PC/Laptop advice for editing

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KernowNelly

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Neal
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Hi all,I am currently using a laptop for photo editing. The resolution is only 1366x768. Is it better to have a hd type display 1920x1080?
Unsure weather to ditch the laptop and buy a desktop or to keep the laptop and connect an additional screen for editing?

Also the laptop has 4gb ram. Will upping that to 8gb make much of a performance improvement?

Thanks in advance
 
The more pixels the better but you also have to consider pixel density. I have a 27" screen and a 10.4" tablet which both have 2560 x 1440 pixels. Which do you think it's easier to edit on?
As a generalisation, laptop screens aren't that good for photo editing anyway so something like a 24" Full HD display would be a vast improvement, as long as your laptop can drive it.
The RAM upgrade should be beneficial but a few more details of the laptop would help such as the CPU and what display ports it has so we can tell if it's worth upgrading or if replacement would be the better option.
 
PC with the biggest graphic card you can afford, and do not buy a cheap cheap screen.
 
When looking at screens, you'd benefit from 1080p over your current screen, definitely. But make sure it's good quality. I'd recommend finding an IPS screen which are normally a bit pricier but in my experience worth it!

When is your laptop slow, doing what? RAM will help you have more applications open at the same time for multitasking, but you may not even be using all your current RAM.

RAM is cheao to upgrade, but also consider an SSD to replace your hard drive. That's a serious speed boost.
 
neil_g said:
Well that depends. Even the onboard Intel i series processors GPU will run a 2560*1440 fine for editing.

Depends what apps and whether they're significantly GPU accelerated.
Click to expand...
I understand Photoshop is gpu accelerated, although I'm not ware to what extent, I think Lightroom is cpu dominated. Shame as if Adobe could get it to utilise cpu and gpu it would fly along!
 
I always use a desktop with something like a 23" screen, I find ALL laptops frustrating that way
but I guess it's just my eyes.
 
Brazo said:
I understand Photoshop is gpu accelerated, although I'm not ware to what extent, I think Lightroom is cpu dominated. Shame as if Adobe could get it to utilise cpu and gpu it would fly along!
Click to expand...
Haven't read the spec for any of the later versions but ps GPU acceleration was always very limited anyway.
 
what operating system are you using, what is the processor, what is your budget....
 
thanks for the replies guys. the laptop i have uses a amd A8 7100 Raedon R5. It says 8 compute cores 4C +4G 1.80ghz (i take it that its a quad core). 4gb ram at the moment. Im running Windows 10.
There is a standard vga port and a HDMi. It seems slow when loading LR and PS (using CC)

I was once quite good with computers (many years ago) Have built a few systems. The last was in 1999 with an AMD K62 750mhz processor lol.

Budget is sub £500 which i know is on the tight side of things and I may have to save more to increase that by a few hundred ££s
 
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Max out your ram, fit a 1 tb ssd, get the dell. That's about £500 give or take.
 
I have a similar laptop to you

My HP laptop is running the AMD A10 4655m which is a couple of years older than your CPU.
I maxed the RAM out to 16gb and popped in a 128gb SSD for software.
In Photoshop CC there are no noticable performance issues unless you are heavy on some of the more intricate filters.

I tend not to use the screen for editing though and instead output to a Dell 2311h monitor for more accurate renditions.

I guess it boils down to how fast you need your workflow to be and or whether you need a new desktop or not.
 
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I Use a 5k Mac and 4k Windows laptop, I find the MAC is much better for viewing and real estate, but that's most prob because the screens 27 inch, as long as your 1920x1080 or bigger get a couple of 27Inchs Monitors and have fun
 
I would defo go with a decent external screen, also get a colour calibration device such as a spyder. Unless you calibrate a screen even the best ones will not be accurate. I woul maybe add some ram but just go with that and see how you get on.
 
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