Computer for photographer

[01milburnsc]

I bought my wife a Canon Rebel about a month ago and she is doing wonderful and show more interest than i ever imagined.

Now our computers are holding her back and was wondering what kind of spec we should look for when going after a new laptop for her.

She is building a collection of External Hardrives but I need something that will read the SDHC and operate her editing software properly when she gets it.

[Hawg]

as far as reading the SDHC cards, I'd just buy a USB card reader. That way, you can load up the pics in to any computer. And, the best part, they are cheap. Linked for example.

As far as which laptop? You'll want to look for one with a large, sharp, bright screen that shows a large percentage of the color gamut. Of course, fast processor and lots of memory would be great too.

[Saltwaterag]

http://www.circuitcity.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=5648547&sku=F12-160002

Might look in to this one. Price is right and the refurbished doesn't bother me.

[dhillis]

if she does a lot of photo editing just get a mac...or put linux ubuntu on your desktop..it will run much faster and has a free program called GIMP which is comparible to photoshop elements

[Shane]

A good monitor is a must, and you need to keep it calibrated properly so that the colors you see on the screen are the same as the colors that eventually show up on your printed photos. A high resolution monitor is very nice, if not a must.

Lots of RAM and a fast processor really help run the software. Plenty of hard drive space is a must - I use external drives to store all my pics too.

[JWHunt]

Just get a Mac.

[Ksig512]

Speaking from a Graphic Artist point of view.... Get A MAC or if you must go with pc get one with at least 4 gigs and at least a 500-700 hard drive "seagate" if your running the new Adobe Software "CS 4"

[Snakelover]

A big part of it is considering the flow of data and what things are the limiting factors for that flow. For instance, I currently have my lightroom catalogs and files on a 1 TB external USB 2.0 hard drive. Well, during a lightroom import, even though my computer is reading from a firewire 400 card reader, it is then writing to a USB 2.0 device so that becomes the limiting factor for the import. Now I'm looking at getting a 1 TB SATA hard drive and just using the USB drives for backup. (Backups can be slower, since you can walk away from them.) Once I do that, my firewire 400 card reader will become the limiting factor, at which point it will make sense to upgrade to firewire 800.

[Hillary]

just get a mac.

amen!

[Bowhunter004]

Mac is a good choice, I don't know how many gig or ram etc. we have but we have the Mac OS X. Had it for a little over a year and had no viruses/problems and its very fast. My wife does babys pics and edits with CS4 and hasn't had a problem. It took a few days to figure everthing out (since all we ever used was windows) but it is well worth it.

[Redraider1274]

Mac book pro you can do anything and everything with them.... I own a mac book myself and ill never go back to Pc takes a while to get used to them but after there a dream to use.