Advice on a good laptop for editing

[dlofting]

I'd recommend a desktop rather than a laptop for photo or video editting. Software demands more RAM, CPU and video power with each new release and your photo/video files get larger. Desktops have more "room" to upgrade and are generally less expensive to start with.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'd recommend a desktop rather than a laptop for photo or video editting. Software demands more RAM, CPU and video power with each new release and your photo/video files get larger. Desktops have more "room" to upgrade and are generally less expensive to start with.

What would you recommend in a desktop? At least 16GB RAM, a SSD, a video card (what specs?), and ???

The Thunderbolt3 port that @kelemvor mentioned seems to be discussed only in the laptop context.

I'm in the market for a desktop for working from home, and so I was considering a bare-bones cheapie, but now it occurs to me that I could use it for video editing.

 

[Diverlady13]

Once your edits are done in Lightroom you can select some or all of your photos and use the Export feature to bulk save the photos as JPG files.

Hmmm.....I will have to look. Adobe's help said they had to be exported and then saved from Photoshop. I'll look again. I really dislike Adobe and their subscription model, but Lightroom was the best editor I tried for UW photos.

 

[Diverlady13]

Lightroom started out its life as just a front-end for the other Adobe software (Premiere, Photoshop, Audition, etc.) It was kind of a holistic media interface that allowed you to convert formats - especially RAW device files. Adobe bought it from some other company, and they've added enough functionality directly to it that some people now use lightroom standalone. I think that's why the workflow is as you describe.

I think you're right about that. Adobe apps and programs have always been....quirky....likely due to purchasing successful software from other creators. I started using their programs back in the 1990s - some before Adobe took them over. And, yeah...the interface between apps has always been a bit odd.

 

[hedonist222]

What would you recommend in a desktop? At least 16GB RAM, a SSD, a video card (what specs?), and ???

The Thunderbolt3 port that @kelemvor mentioned seems to be discussed only in the laptop context.

I'm in the market for a desktop for working from home, and so I was considering a bare-bones cheapie, but now it occurs to me that I could use it for video editing.

If you intend on editing videos, then a mid to high end graphics card. An RTX 2070 or similar.

A 4k monitor otherwise you're taking pictures in 4k and higher but only seeing a quarter of that resolution (@ 1080).

Get a lot of RAM, it's relatively economic these days. At least 16GB installed in parallel mode.

Processor?
Either Intel or AMD

But something with lot of threads because that's the future.
AMD gives you more threads at less cost than Intel.

So 4k monitor
Mid to high the motherboard
I'd get an AMD processor but processor with high thread count
At least 16 GB of ram
Video card depends on whether you intend to ever edit videos

The difference between a video editing video card and non-video editing is about $200

Is that worth getting now and not have to resort to selling your video card to upgrade?
Only you can decide.

What's your budget and do you intend to edit videos?

 

[kelemvor]

The Thunderbolt3 port that @kelemvor mentioned seems to be discussed only in the laptop context.

The thunderbolt 3 port provides sufficient bandwidth that you can get external PCIEx16 enclosures and connect a full on desktop graphics card to your laptop. This is the only way In know of to upgrade the GPU on a laptop.

If you've got a TB3 port, you've got options.

Of course you could plug that enclosure/card into a desktop too. My desktop motherboards have TB ports. For some reason TB ports aren't standard on all boards, so you have to make sure you get a board with the port if you want it. So if you've got desktops and laptops (like me) you can just get one high end graphics card and plug it into whichever of the systems you need the horsepower on. Obviously the extra horsepower for math intensive applications (games/video editing/science) can't be beat. When you're talking about a $3,000 gpu (heck even a midrange $1000 gpu) all of a sudden the $200 for the enclosure seems like a good deal.

Also, Thunderbolt 3 does daisy chain. You can have one cable to connect up several monitors, your GPU and presumably other devices as well if you had them. It's not a big deal but a nice convenience.

 

[kelemvor]

A 4k monitor otherwise you're taking pictures in 4k and higher but only seeing a quarter of that resolution (@ 1080).

Yeah I forgot to mention that. 4k or 8k monitor. 1080p is so 1990's. There's a reason the things are so cheap. I've even connected my machines to a 4k television and had great results. Just set your display scaling to 150% so that user interfaces/buttons don't look tiny and you're off to the races. I think Apple calls this setting "retina" mode.

 

[hedonist222]

Yeah the 4k monitor is great

So much 4k content on the Internet now like vimeo, YouTube, and so on.

 

[dlofting]

What would you recommend in a desktop? At least 16GB RAM, a SSD, a video card (what specs?), and ???

The Thunderbolt3 port that @kelemvor mentioned seems to be discussed only in the laptop context.

I'm in the market for a desktop for working from home, and so I was considering a bare-bones cheapie, but now it occurs to me that I could use it for video editing.

I did a bit of research.....please keep in mind that these are my thoughts only, other people will have different ideas that are just as valid and maybe more so.

To start with I've always preferred ASUS motherboards and AMD CPU's, so I'll go with those. They've always worked for me so I've stuck with those two....sort of like always buying Fords and thinking anyone who drives a Chev is crazy.

So I picked an ASUS Prime B550M-A.

It has 4 memory slots and allows a maximum of 128 GB. I'd start with one 16 GB SIMM and go from there. This gives you plenty of room to grow as your photo/video editing app is upgraded and your data files get larger.

It has an AM4 slot for an AMD processor. I'd go for a Ryzen 3.....just pick the cheapest as long as it's around 2.5 GHZ. Processing power won't be what limits you.

You can get an SSD or an SATA hard drive, whichever you prefer. The vendors I checked offer about 10 -12 times the capacity in the SATA hard drive for the same price as the SSD. That said, I've never come close to maxing out my existing 500GB hard drive and what I looked at was in the order of 4-12 TB. The SSD eliminates moving parts which is probably an advantage, however it's been at least 25 years since I crashed a traditional hard drive.....pick whichever you like, both will work with the ASUS board.

The ASUS board has a built in video card, but you'll probably want something better, particularly if you're working with video. This is where you want to spend a bit of money....probably something midrange like a Geoforce RTX 2060 or 2070. I checked local prices and the cards were around $500 CDN.

You need a monitor, but that's been covered in other posts, and a few bits and pieces that I'm sure you already know about.

If you have a few dealers close to you, see who can give you the best price on the full system.

 

[davehicks]

Good luck buying an Nvidia 2060 for less than double the retail price.