15" vs 13" Macbook for Lightroom / editing

rutteger

rutteger

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Previously used an old windows laptop with a reasonably sized display for LR / editing.

Subsequently went down the macbook pro route with an old 13" dual core machine. The machine still works ok-ish with a SSD and 8gb of ram, however do find the 13" non-retina display not that great for any work in Lightroom. These facts along with the duff SD card slot has turned thoughts to a 15" macbook with a retina display. Sure a few on here have a similar setup. How do you find the 15" display for use with LR, both cataloging and editing?
 
Good point and probably something I might have made clearer in my original post.

Prefer if possible to process and edit the images on the laptop screen whilst sat on the sofa etc. However if the 15" screen won't be much better than the 13" may indeed go down the route of an external monitor.
 
15" retina is perfect for editing - also drives a external monitor @60hz i did not look back moving over to one!
 
If it's to be your main system and portability isn't much of a factor then the 15" makes more sense.
 
Definitely a 15. I have both a 13 and a 15 retina, and the 15 is much easier to use for the design and photo work I do while out and about with it. Having a nice big screen on the desk that it can easily drive is also handy.
 
I find the 15 inch just that little to big to carry around, 13 is much more portable.
 
Have used both 13" and 15". Yes you can use the 13" but its far from ideal. 15" is much better
 
The 15" is about 2" better then the 13" to edit on :p But it is still a severe compromise. I much prefer to focus on my editing when I do that and use external screens. And I also much prefer the portability of the 13". The. Again you can only get quad core processors on the 15". Good luck :p
 
Any laptop screen is a poor compromise to edit on - you'll be just a little less cramped on a 15" than 13" - speaking from experience. While some are happy to do it, I save it for doing pics quickly to bung on facebook or a blog while travelling, rather than for serious editing.
 
Feedback appreciated. Tried the (old) macbook with an old external monitor and it does make using LR much easier. If moving to a 15" screen isn't going to be a massive win I'll put off the upgrade and go with the external monitor route.
If only the macbook had a decent dock solution.
 
rutteger said:
Feedback appreciated. Tried the (old) macbook with an old external monitor and it does make using LR much easier. If moving to a 15" screen isn't going to be a massive win I'll put off the upgrade and go with the external monitor route.
If only the macbook had a decent dock solution.
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External screen with 15" should make it faster due to the quad core processor ;)
 
dejongj said:
External screen with 15" should make it faster due to the quad core processor ;)
Click to expand...

Hah, yes I'm sure it would. My macbook is core2duo so well behind the curve. However have a SSD and decent amount of memory so it works well enough. But it's all justification for an upgrade regardless...
 
I have the 15" retina as well as the 13" retina (work one) and wholeheartedly recommend the 15. I don't regularly do "major" editing, mostly in Aperture and Photos, but nevertheless it's an excellent display! Only trouble is mine is fulling up, despite using iCloud Drive and photos! :(
 
LCS said:
I have the 15" retina as well as the 13" retina (work one) and wholeheartedly recommend the 15. I don't regularly do "major" editing, mostly in Aperture and Photos, but nevertheless it's an excellent display! Only trouble is mine is fulling up, despite using iCloud Drive and photos! :(
Click to expand...

iCloud won't free any space on your devices, it effectively just makes another copy somewhere else. It drives me to a furious rage!

*thread hijack over
 
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gremlin16 said:
iCloud won't free any space on your devices, it effectively just makes another copy somewhere else. It drives me to a furious rage!

*thread hijack over
Click to expand...

Use icloud for phone images and it works quite well across various devices. Can see it might be frustrating if you tried to use it with (for example) images catalogued by Lightroom.
 
Using couple of years old 15" myself... with an external 27 inch screen at the 'home office'.
On the road - it's 15" screen ... and then using my iPad Pro as an extra screen there... (comes nice and handy sometimes when editing on Photoshop CC on the iPad Pro with the pencil...)
Also find that having my PhotoMechanics open on iPad .. and then PS on the Mac ... it's just like using the external screen at home (and no need to swap between what's in view)
 
Indeed, the difference in "responsiveness" between my 12" core m Mackbook and 3.3ghz i5 iMac isn't really much. Sure, batch processing and editing video on the iMac is much quicker but for general in use responsiveness there's not much in it.
 
gremlin16 said:
iCloud won't free any space on your devices, it effectively just makes another copy somewhere else. It drives me to a furious rage!

*thread hijack over
Click to expand...
Agreed, I'm not in a pickle whereby I want to export my iCloud library to a hard drive, but there is not enough space on my mac to download the photos back to the hardrrive.. almost like they're stuck up there forever!
 
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