should I buy a macbook pro or pc to edit in lightroom?

[david_bain4]

<p>Hi all<br>

I am considering buying a 15 inch macbook pro with retina display to edit my pics in Lightroom but have some questions.</p>

<p>I know that laptops are not ideal for photo editing but while I am a serious-ish photographer, I am not a professional and, after a long day's work at a desk, I like to edit my photos sitting on a sofa at night!</p>

<p>I would prefer 17 inches to 15.4 but apple don't do 17 inches any more, yet I am inclining towards apple for four reasons: (a) I hear they're fast, (b) I hear the screens are great for picture editing, © I've had various frustrations with windows over the years, and (d) windows 8 in particular looks counter-intuitive.</p>

<p>But if I do go apple that will be a big change for me since I've so far been using a Dell Inspiron 1720 (1920 x 1080 resolution), which I've liked, though it's 7 years old and now sluggish.</p>

<p>I'd REALLY appreciate for any advice regarding any or all of the following questions -- thanks VERY much for your time in advance!</p>

<p>1. Is the macbook pro really a good deal better than the competition, regarding in particular itsscreen and speed? (It better be for the money!) One photographer told me she didn't like the retina display because it meant things looked very different on the screen compared with when printed. Is that right and a worry?</p>

<p>2. I take it that, as someone with a LR for pc license, I don't need to pay more to install LR for mac on it?</p>

<p>3. I take it that it would be straightforward transferring my pics and catalog from a pc to a mac?</p>

<p>4. While I am inclined to get the 1TB storage I could get less if I used an external hdd (whcih would also have the upside that my wife could edit our catalog on her computer without needing to borrow mine), but I take it that would slow the macbook down: both because an xhdd won't be as quick as a SSD, and because the link between xhdd and macbook would slow things down? If so, it seems silly to pay for the speed and then lose it by attaching an xhdd. Does that seem right? (I take it one day we'll all edit our pics in the cloud, e.g. using dropbox, but currently that would be very sluggish I am assuming.)</p>

<p>5. I could always attach an external monitor, I take it, if I decided that sometimes I needed something bigger than 15.4". Yes?</p>

<p>6. Importantly, it is cheaper for me to buy the macbook in the US. Are there signficant downsides tobuying a laptop for UK in US (e.g. different keyboard layout, inapplicable warranty, different power cord, etc)?</p>

<p>7. Finally, if I don't go for the apple, what alternative would you recommend? I hear dell xps are good (though also max 15"). Also heard good things about HP envy. The equivalent to my Dell, which I've liked, is I think the Dell 17R SE. Any views?</p>

<p>Thank you in advance SO much. I appreciate this is a lot of questions, but any advice you have under any of them would be REALLY appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks again</p>

<p>David</p>

 

[PaulCoen]

<p>1) I can't speak to the screen. One note about the Macs vs. the PCs - you can't easily add RAM to newer Macbooks. Make sure you get what you think you'll need when you buy it.<br>

2) My Lightroom retail purchases have generally included both PC and Mac versions. I think the retail license allows for installation on two computers. <br>

3) It's not that bad. For a smaller collection, I'd just copy over the network from one machine to the other. The Mac, using CIFS/SMB, can copy off a Windows file share. <br>

4) You don't say what kind of computer your wife has, so I can't speak to that. An external USB 3 hard drive should be reasonably quick. Just note that an external drive formatted for HFS+ for a Mac can't be read on a PC if she has a PC. <br>

5) Yes.<br>

6) It looks like Apple has an international warranty on Macbook Pros. That isn't the case with iPad/iPhone/etc. You can check that here: http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/ and I'd recommend calling them to verify. The only other international warranty I've had experience with is Lenovo (formally IBM) Thinkpads least some levels include an international warranty. Looks like accidental damage protection is excluded from the international warranty program with Lenovo. Not sure where HP and Dell are on that these days. <br /><br />7) If you don't go the Mac route, I'd also take a look at the Thinkpad W530. You can actually get a1920x1080 display with a built-in color calibration sensor. You can also go up to 32GB of RAM on them. Again, just make sure the warranty level is appropriate. </p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Most people with a Mac use Aperture, which is functionally equivalent to Lightroom. The problem you face with any laptop is a limited to calibrate the screen. You are not able to replace the video card with a better one, including one with a video co-processor. My X-Rite spectrophotometer is an older model, which is not fully implemented for use with a Mac. Nor can the small hard drive (usually solid-state) or RAM in the MacBook be replaced. A full set of Adobe tools takes a LOT of disc space., and starts to get comfortable with 32G of RAM. The processor in a MacBook is the same (i5 or i7) found on a high end PC laptop.</p>

<p>There are a lot of user-friendly features to recommend a Mac over a PC. However, photography works equally well on both.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>Most people with a Mac use Aperture,</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

Where is the data coming from?</p>

[J.W. Wall]

<p>Really doubt that Aperture is used anywhere near as much as Lightroom. And, LR works just peachy on a Mac.<br /> If you are concerned how your images might look on a new Mac, why not put some on a thumb drive and take them to a store where you can view them on your chosen machine?<br>

If you do get a Mac, be sure to get Applecare for it. If you are near an Apple Store, the One on One sessions can be very helpful. I think you have to purchase them when you buy the hardware.<br /> Some of the answers depend on what you are doing with your photos. If you are printing large, you'll probably want a beefier setup than if you only post them on the web. Choosing the convenience of editing on a laptop on the sofa, instead of at a work station, involves tradeoffs of the kind you are facing. Good hunting!</p>

<p> </p>

[digitaldog]

<p>I"m running a 15"MPB Retina maxed out, driving an NEC PA272W, it's awsome for LR/Photoshop. All the heavy storage is offline.<br>

Off the teahter, 15" is ideal IMHO, I have an older 17" MPB and it's a caffeteria tray! Too big. </p>

[charles_wood]

<p>I use a MBPro 13" Retina w/i7 @8 gigs memory & 256 Gig SSD. I use it primarily for travel but I find it runs LR almost as fast as my 2010 Mac Pro desktop. Some things to remember:</p>

<p>1. You can calibrate the screen to a very high degree using the tools in Preferences under Display. The IPS display of the MacBook Pro is excellent.</p>

<p>2. Use an external SSD or HD for additional storage. I have a 120 Gig SSD I take on trips and use it with a USB 3.0 adapter. Works well and reads/write from the external SSD w/USB 3.0 very quickly.</p>

<p>3. If the MB is going to be your only computer, use an external display of whatever size you want. For stills and most video editing, you will have no problem with the supplied video card or integrated processing. If you're a gamer, and it seems you aren't, there are better choices than a Mac. I've used my MBPro with my 30" Dell U3011 with no problems.</p>

<p>4. The MB has Bluetooth, so you can always add a full size keyboard and mouse or track pad, tuck it out of the way connected to a large display, and you'll forget you're working with a laptop.</p>

<p>5. I can't answer the question regarding international warranty, keyboard, etc. I suspect you could buy a wireless desktop keyboard in the UK and use it either USB or Bluetooth, and you'd be good to go.</p>

<p>6. MacMall, a US online seller, seems to have consistently the best prices on Apple current and closeout products, factory refurbs, etc., than any other source I've used in the US. They will also deal on Applecare pricing. They seem quite 'negotiable' and always eager to make a sale.</p>

<p> </p>

[simon_crofts]

<p>I'd go for Apple rather than PC. The 15" Retina is a wonderful computer in many ways. But it's Achilles heel is the Retina screen - the colour rendition of it is terrible. It can't be calibrated - because it doesn't show colour shifts accurately. It is almost unusable for photo editing.</p>

<p>It's in many ways a wonderful computer - but for photo editing, you have to plug in an external monitor.</p>

<p>I'm using a Macbook 17" and the screen is excellent. I suspect the Macbook Pro 15" non-Retina version will also have an excellent screen, but can't comment as I haven't used it.</p>

[john_deerfield]

<p>Just to add to some of what has been said, I would definitely want to store my media on an external hard drive (although I would prefer a Thunderbolt drive). And here's one of the small differences that add up over time with the Mac OS, you can call your external drive whatever you want and the drive stays with the name. In other words, it's harder to lose the connection between Lightroom and your media. On a PC, an external drive gets assigned an arbitrary letter assignment and then if you move the drive to a different PC that assigns it a different letter, now you have to reconnect your media!</p>

[EricM]

<p>Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the MBP (although copied directly from Sony Vaio) is just simply the nicest feeling laptop available. With the MBP you can run both OSx and Windows and therefore I feel you have the best of both worlds </p>

[ofey_kalakar]

<p>I don't know what people are talking about regarding upgrading MBPs. I have one and have easily upgraded my 750 GB HD to a 1 TB SSHD and installed 16 GB of 1333 DDR3 modules. The neat thing about the personal upgrade is that the innards of the MBP are really neatly assembled and secure. Mine I run OSX Mavricks (10.9) and Win8 x 64 with "classic shell" using VMWare 6. No problems and also use both LR and Aperture and CS6. The Win 8 side recognizes and uses the Mac network devices including printers and drives etc. Both systems share files between each other flawlessly.</p>

[virginia_john_mybusiness]

<p>I guess as a long time Apple user I can't imagine using a PC. I use to work at a PC/Microsoft office and they are so 20th century.</p>

[EricM]

<blockquote>

<p>I don't know what people are talking about regarding upgrading MBPs.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

They are talking about the msata connector to the hdd has been changed are now an Apple proprietary hdd connection. The most recent MBP's now have the ram soldiered to the logic board and make it impossible to upgrade or alter. </p>

[stevenseelig]

<p>I use a MacBook Pro (15") for two purposes and in two different formats:<br>

1. First I use it as a tethered computer in my studio so clients can see images as they are being taken. It works quite well and I use Aperture for the purpose.<br>

2. I also do editing on it but only when it is connected to a Thunderbolt display. I do this primarily at my second work location. I use Aperture and Final Cut Pro X to edit pictures and to generate video without difficulty with this structure. <br>

This year alone, I have processed 20,000+ images through my MacBook Pro with the Thunderbolt display or my iMac. I personally do not spend time editing pictures on the MacBook Pro without the Thunderbolt display.</p>

[Uhooru]

<blockquote>

<p>It can't be calibrated - because it doesn't show colour shifts accurately.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It actually calibrates and profiles quite well in my experience for a laptop. Far better than any other laptop I know of. Its still a laptop but its not too bad at all for photo work.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<blockquote>

<p>I use to work at a PC/Microsoft office and they are so 20th century.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Exactly the feeling I get when using MacOS X after Windows 8/Office 2013.... Without a doubt, MacBooks are gorgeous notebooks with great screens, but whether MacOS is really an advantage or not is a personal preference, and nothing else.</p>

<p>For me, the quality of the LCD panels would be a reason to consider an MacBook Pro (though I stick to desktops). All other arguments are either personal preference, or a wash with other brands. Macbooks aren't faster than regular notebooks with the same specs, prices for good quality systems are more or less equal, the internet hates Windows 8 but at the same time I see a lot of people also liking it after they try seriously for a bit - so, a lot of that comes down to the user itself.<br>

Depending on your budget, about the best LCD panels one may find in notebooks are the HP Dreamcolor IPS panels - but they're found only in their "mobile workstations" which come with very spicey pricing. But 17" is available: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/workstations/8770w.html</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>It actually calibrates and profiles quite well in my experience for a laptop. Far better than any other laptop I know of.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>We're using the MacBook Pro Retina 15" and a MacBook Pro 17". The Retina screen can be calibrated to be reasonably neutral-ish, but the problem seems to be that you can make significant colour shifts to the image and they aren't show accurately on the screen. So for example, you may make a large magenta or green shift, and the change seems to be a small one on the Retina screen but viewed on any other screen there has been a huge colour shift, which simply doesn't appear on the Retina screen.</p>

<p>We've noticed the problem ever since we got the Retina, when no one else seemed to talk about it. Apparently it's become common knowledge since.</p>

<p>The solution is to use the Macbook Retina with an external screen. We use it with an Eizo plugged in and it's absolutely fine. Someone else suggested a Mac screen with Thunderbolt connection - this is really the way to use the Retina Macbook for image processing. The 17" Macbook screen on the other hand is excellent, no problems there, and IMHO there's little need to use an external screen.</p>

<p>There are probably many fine PC laptops around - but when I was researching them a year or two ago, they all had relatively widescreen proportions to the screen. The MacBooks by contrast had more vertical real estate. This ruled out PC laptops for me for picture processing - widescreen formats are fine for horizontal images, but half my pictures are vertical format (and reading Word documents is also inconvenient for me on a widescreen format for that matter). Great for watching movies, but not good for picture editing. So that ruled them out. I don't know if better proportion screens have been introduced since, but it's worth watching out for.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<p>Having said that, the Retina is a lovely laptop in most other ways (except the inability to upgrade).</p>

<p>My suggestion would be either to get a Retina and an external decent monitor, and do image processing at home on the external monitor - use the Retina as a great portable computer for doing non-colour critical work out and about during the day.</p>

<p>Or probably the better solution is to get something like a non-Retina Macbook 15" (or 17" if you don't mind carrying the weight - the 17" is a superb computer and the screen is just great). Put in an SSD drive as the main drive, and swap out the DVD drive for the existing hard drive. This makes a huge difference to performance. You then have a superb image-crunching machine.</p>

 

[kerry_grim]

<p>Have you ruled out an iMac? I bought the cheapest version, basically to use just with Lightroom. I love it. Fast, runs many programs at the same time without slowing a bit, or crashing.</p>

 

<p>Still using a Windoze (pun intended) laptop...a Dell and a piece of junk...and this was an expensive laptop. I used to think very highly of Dell, but they seemed  to have lowered quality/prices to be more competitive. Took Dell a year to come out with a fix for the dreaded cursor (where it would randomly) jump to anywhere in text. Totally unacceptable, and lost faith I used to have with them. Mac may be my choice, but PCs are very capable and not meaning to start a mac Vs. PC war. Use what you like.</p>

 

<p>The U.S. (not sure about UK) has Apple Superstores with all the Apple products where you can see all the products. Computers are fully loaded. The stores are awesome, but usually have about 130 people there so it is annoyingly loud!</p>

[glenn_stewart1]

<p>1. I've had a lot of experience with Windows laptops over 20 years and never considered Apple laptops at all. They looked nice, but the price seemed like a premium for me.<br />Roughly 3 years ago though I decided on purchasing a Macbook Air. I needed something light for travel, and my Toshiba netbook at the time had a horrid user experience.<br />I can honesty say I have had nothing but an extremely positive experience. Firstly, using OS X is a significantly faster, leaner and cleaner experience that Windows. My background has been in Windows Systems Administration, so I am very aware of what is and isn't possible. But there have always been major flaws with the OS - which makes OS X even more desirable because the major flaws with Windows (bloated OS with dll's and libraries, odd placement of binaries and auto load, the need to format/clean every year) don't exist with OS X. Furthermore, laptops always have additional support software loaded from the manufacturer. A util for the trackpad, a util for the battery, a util for the video driver. None of that nonsense needs to exist in OS X - it's far more integrated.<br>

The OS also seems much faster (although Windows 8 is nearly there) on the same hardware specs compared with Windows.<br />As far as hardware goes, the quality and sturdiness of the Apple product is always imitated by other manufacturers. Samsung is probably the closest, but it still seems so clunky side by side with the Apple. Add to that excellent warranty and support. If things ever go wrong, a simple visit to the Apple Store will resolve any issue (or included phone support if required), and in the unlikely case of something going wrong, they will replace without issue and the receipt will show $0.<br>

2. Not sure about LR licensing. But Adobe treats both platforms identically.<br />Apple however has an excellent model for their software. Purchase anything once, and you have the right to use it on up to 5 personal systems for free.<br>

3. Extremely easy. OS X can read (read-only) NTFS, but for cross compatibility best to format on OS X as FAT. Transfer over the network is very easy as well. You can access SMB shares (normal Windows share) very easily.<br>

4. SSD internally is a given. Extremely quick. But with LR, spending more on a decent external Thunderbolt drive (or USB 3) will prove to be fairly quick. If you're doing something more intensive (e.g. HD video), there are Thunderbolt arrays out there that will be faster than SSD when striped.<br />On top of this, OS X is best used with a 2nd external for time machine - which makes backups so easy, you'll wonder how you lived without it (time machine backups don't need to be on fast storage for obvious reasons)<br>

5. The thunderbolt and cinema displays are fabulous. I am currently using 2 x 27" displays at the moment. OS X makes displays so damn easy. Microsoft should take notes. External displays have been much easier on OS X than Windows for over a decade. They have no excuse.<br />Simple HDMI connect to TV using the standard bluetooth Apple trackpad and keyboard, close laptop and your TV becomes a computer if you ever need it - else you can always connect it to an Apple TV and it can become a 2nd display, even if you computer is in the next room.<br />I sometimes take my keyboard/trackpad from the computer room, send my display to the TV in lounge room and use it there - VERY easy.<br /><br />6. If you're in the UK and you are familiar with the UK keyboard, purchase it there regardless of cost differences. Remember that the prices you see on the US website are ex tax.<br>

7. I have purchased 80+ laptops for business over the past 20 years. I have had bad stories about all brands up until this point. I've turned the corner with Apple and won't go back. Particularly bad experiences with Dell products. I've had a 1 in 5 failure rate. Their service (particularly when visiting my London office) has been horrendous.</p>

[simon_crofts]

<blockquote>

<p>Not sure about LR licensing. But Adobe treats both platforms identically.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Adobe seem to be very happy to switch your license between operating systems. We were going to switched some of the licenses from PC to Mac when we moved across. If I remember in the end we switched to Cloud at the same time so didn't actually have to move the licences in the end, but Adobe were happy to do it.</p>

<p>I'm using Lightroom on Mac. No problems at all, it's great.</p>

[angkordave]

<p>No doubt in my mind that a MacBook Pro is so far ahead of most PC Laptops for build quality and screen. You will have to spend just as much to get an equivalent PC Laptop with that screen quality. I used my late 2011 Macbook Pro with an external monitor for many months after selling my old PC which did not perform as well as the MBP even though the spec was higher.<br /> If you think you might want an Imac; dont overlook the Mac Mini. With i7 processor, Fusion Drive 16GB ram Firewire, & USB3. The small size belies the performance which is more than adequate for all my image editing LR, Photoshop and some video. You can choose your monitor and its more upgradable than the Retina MacBook or iMac. I use both Apple and Dell IPS displays.</p>

<p> </p>

[Brad_]

Google employees have a choice for platforms: Either Mac OS or Linux.

[david_bain4]

<p>This is odd; I've tried to leave this response three times without succcess. Third time lucky ...<br>

a. @ simon croft. If the rMBP screen isn't great, I won't get it. But I am confused since so many others say it is great, whereas you say it's unusable for photo editing. Is it possible that your machine is unluckily a dud? Or that the rMBP's representing a colour shift less than other laptops is a problem with the other laptops, not the rMBP? Very confusing?!<br>

b. If I decide to go for a non-retina 15 inch MBP or for a 17 inch MBP, any suggestions as where best to get refurbished and discontinued machines?<br>

c. If not Apple, then what? What PC laptop has the best screen for photo editing?<br>

Thanks<br>

d</p>

[david_bain4]

<p>PS. I meant to add (now I see my post is posting): THANK YOU all for spending the time on this; it's a great resource.<br>

d</p>