Computers for Photography

 Computers for Photography

by William Lulow

These days, we are all using computers or smart phones for most of our work. With the recent pandemic they have become more important than ever. The only thing that worries me about them is that they, of course, rely on electricity or battery power to do their work helping you do yours. So, at some point they are vulnerable.

So, with photography, because images are so large, you need a computer that can handle them. One of my DSLRs is a “crop-sensor” version of approximately 20MP (million pixels) of sensor space. That is enough to create an approximate 60MB file for EACH JPEG image I shoot. My “full frame” DSLR creates a 75MB file (approximately). If I shot in RAW, the crop sensor would produce roughly a 90MB file and the full frame, a 120MB file. You can see how, if I shoot two or three hundred images on a typical photoshoot, I might wind up with several GB of files that would need to be imported, organized and edited before the job is delivered to the client.

Requirements:

Here are the minimum requirements a photographer would need in order to process images easily and quickly.

1. A fast enough CPU (command processing unit) of at least 2.9 GHz. This refers to the power of the computer itself to process commands. These days, CPU’s of 3.4 GHz are common. Many are still around the 2.9GHz level.
2. Enough memory. Again, the more memory your machine has, the faster it will work. For photographs, you need at least 16GB of RAM (DDR). 32GB is really good, 64GB is better. These machines tend to be more on the expensive side for Windows as well as Apple. I have looked at both. I think Apple is a superior machine on which the memory works faster and it is much less likely to break down. Plan to spend in the $2000 to $3000 range.
3. External Drives. These become very important in terms of sheer space. I now have four externals, each of which holds 4 TB of files. That’s usually enough for several years worth of professional grade images where EACH SHOOT is comprised of 1-4 GB of files. The reason you need external drives is for storage. Many computers come with only 500GB or 1 TB of storage on the built-in hard drive. You will need much more than that for any professional use. These days you can purchase storage space on the “Cloud” and it is worth investigating if it’s necessary for the work you do. The one common thing to remember about computers is that they are machines. Even the best of them will develop problems sooner or later. So, it is wise to have your worked backed up several times over. Redundancy is the key to not losing any work.
4. USB Hubs. With all the peripherals that go with computers and all these external drives, here are some of the items that will require USB connections: (I am up to 10 connections already and there are probably more. I have 3 USB Hubs in addition to the ones built into the computer. If you are using an IMac or a similar Apple product, you have ONE USB input). The extra wires behind and underneath my desk are truly labyrinthian).
   1. Monitor
   2. Wacom tablet (for accurate retouching)
   3. At least 4 external drives
   4. Webcam
   5. Printer (I have three)
   6. Scanner
   7. Speakers
   8. Microphone (I have a separate one because I also play music)
5. Software for workflow. These days there are a few image processing software packages. The most well-known is Adobe Creative Suite which typically consists of Photoshop and Lightroom. I use Adobe’s Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop all in conjunction with each other. They are always open on my desktop for speed and ease of use.

A typical SSD (solid state drive) that I use for storage. This one is 2TB and so far, it has stored 6 years of files for every job I have done during that time:

A typical workflow provides editing using all of these programs open at the same time. I use Lightroom or Bridge to import all the files from a shoot. I prefer Bridge because the editing and intake modules are a bit simpler than Lightroom, especially when I have clients looking over my shoulder while I’m working. They then go into Lightroom for bulk actions on a take from one shoot, for example, and then to Photoshop for editing and retouching individual images.

Those professionals who like to shoot in RAW format need to remember that the files need to be converted to JPEGs before they can be transmitted to the client. For most commercial uses I usually shoot in JPEG mode mainly because of the ease of working with that format and because my JPEG files contain more than enough information for any commercial use. If you love the extra information that RAW files provide and you have the time to edit each one on your own, then, by all means shoot RAW. As a further note however, I usually import files into Photoshop using its CAMERA RAW feature which gives me some extra leeway before the file actually gets to the retouching stage. It is imported as a rasterized file in Photoshop and can be saved in the JPEG format.

Quite a while ago I got a WACOM tablet with a stylus to help the editing process. It has become a necessity for any kind of really good retouching. A mouse is way too cumbersome. Another item I obtained a few years ago is a 27-inch monitor. It’s much easier to see and to enlarge images for detail work. In addition, since I used to have two monitors, one for tools and one for the image, it’s way faster to have all the necessary canvas add-ons and tools on one screen. It’s not necessary, but it works far better than a laptop. You can probably use a large monitor in conjunction with your laptop, but I have never done that.

The takeaway from this article is to make sure you have enough storage space and that your machine can handle the size files that you will be creating most. Most of my images are post-processed on my regular desktop machine, but they can be done on my laptop as well. It is certainly easier with a large screen.

As a postscript, I just researched a top-of-the-line iMAC with a 27-inch monitor, CPU power boost up to 5GHz and 128GB of DDR RAM. Price: $6,000. And, there are other accessories and peripherals that could easily cost you another $1000. So, if your work can pay for it, that’s what the best computer system would cost.