Recommend pc for editing

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Tilly112

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Tilly
Edit My Images
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I’m looking for a desktop computer for photo editing. Now I’m totally confused on what is the best device for what I’m needing. I mainly edit with lightroom and photoshop so I’m going to need something that runs these smoothly. Any help would be wonderful
 
Have a look here,https://www.cclonline.com/pc/business-pcs/ if you are going to be running LR, and PS i5, 12gb Ram, SSD and a biggish HDD,you don't need a fancy graphics card.
Give them a ring and talk through what you will use it for. They built mine which is specced as above with win 10 for £600 ish .
It has 3 year warranty and has never missed a beat in 2 years
 
You don't have that much choice for £500 with a new PC these days.

Probably best to go with an online company as suggested above.

In the high street a £500 PC will not be very good IMO.

I had a look at ones in Curries and the 500 machines are all 8gb ram and older CPU`s
 
Tilly112 said:
I’m looking for a desktop computer for photo editing. Now I’m totally confused on what is the best device for what I’m needing. I mainly edit with lightroom and photoshop so I’m going to need something that runs these smoothly. Any help would be wonderful
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Nowadays any computers will do fine for photo editing.

Depending on how much editing do you do, memory is the most important thing you have to look at, followed by 32bit vs 64bit version of Windows.

If you only just open a photo, adjust darkness and brightness, save photo, close. Then even a lowest budget computer could manage it fine.

But if you meant open two, three, four, or many photos in the same Photoshop. Do serious editing like, adjusting white balance, colours, exposure levels, burn and dodge effects, special effects, working with lot of layers, all that, then you may consider thinking about a little more memory, like going for 4GB or 8GB or as high as your budget can let you, and make sure that the Windows you have will need to be in 64bit which will work with more than 4GB or RAM, otherwise 32bit will limit the RAM to 4GB no matter how much more you have.

(Example: With 32bit Windows - If you have up to 4GB of RAM, you use up to 4GB of RAM, but if you have more than 4GB of RAM, like 8GB or 32GB, you're likely to be only using 4GB out of it, leaving the rest of space wasted. But with 64bit Windows, 8GB RAM means you are using 8GB, 32GB means 32GB.)

Any desktop computers will do fine, just keep your eye on how much RAM and if it is 32bit or 64bit Windows.

In the past (like 25 years ago) you would have to be carefull as to which computer is suitable for your needs. But today with modern technology and improvements with software, you don't need to worry as any computers will do fine, as long as you make sure you have a little more RAM.
 
Major Eazy said:
Nowadays any computers will do fine for photo editing.

Depending on how much editing do you do, memory is the most important thing you have to look at, followed by 32bit vs 64bit version of Windows.

If you only just open a photo, adjust darkness and brightness, save photo, close. Then even a lowest budget computer could manage it fine.

But if you meant open two, three, four, or many photos in the same Photoshop. Do serious editing like, adjusting white balance, colours, exposure levels, burn and dodge effects, special effects, working with lot of layers, all that, then you may consider thinking about a little more memory, like going for 4GB or 8GB or as high as your budget can let you, and make sure that the Windows you have will need to be in 64bit which will work with more than 4GB or RAM, otherwise 32bit will limit the RAM to 4GB no matter how much more you have.

(Example: With 32bit Windows - If you have up to 4GB of RAM, you use up to 4GB of RAM, but if you have more than 4GB of RAM, like 8GB or 32GB, you're likely to be only using 4GB out of it, leaving the rest of space wasted. But with 64bit Windows, 8GB RAM means you are using 8GB, 32GB means 32GB.)

Any desktop computers will do fine, just keep your eye on how much RAM and if it is 32bit or 64bit Windows.

In the past (like 25 years ago) you would have to be carefull as to which computer is suitable for your needs. But today with modern technology and improvements with software, you don't need to worry as any computers will do fine, as long as you make sure you have a little more RAM.
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You don’t even need to worry about 32 vs 64 bit any more, all computers are 64 bit nowadays.

But you’re right, pretty much any modern computer will run LR and PS just fine, they’re not intensive programs to run.
 
Nawty said:
You don’t even need to worry about 32 vs 64 bit any more, all computers are 64 bit nowadays.

But you’re right, pretty much any modern computer will run LR and PS just fine, they’re not intensive programs to run.
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Oh? When did computers nowadays stopped being 32bit? Well, last time I looked, it was a choice of 32bit or 64bit, but hey, so if most computers nowadays are pre-installed with 64 bit Windows, then great.

BUT: Notice to the OP (@Tilly112) - If you are buying a second hand, do check if it got 32bit or 64bit Windows when the computer have more than 4GB of memory (as computer could have been bought at a time when there was a choice of 32bit or 64bit, if it is like a few years old).

But otherwise if brand new, well like Nawty says, nowadays it comes with 64bit, so that leaves you to just focus on how much RAM the computer got, any "device" will do as long as it got a bit of more RAM as much as your budget can allow.
 
troutfisher said:
Have a look here,https://www.cclonline.com/pc/business-pcs/ if you are going to be running LR, and PS i5, 12gb Ram, SSD and a biggish HDD,you don't need a fancy graphics card.
Give them a ring and talk through what you will use it for. They built mine which is specced as above with win 10 for £600 ish .
It has 3 year warranty and has never missed a beat in 2 years
Click to expand...

Lovely thank you ill check them out
 
Major Eazy said:
Oh? When did computers nowadays stopped being 32bit? Well, last time I looked, it was a choice of 32bit or 64bit, but hey, so if most computers nowadays are pre-installed with 64 bit Windows, then great.

BUT: Notice to the OP (@Tilly112) - If you are buying a second hand, do check if it got 32bit or 64bit Windows when the computer have more than 4GB of memory (as computer could have been bought at a time when there was a choice of 32bit or 64bit, if it is like a few years old).

But otherwise if brand new, well like Nawty says, nowadays it comes with 64bit, so that leaves you to just focus on how much RAM the computer got, any "device" will do as long as it got a bit of more RAM as much as your budget can allow.
Click to expand...

So ram is the main thing I need to be looking for? Iv been told to get an external SSD drive and install light room on to that and I also have a 1tb external hard drive that I would store my photo on anyway
 
Major Eazy said:
Nowadays any computers will do fine for photo editing.

Depending on how much editing do you do, memory is the most important thing you have to look at, followed by 32bit vs 64bit version of Windows.

If you only just open a photo, adjust darkness and brightness, save photo, close. Then even a lowest budget computer could manage it fine.

But if you meant open two, three, four, or many photos in the same Photoshop. Do serious editing like, adjusting white balance, colours, exposure levels, burn and dodge effects, special effects, working with lot of layers, all that, then you may consider thinking about a little more memory, like going for 4GB or 8GB or as high as your budget can let you, and make sure that the Windows you have will need to be in 64bit which will work with more than 4GB or RAM, otherwise 32bit will limit the RAM to 4GB no matter how much more you have.

(Example: With 32bit Windows - If you have up to 4GB of RAM, you use up to 4GB of RAM, but if you have more than 4GB of RAM, like 8GB or 32GB, you're likely to be only using 4GB out of it, leaving the rest of space wasted. But with 64bit Windows, 8GB RAM means you are using 8GB, 32GB means 32GB.)

Any desktop computers will do fine, just keep your eye on how much RAM and if it is 32bit or 64bit Windows.

In the past (like 25 years ago) you would have to be carefull as to which computer is suitable for your needs. But today with modern technology and improvements with software, you don't need to worry as any computers will do fine, as long as you make sure you have a little more RAM.
Click to expand...

Yes I will be doing some serious editing not just the basics
 
Tilly112 said:
So ram is the main thing I need to be looking for? Iv been told to get an external SSD drive and install light room on to that and I also have a 1tb external hard drive that I would store my photo on anyway
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Here's a human analogy: You have a small desk, but too many paperwork all over the desk, as well as a typewriter, pens, books, and it will slow you down, because you're spending too much time lift up other papers to check for the paperwork you want which may be under the pile of papers.

So a low RAM like 1GB or 2GB of RAM is like a small desk to the computer. If you have too many application software open, like LR and PS at the same time, plus iTunes or whatever music player you use, and you're opening too many photos in Photoshop, plus working on complex editing. Computer gets blogged down. Computer telling you Out of memory is really more like computer telling you "I've got no room to work on another file!"

You as a human would move some of the paperwork off the desk and put it somewhere else, in a box, in a filing cabinet, whatever, in order to free up bit of space on your small desk.

Computer do similar, that is done by Scratch Disk, meaning computer puts files you are not working on, to the HDD, and when you want to work on them, computer swap inactive files to the disk, and bring active files from disk back to the memory. Hence the tiny noticeable delay before the file you want to work on becomes active.

So if you as a human want to work on more paperwork, what would you normally do? What would be your best option? If you suggest taking the paperwork to the table in the dining room because the table is bigger than the desk, then correct, and there is your answer...

Get more RAM for the computer to work with. The more RAM (ie: 4GB or 8GB or 16GB) you have (within your budget) the more files the computer can work with, specially with LR having to preview so many thumbnails, and Photoshop doing a lot of complex editing.

A 1TB external drive is fine for storage but is not fine for computer to work on top of it. To a computer, an external drive is like a briefcase to store and carry the paperwork, but not suitable as a workspace for you to write on your paperwork on top of a briefcase. It is good for saving your photos but computer still need more RAM to work on your photos.

When thinking about buying a new computer, RAM is likely to be the first thing most people would look for, but everyone is different, after that, worry about other specs like HDD space, CPU speed, etc., (If it was a portable things like iPad, memory stick, MP3 player, external HDD, it is mostly storage size they look for first.)
 
So I just got this given to me IMG_1251.JPG apparently it’s a gaming tower.. my brother is going to upgrade the ram to 64 or 128 and has told me to get a SSD also.. I don’t know what else the tower has inside it I’m not very knowledgeable in that area
 
That will do very nicely indeed.

Don’t worry about RAM that much, you need enough that performance doesn’t suffer but more than you need makes no difference to the performance. 8GB might be enough and 16GB is probably more than enough.
 
Nawty said:
That will do very nicely indeed.

Don’t worry about RAM that much, you need enough that performance doesn’t suffer but more than you need makes no difference to the performance. 8GB might be enough and 16GB is probably more than enough.
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So if we went for 64 that would do it nicely? Is also planning to get me an SSD drive I believe it be external. Is there anything it’s missing that I need? Such as HHD or CPU I’m not sure what these things are Iv just heard I will them in the machine I’m looking for. Do you have any recommendations on monitors?
 
Tilly112 said:
So if we went for 64 that would do it nicely? Is also planning to get me an SSD drive I believe it be external. Is there anything it’s missing that I need? Such as HHD or CPU I’m not sure what these things are Iv just heard I will them in the machine I’m looking for. Do you have any recommendations on monitors?
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In reality you don’t need anything more except a monitor, and if photo editing is your primary concern then a decent monitor should be where you spend your money, Dell Ultrasharp’s are often recommended but if not that then the modern standard is a 4K monitor of 24” or bigger. An SSD is only any good if it is internal and you are going to install Windows on it, otherwise it is pretty pointless, so make sure you have your Windows license to hand if you do make the changes (personally I wouldn’t bother right now).

Yes, 64RB RAM would be nice but probably not necessary, to be honest I expect you would be fine with 8 and 16 more than enough. RAM is a bit like booze at a party, if there isn’t enough then everyone is running around trying to grab it and no one ends up satisfied, but if there is enough everyone is happy and it makes do difference if you then plant a brewery outside, it just isn’t needed. To continue the analogy, if you are only editing a few photos then an 8 pack is probably enough.
 
I doubt you would find a noticeable difference between 16gb and 64gb of ram unless you do lots of video rendering.

Save the money and buy a fast SSD to put the operating system and Lightroom onto and that will make a huge difference in speed.
 
What about a graphics card? I’m not sure if there is one in there I’ll get my brother to look. And I’ll check out some monitors within my budget
 
Tilly112 said:
So I just got this given to me View attachment 131703 apparently it’s a gaming tower.. my brother is going to upgrade the ram to 64 or 128 and has told me to get a SSD also.. I don’t know what else the tower has inside it I’m not very knowledgeable in that area
Click to expand...

8GB of RAM is good enough. It is better and is more than enough for Lightroom and Photoshop. (I believe it is twice what LR and PS needed to work with.)

For LR and PS, 8GB is a good family sized dining table.

Save your money for something else, but if you really want a bit of more RAM, then double it to 16GB and that would be still good enough. No point in going over 16GB, so save your money and have spare cash left over for something else. Beside, most motherboards have a maximum amount of RAM they can work with.

128GB is bit of an overkill, it is like a long dining table you find in The Queen's home, too big for LR and PS, so really a wasted space.

Unless you're planning on doing a home-made Hollywood-style Sci-Fi action movie? :-)
 
Major Eazy said:
8GB of RAM is good enough. It is better and is more than enough for Lightroom and Photoshop. (I believe it is twice what LR and PS needed to work with.)

For LR and PS, 8GB is a good family sized dining table.

Save your money for something else, but if you really want a bit of more RAM, then double it to 16GB and that would be still good enough. No point in going over 16GB, so save your money and have spare cash left over for something else. Beside, most motherboards have a maximum amount of RAM they can work with.

128GB is bit of an overkill, it is like a long dining table you find in The Queen's home, too big for LR and PS, so really a wasted space.

Unless you're planning on doing a home-made Hollywood-style Sci-Fi action movie? :-)
Click to expand...

I think I’ll stick to 16gb then and spend it on the monitor as it’s a very big part of what I’m looking for and the screen needs to reflect true to life as in the future I’d like to print my photos maybe for just personal or to sell so.. what’s a good amount to spend on a screen? And what are the key things I should be looking for?
 
Adobe recommend 8GB as aminimum even though photoshops min requirements to work is 4GB. 16GB should be fine. Photoshop allocates a percentage, which I think is 70% in PS CC, which governs how much it uses. You can change this percentage but remember that the rest of the PC might need to use some also.

The bigger the image size that you have open in PS the more RAM PS needs. A rough guide is that PS needs 5 times the file size in RAM to work on it.

A converted RAW file on my D850 opens as a TIFF in PS at 260MB so PS will use 1.3GB of RAM. If you then start using layers in the image, which I do quite often then the file size increases and so does PS use of RAM. If PS doesn’t have enough RAM then it offloads to the scratch disc which results in slower performance.

Also recent versions of LR/PS have been designed to benefit from using multi core processors and GPU for some processes.

So whilst a basic spec PC will run it all there are benefits from upping the spec.
 
Major Eazy said:
8GB of RAM is good enough. It is better and is more than enough for Lightroom and Photoshop. (I believe it is twice what LR and PS needed to work with.)

For LR and PS, 8GB is a good family sized dining table.

Save your money for something else, but if you really want a bit of more RAM, then double it to 16GB and that would be still good enough. No point in going over 16GB, so save your money and have spare cash left over for something else. Beside, most motherboards have a maximum amount of RAM they can work with.

128GB is bit of an overkill, it is like a long dining table you find in The Queen's home, too big for LR and PS, so really a wasted space.

Unless you're planning on doing a home-made Hollywood-style Sci-Fi action movie? :-)
Click to expand...

Lovely I’ll just stick to 16gb of ram then I can spend that extra money on the monitor.. is there any spec that I need to look out for when buying the monitor?
 
Tilly112 said:
Lovely I’ll just stick to 16gb of ram then I can spend that extra money on the monitor.. is there any spec that I need to look out for when buying the monitor?
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Get an IPS monitor and check/ask what the policy is regarding dead pixels.
 
Tilly112 said:
BenQ GW2765HT LED IPS 27 inch Widescreen Multimedia Monitor (16:9 2560 x 1440, 1000:1, 20M:1, 4 ms GTG, DVI/DP1.2/HDMI1.4 and Speakers) - Black https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00M913DVG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_07eABb8B78FB4

Iv been recommend this what do you guys think?
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Your decision to buy should be based on the size of the monitor (not screen size), your desk space, and what kind of stand it got.

Think the same way as you would with buying a television set. Big for living room, small for kitchen counter, conformable viewing depends on how far or how close you are to the monitor, as you would with a television set.
 
Major Eazy said:
Your decision to buy should be based on the size of the monitor (not screen size), your desk space, and what kind of stand it got.

Think the same way as you would with buying a television set. Big for living room, small for kitchen counter, conformable viewing depends on how far or how close you are to the monitor, as you would with a television set.
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Yes I understand that however what about the spec of the actual monitor?
 
Tilly112 said:
Yes I understand that however what about the spec of the actual monitor?
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The monitor you linked to has a display capable of showing 100% sRGB colour space. Most cheaper monitors will display more of the sRGB colour space than RGB.

If you want greater RGB colour space then you’ll see that the price goes up.

There’s so many out there to choose from so a google search for monitors for photo editing will probably turn up a decent choice.
 
Tilly112 said:
Yes I understand that however what about the spec of the actual monitor?
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It is fine, possibly not the best but definitely not the worst.

Personally, if you have had recommendations and it suits your space I would just buy it. It's easy to get into tech-paralysis from reading reviews, wondering if it's the right thing to buy etc but the reality is that they are all good enough and the differences are only there if you compare side by side, which you will never do. Better to buy something and get on with enjoying it :)
 
Do you really want speakers built in? And it depends what you get up to image-wise whether a bigger colour space than sRGB is useful. It looks a bit all-singing all-dancing from my curmudgeonly point of view.
 
Gaz J said:
The monitor you linked to has a display capable of showing 100% sRGB colour space. Most cheaper monitors will display more of the sRGB colour space than RGB.

If you want greater RGB colour space then you’ll see that the price goes up.

There’s so many out there to choose from so a google search for monitors for photo editing will probably turn up a decent choice.
Click to expand...

It is probably not really worth the money for sub-4K display now unless the intention is to print a lot in house. It is a very decent monitor for sure on the budget.
 
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