summer and its workable but I def don’t feel like i have a new computer when i start trying to batch process raw files or if i do anything in adobe illustrator. That stuff is all just too much for the measily 8gb. My memory pressure is in the red. For all the basic user tasks the thing is great though.
 
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Ironic since while you wrote that, I wrote a post causing Apple Photos. I wish it did enough for me, but I’m glad you could make the switch because it is undeniably better written. One thing that really bothers me is that Apple saves 1-3 copies of every photo: original, current edits and sometimes a third copy.

This makes libraries way bigger than they have to be, and I feel this is by design to encourage iCloud storage. My newest conspiracy theory :)
Trick is you don't need to use iCloud to use Photos. It will work 100% offline.
 
I've been going the same thing...worrying about how much RAM I actually need. Thanks for sharing your experience.
IMO appropriate RAM purchasing should be based around life cycle needs, not only around today's needs even though folks like the OP prefer to just discuss today when they select some lowest-cost choice. Also some folks like the OP are happy to have their computer working sub-optimally, as long as it works. And the excellent Mac OS will make it work.

We all make our own choices, but IMO looking only at today is wrong-headed thinking. The life cycle of a new Mac is usually ~5+ years. Planning a new purchase around yesterday's OS/apps and yesterday's RAM demands makes no sense to me.
 
Not as easy in real estate or automotive photography . Can’t search “16 Madera Street” or “Jake’s 997 Turbo.” I haven’t tried, but I also doubt Photos can understand all parts of a car or house. Maybe rooms, but not “network rack” or “front fender.” I sometimes wonder if Apple’s media team uses it.

Cmd+i ... edit keywords :)
 
Trick is you don't need to use iCloud to use Photos. It will work 100% offline.
My point is 200MB of edited images in LR will be 400MB or more because of how the library is stored. Then faces are also saved independently. That means someone’s 60GB library could be 120GB. It quickly adds up. We all take photos and this negative externality can quickly magnify.

My point is that I wonder if this is for the soul purpose of increasing the space. With enough other personal files on the smallest drives, you suddenly need iCloud Photos because you can’t fit everything local. I used to do tech support B2B and B2C and this was a CONSTANT problem for my B2C clients.


Cmd+i ... edit keywords :)

So I got excited, went to try this, selected 4 photos, hit command+i, typed a keyword, hit enter, saw it marked, and then the change wasn’t reflected if I selected any of those photos individually or if I re-selected those 4 photos, as if I never tagged them. 14.2.1 on base M1 Max Studio. Like damn.
 
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Now that's a sweeping generalization if I ever saw one and, at large, not true:

Yes, you'd absolutely benefit highly or downright need more than 8GBs RAM if you consistently work with 3D rendering, high resolution video editing, some specific photo editing setups, highly demanding After Effects projects (and similar apps/projects), want to have an ungodly number of app windows and Safari tabs open all at once, etc.

But fact remains that both baseline M1 and M2 handle most of what the average Mac user throws at them.

*I completely agree with the notion that RAM is inexpensive enough to the point that no computer should ship with less than 16GBs of RAM. But for most of what the average laptop/desktop computer users actually do on their machine for work or in their free time, 8GBs is enough.
Let me be clear: you are very wrong when you label as untrue the statement: "is 8gb enough? in 2024? no, it's not. anyone who says otherwise will find out the hard way."

Buying RAM in a new box in 2024 should be planned for the life cycle of the new Mac. Anecdotally claiming ooh, look what I did yesterday is silly. We have 40 years of experience showing RAM demands always increase.
 
You know recently I got a 2011 pre retina 27 iMac and it's great! 32 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD all for ~$400 USD! It does all I need it to and even can use heavy applications like photoshop or solid works, all with a machine that cost less than a third the price of a base model iMac nowadays.

If we're going to discuss what little we actually need and what constitutes a great value there are infinitely many examples such as the above and I can realistically make a better argument for buying an old intel machine over the base Apple iMac being sold today. If these arguments are all about how little we need, as opposed to how much RAM and SSD's have gone down in price, this thread is going nowhere.

Fact is that Apple's base specs are rather low in comparison to the price of the computers and upgrade costs are at least 8x more than the market value of competitors. Hence why I can't justify buying a new iMac when my needs are perfectly satisfied with this old 27 intel machine I mentioned.
 
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My point is 200MB of edited images in LR will be 400MB or more because of how the library is stored. Then faces are also saved independently. That means someone’s 60GB library could be 120GB. It quickly adds up. We all take photos and this negative externality can quickly magnify.

My point is that I wonder if this is for the soul purpose of increasing the space. With enough other personal files on the smallest drives, you suddenly need iCloud Photos because you can’t fit everything local. I used to do tech support B2B and B2C and this was a CONSTANT problem for my B2C clients.




So I got excited, went to try this, selected 4 photos, hit command+i, typed a keyword, hit enter, saw it marked, and then the change wasn’t reflected if I selected any of those photos individually or if I re-selected those 4 photos, as if I never tagged them. 14.2.1 on base M1 Max Studio. Like damn.
Yup. Keywording has been a fail for me in Apple Photos. A big fail, costing me hundreds of hours of lost keywording time. It is a shame Apple scr*wed pro users by deprecating Aperture, which actually worked.
 
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Let me be clear: you are very wrong when you label as untrue the statement: "is 8gb enough? in 2024? no, it's not. anyone who says otherwise will find out the hard way."

Buying RAM in a new box in 2024 should be planned for the life cycle of the new Mac. Anecdotally claiming ooh, look what I did yesterday is silly. We have 40 years of experience showing RAM demands always increase.
What's worse is that it HAS to be planned out, because we used to have the option to upgrade which no longer exists. Hence when we buy a computer we have to buy it for the specs we need by end of lifecycle and not what we need today.
 
Nothing wrong with the base model if it's working for you. I also do photography with a 42mp camera and the only time I'm happy to have the 16GB of Ram I upgraded to is when I'm focus stacking or doing panorama's.
 
I couldn't bring myself to go for 8gb MBA. I went 16gb and should have gone with 512gb for the SSD, but since it was bought with Amex points, I took the 1TB drive. I had buyer's remorse regarding the MBP trap (for the same or just a little more you can get.....) but I finally settled into being satisfied.

It is my secondary, walk around the house laptop...love the silence and the big 15" screen.

Resale values are high, so if 8gb does not work for you, you can always upgrade systems later.

R
 
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It seems as though all the models are built to trap you into getting higher end models. With such steep upgrade costs any reasonably-configured MacBook Air comes within striking distance of the pro model just ahead of it. There is absolutely no buffer zone between the consumer and the pro models. For an extra $300 USD you can upgrade from the 15 Air to the 14 Pro with more ports, higher screen resolution, faster processor and better graphics.

You can't help but admire the genius pricing configuration Apple set up, and yet hate them for leveraging all these unreasonable upgrade prices for comparatively cheap components. Make 16GB RAM and 512 GB storage the norm for $1300 on the 15 Air and suddenly their entire upgrade system falls apart... unless they likewise increase the base figures on the pro models.
 
This conversation puts a smile on my face.

Back in early 2015, when I was about to purchase the 13" Macbook Pro I'm writing this post on, I ended up feeling pretty stressed about whether I should go with the base 8GB of RAM or bump it up.

I'm a commercial photographer. Back then I had just finished an apprenticeship and was hanging out my own shingle for the first time, so I did plenty of internet research on the computing equipment I'd need. As you can all imagine, I ran into all the posts insisting I'd better get "at least" 16GB of RAM and that I still probably wouldn't be happy with that. "Oh, you'll have to do all of your real editing on a [Trash Can] Mac Pro desktop!" Heard all the cautionary tales, all the weird insistence, all the folks people in this thread now call "the RAM police."

But ya know, I just couldn't get my head around the idea that Apple would fill their stores with a stock of configurations that would disappoint a swath of users in short order. Ya I understand the marketing ladder / profit-margin aspects of the way Apple handles RAM and storage upgrades, but fundamentally: the configurations they're ready to sell on the spot have to work well, have to last a reasonably long time, have to offer a throughly non-janky user experience that won't completely alienate a customer base. Right? Is that really such a crazy thought to have? (I guess the "butterfly keyboard" era would suggest Apple sometimes doesn't sweat customer experience as much as they should?)

Anyway, I figured I'd save my $$$ and go with the base 8GB.

TL;DR it was great. No complaints.

NINE years later, it's still completely fine. I still have no complaints. I tether to this (ancient?) Macbook daily, slice-and-dice 50-ish megapixel photos from my Canon R5 in Lightroom Classic and make large-layer-count Photoshop retouch runs all day every day. It works smooth-as-silk. I do all my prep on it--big PS moodboards and artboards for customer pitches; I do all my shop billing and finances on it--big excel sheets; web updates, comms, everything. It's a champ!

As I have come to realize, lots of software is really well-optimized. Take Lightroom Classic, for example: it uses 4-megapixel "Smart Preview" proxy-RAW files in the "develop" module to speed editing / grading procedures. Even an older, far less capable computer than mine can manipulate 4-megapixel files handily.

I noted then--and still note now--that many self-appointed "performance experts" on the net structure their arguments with observations and measurements that aren't necessarily useful. Case in point: they seem obsessed with timing batch RAW photo exports, and they insist this is the reason you need whatever configuration they say you need. I mean . . . I just shrug. That (like so many other) measures of "performance" means nothing to the productivity of my professional day: whether the batch takes 5 minutes or 30 minutes, I'm not going to be sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting on a progress bar; big project batch exports of hundreds of frames in several output configurations = your cue to get a coffee or a little lunch or schedule that client meeting, whatever the computer that's crunching the frames for you. What really matters is whether the computer is snappy while I'm shifting RBG curve points or brushing in a layer with my Wacom stylus. Whether it's with me when the creativity is flowing. And my now-9-year-old MBP with 8GB ram is snappy as can be in that regard.

I'll replace it later this year just to keep getting Apple security updates, which will finally run out for in the fall. What a great run! But honestly, I'm not going to sweat the replacement. At some point this summer, I'm gonna walk down to the Apple store, buy one of the 14" Macbook Pro configurations they have in stock (it'll probably be the base M3 version with 8GB RAM?), save my $$$, and be completely productive for another 9 years.

(And the RAM police can keep arguing it out!)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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I definitely fell for the 16GB RAM and 512 SSD upgrades. I probably could have gotten by with the base model. Currently my SSD storage is at 175GB used.
 
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I definitely fell for the 16GB RAM and 512 SSD upgrades. I probably could have gotten by with the base model. Currently my SSD storage is at 175GB used.
I promise that your computer will better retain its value. Besides you'll be able to liberally store whatever you want without concern of ever filling your drive. At least you can have confidence your computer will remain relevant for many more years to come.
 
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I rather wait and see the M3 coming. Then M2 goes down in price…

I rather have less storage on my MBA, and have 16GB RAM. So it have been though, I could probably get by with 8GB RAM now though.
On my old MBA I haven’t use half of my 128GB. As a 2nd Mac it's no heavy usage on it. But it's well worth it to have at times. Especially when I need it on the go with me.

Was checking prices and terms, and for sure a base model can be bought at a lot of places. But trading in the old MBA for god terms isn’t that easy.
Apple pay by far the best to take an old MBA in return when you buy a new one. The charge more too, of course. See what I do when the new M3 MBA's come.
If I buy one of those, or buy an M2 to a probably lower price at that time?
 
IMO appropriate RAM purchasing should be based around life cycle needs, not only around today's needs even though folks like the OP prefer to just discuss today when they select some lowest-cost choice. Also some folks like the OP are happy to have their computer working sub-optimally, as long as it works. And the excellent Mac OS will make it work.

We all make our own choices, but IMO looking only at today is wrong-headed thinking. The life cycle of a new Mac is usually ~5+ years. Planning a new purchase around yesterday's OS/apps and yesterday's RAM demands makes no sense to me.
Completely disagree

The computer does not work sub-optimally for what I use it for. It works fast and fine

The computer will still work fine on what it is doing today in 3 years. Those tasks will not suddenly need more memory

I think it is just a mindset of being scared by peers

IMHO you either get the cheapest mac air or the m3 Pro with 18gb. Anything in the middle doesnt make any sense to me. For example, I think the m3 Pro entry level, with 8gb, at £1699, is simply not worth it over the m2 air at £1149
 
Completely disagree

The computer does not work sub-optimally for what I use it for. It works fast and fine

The computer will still work fine on what it is doing today in 3 years. Those tasks will not suddenly need more memory

I think it is just a mindset of being scared by peers

IMHO you either get the cheapest mac air or the m3 Pro with 18gb. Anything in the middle doesnt make any sense to me. For example, I think the m3 Pro entry level, with 8gb, at £1699, is simply not worth it over the m2 air at £1149
First off, I'm not saying 8GB isn't fine for you, or isn't acceptable for a LOT of people. However, for most people you will use swap daily, and a couple of GB+. On a miniature SSD, (and not even a great one at that) it isn't ideal and will see wear, and should you fill 90% of said miniature SSD then you will see a reduction in performance! So your "fine for 3 years" comment does require you to keep a lot of free SSD space, which is of course doable, but is a complete pain in the arse as regards to backups and copies and keeping track of it all.

Even someone that opens a lot of tabs and has a bunch of low requirement programs open at once will put the device under heavy memory pressure, so while the speed of utilising the SSD to help the RAM isn't very slow, it's far from ideal, and most people could tell the difference I'd wager. Fine/tolerable today will not improve and can only diminish in performance (maybe to a small degree, maybe to a large degree), especially if you don't do fresh installs of the OS annually (which hardly anyone does).

Or maybe a year from now you decide to play a modern game, because why not, maybe you'll feel like it, and find it's not possible just because the RAM is too limited...
 
This conversation puts a smile on my face.

Back in early 2015, when I was about to purchase the 13" Macbook Pro I'm writing this post on, I ended up feeling pretty stressed about whether I should go with the base 8GB of RAM or bump it up.

I'm a commercial photographer. Back then I had just finished an apprenticeship and was hanging out my own shingle for the first time, so I did plenty of internet research on the computing equipment I'd need. As you can all imagine, I ran into all the posts insisting I'd better get "at least" 16GB of RAM and that I still probably wouldn't be happy with that. "Oh, you'll have to do all of your real editing on a [Trash Can] Mac Pro desktop!" Heard all the cautionary tales, all the weird insistence, all the folks people in this thread now call "the RAM police."

But ya know, I just couldn't get my head around the idea that Apple would fill their stores with a stock of configurations that would disappoint a swath of users in short order. Ya I understand the marketing ladder / profit-margin aspects of the way Apple handles RAM and storage upgrades, but fundamentally: the configurations they're ready to sell on the spot have to work well, have to last a reasonably long time, have to offer a throughly non-janky user experience that won't completely alienate a customer base. Right? Is that really such a crazy thought to have? (I guess the "butterfly keyboard" era would suggest Apple sometimes doesn't sweat customer experience as much as they should?)

Anyway, I figured I'd save my $$$ and go with the base 8GB.

TL;DR it was great. No complaints.

NINE years later, it's still completely fine. I still have no complaints. I tether to this (ancient?) Macbook daily, slice-and-dice 50-ish megapixel photos from my Canon R5 in Lightroom Classic and make large-layer-count Photoshop retouch runs all day every day. It works smooth-as-silk. I do all my prep on it--big PS moodboards and artboards for customer pitches; I do all my shop billing and finances on it--big excel sheets; web updates, comms, everything. It's a champ!

As I have come to realize, lots of software is really well-optimized. Take Lightroom Classic, for example: it uses 4-megapixel "Smart Preview" proxy-RAW files in the "develop" module to speed editing / grading procedures. Even an older, far less capable computer than mine can manipulate 4-megapixel files handily.

I noted then--and still note now--that many self-appointed "performance experts" on the net structure their arguments with observations and measurements that aren't necessarily useful. Case in point: they seem obsessed with timing batch RAW photo exports, and they insist this is the reason you need whatever configuration they say you need. I mean . . . I just shrug. That (like so many other) measures of "performance" means nothing to the productivity of my professional day: whether the batch takes 5 minutes or 30 minutes, I'm not going to be sitting there twiddling my thumbs waiting on a progress bar; big project batch exports of hundreds of frames in several output configurations = your cue to get a coffee or a little lunch or schedule that client meeting, whatever the computer that's crunching the frames for you. What really matters is whether the computer is snappy while I'm shifting RBG curve points or brushing in a layer with my Wacom stylus. Whether it's with me when the creativity is flowing. And my now-9-year-old MBP with 8GB ram is snappy as can be in that regard.

I'll replace it later this year just to keep getting Apple security updates, which will finally run out for in the fall. What a great run! But honestly, I'm not going to sweat the replacement. At some point this summer, I'm gonna walk down to the Apple store, buy one of the 14" Macbook Pro configurations they have in stock (it'll probably be the base M3 version with 8GB RAM?), save my $$$, and be completely productive for another 9 years.

(And the RAM police can keep arguing it out!)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think this is the perfect example of “it depends on how you use it.” I personally stand that adobe software is very poorly written in general and as someone else said, is happy to eat RAM.

All I’ll say is that my M1 Pro would take some time to process edits of my 24MP raw images. My 16GB M1 Mini, as I said, with hours of use (because it is sometimes my workflow for the day), would leave me just waiting for previews to load due to RAM issues. I believe you and the previous person that Lightroom is working just fine for you and the other person who is using it with 8GB, but my workflow is a testament that it totally depends on how you use it.

To play devils advocate, I will say FCPX runs impressively well on 8GB of RAM (borderline imperceptible from 16GB), and I’d say perfectly with no issues with standard h.264 DSLR 4K footage with 16GB of RAM.
 
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