Upgrade to 15" rMBP?

[nburwell]

I use my laptop almost exclusively to process my D800E files in both LR 5 and PS CS6. I also use it for light internet browsing, but I usually use my iPad Mini and iPhone.

Currently I have a 13" rMBP 2.5GHz with 128GB flash storage and 8GB of RAM. I'm looking at the 15" rMBP with 16GB of RAM and 256 flash storage. More RAM will obviously help with processing the D800E RAW files, but the bigger screen real estate would help me out when I'm using LR and PS.

Portability really isn't an issue since I really only take my rMBP in different rooms in the house. I don't process on the go or anything like that.

B&H is running a pretty good deal on the 15" currently, so I'm thinking about pulling the trigger real soon.

For those of you who primarily use LR and PS for photo editing, is it worth it to go from the 13" to the 15"?

 

[MayaTlab]

From what I gather you're interested in two things : additional screen real estate, and additional ram.

If portability isn't an issue to the extent that you could do the final editing in one room, have you thought about buying a dedicated monitor ? It's very likely to be more of an upgrade than anything else really. Even a good copy of an IPS retina screen is likely to be a lot less optimal for photo editing than a dedicated display from Nec or Eizo. And then there are the less than great copies with pretty awful white point, luminance and contrast homogeneity.

And if you're also interested in memory, perhaps simply purchasing a 13" with 16gb of ram would be sufficient ?

I used to have a 15" MBP and indeed the additional real estate is quite enjoyable for photo editing, but now I prefer the 13" laptop + external display setup.

 

[maratus]

I use my laptop almost exclusively to process my D800E files in both LR 5 and PS CS6. I also use it for light internet browsing, but I usually use my iPad Mini and iPhone.

Currently I have a 13" rMBP 2.5GHz with 128GB flash storage and 8GB of RAM. I'm looking at the 15" rMBP with 16GB of RAM and 256 flash storage. More RAM will obviously help with processing the D800E RAW files, but the bigger screen real estate would help me out when I'm using LR and PS.

Portability really isn't an issue since I really only take my rMBP in different rooms in the house. I don't process on the go or anything like that.

B&H is running a pretty good deal on the 15" currently, so I'm thinking about pulling the trigger real soon.

For those of you who primarily use LR and PS for photo editing, is it worth it to go from the 13" to the 15"?

15" has an i7 quad-core, 16GB of RAM and even a dGPU option (may be quite useful with OpenCL apps). Faster CPU is important for LR5 and PS CS6.

From the size/weight point of view 15" rMBP is much more efficient than 13" rMBP (which in its turn is somewhat heavy for a mere 13" laptop).

15.4" screen is worth it even if you're only occasionally using it without external screen (and it looks like you're going to use it quite often). 13.3" -> 15.4" jump in my opinion is a deal-breaker for any productivity app. Honestly, I'd prefer a 17" for home use, but 17" rMBP doesn't exist.

I used an old non-retina 13" MBP and I was never happy with 1280x800 real estate. I also never use scaled Hi-DPI modes when editing photos because I prefer pixel-to-pixel rendering when making adjustments.