Laptop, desktop, or both

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What are you using for photo processing

  • Laptop

    Votes: 22 33.3%
  • Desktop

    Votes: 27 40.9%
  • Both

    Votes: 17 25.8%

  • Total voters
    66
27" iMac, the last one with Intel chip. I would consider using a laptop with external monitor, but the iMac has so far been the better deal dollars and cents wise.
 
Both
At home I use a MacPro Desktop (2019) along with two 32-inch 4K Sharp Monitors (Sharp now out of business but monitors still working well). I love the large monitors side by side when working on my projects.
When traveling, I was using my 16-inch MacBook Pro, but in interest in saving weight when traveling with all my camera equipment, I recently have been instead using a 13-inch MacBook Air. On the road, I use the laptop mainly for downloading imaging and culling them. I save the serious post processing for when I get home.
I also use a laptop for doing presentations at Camera Clubs. Often a multimedia slide show put to music. Or teaching using lightroom, photoshop or with Keynote. And for that I prefer using the 16-inch MacBook Pro. And for this I also bring a Canon Realis 1900x1200 projector and a Samson portable sound system.
 
Laptop.

M1 MacBook Air here. 2TB storage, and I keep my whole LR library on it. Files are backed up over the LAN. It's fast enough to quickly cull my Z9's bursts and render my GFX100S RAWs. It can do all that on battery with no fan noise, for hours on end.

I have a 34" Thunderbolt monitor that has a keyboard, mouse, and webcam hanging off it, and I plug my work laptop into it during the day, and my MacBook into it in the evening. The Mac's monitor becomes a second screen during editing. Although many times I just edit on the laptop

I do have a gaming desktop, but it doesn't get used for photography.
 
Mac Studio for my work at home. Have 2 27" monitor, Eizo and Nec Spectraview. Both run at 25xx x 1400 (?) resolution, not 4K

Macbook Pro for life on the road which i mostly downloading, backing up and to a limited extent, culling images. I do very limited editing in the field, most to show things to my wife or friends.
 
I bought one of the last generation 27 inch Intel iMacs and bumped up the RAM to 48 GB. It handles all my photo software.

I recently got a 14 inch MacBook Pro with M1 chip for traveling. It’s significantly faster than my desktop.
 
I use a 2021 14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro on the road. My home desktop is a 2013 27" iMac that runs Mojave to run some old 32 bit games, so it doesn't run the latest versions of Lightroom or Photoshop or can read photos from my OM-1 and OM-5. I have a new Mac Studio (10/32 with 32GB RAM and 2TB storage) and Apple Display sitting on my desk, that I will start using later today or tomorrow. Trying to get some loose photo projects finished before I jump into that, but it is staring at me crying to be fired up.....
 
I purchased a 16 inch MacBook Pro with M1Max with 64 Ram and 4T SSD along with the LG monitor purchased from Amazon. (The monitor was made for Apple devices and has similar specs to the Studio Monitor from Apple at a lower price. LG 27MD5KL-B 27 Inch UltraFine 5K (5120 x 2880) IPS Display with macOS Compatibility, DCI-P3 99% Color Gamut and Thunderbolt 3 Port.). This is a great combination with the portability of a laptop and the large screen monitor. I believe it does everything the Studio does and also saving the cost of the required keyboard and mouse/or trackpad needed for the Studio.
 
I voted both.

My main editing machine is a desktop PC which I had made to my specification early in 2019 by our local computer store. When travelling I use a Windows laptop for downloading images daily from my memory cards and also for quick edits on the best shots each day - the wife can't/won't wait until we get home :(
 
For critical photography work, it's all about the monitors for me, not the computer platform. I use 32" 4K monitors with nearly 100% AdobeRGB, so all the color and higher the rez. And I calibrated it on a schedule.

You can hook up a good monitor to a desktop or laptop, Mac or PC. The video card means less if you don't game or edit video.

I clicked the "Both" option for this thread, but I only use the laptop for photography on the road. And even then, I never do any critical final work on it (because I don't bring the big monitors with me). But mostly, I just don't want to take the time for hunkered-down, fine post-processing work while I'm on the road.

What comes after "high end monitors" is processing power. To me, this also spells "desktop" because while you can get a fast CPU and lots of memory for a laptop, I have my desktop finally tuned with for performance in all ways—no laptop comes close.

Chris
 
Both - I use a 27 inch IMac with a second 27 inch monitor at home and a Macbook Air for travel. I do only limited editing on the laptop since I have vision issues and its screen is just too small. I keep hoping for a new 27 or 30 inch Imac because buying the Mac Studio would require buying an additional monitor. If my eyesight were better I'd consider a fully speced 16" laptop connected to my existing external monitor as a one-computer solution.
 
iPad Pro and iMac 27" 5K
Affinity Photo runs on both .... so when I'm out I can upload to the iPad and edit if needed, plus back up straightaway to my SSD drive. my iMac screen is a delight.
 
Both for me. I use my laptop for mostly culling images. I use it when I travel and when I am at home. I save resulting images to an external hard drive. Then I put them on my desktop for processing on a much better monitor. If I need to male some quick Jpegs I do it on my laptop with minimal processing.

If I were laptop only, I would have a large monitor to view and process images. My 15 inch laptop screen is not big enough IMO for editing.
 
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I have a 27" iMac and use my work laptop while traveling to download, cull and maybe do some light editing. I import the catalog from my trip into my main LR catalog on my iMac when I get home. But sometimes I would like the ability to work on my main LR catalog while sitting on my back patio or elsewhere around the house - not for critical editing but for organizing and maybe light editing. Because Apple overcharges so grotesquely for their SSD capacity I store my LR catalog on an external USB SSD and my image files on an external HD. I'm curious if anyone else works like this and if so how do you manage your files? I'm not really sure how I could seamlessly share/sync my catalog and image files between my iMac and a laptop (even if I were to get a MacBook Pro) without having to just physically disconnect the drives from my iMac and connect to the laptop each time I want work on the laptop, and then disconnect from the laptop and reconnect to the iMac when I'm done. That seems annoyingly cumbersome. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
I have a 27" iMac and use my work laptop while traveling to download, cull and maybe do some light editing. I import the catalog from my trip into my main LR catalog on my iMac when I get home. But sometimes I would like the ability to work on my main LR catalog while sitting on my back patio or elsewhere around the house - not for critical editing but for organizing and maybe light editing. Because Apple overcharges so grotesquely for their SSD capacity I store my LR catalog on an external USB SSD and my image files on an external HD. I'm curious if anyone else works like this and if so how do you manage your files? I'm not really sure how I could seamlessly share/sync my catalog and image files between my iMac and a laptop (even if I were to get a MacBook Pro) without having to just physically disconnect the drives from my iMac and connect to the laptop each time I want work on the laptop, and then disconnect from the laptop and reconnect to the iMac when I'm done. That seems annoyingly cumbersome. Anyone have any suggestions?
As John has stated you can get the photography plan 1tb thru Adobe and accomplish this and I do it often. You can upload your images through Lightroom mobile to the cloud, and they will sync back down to your Lightroom classic catalog where they will be waiting when you get home. You can do quite a bit in Lightroom mobile but not as extensive as Lightroom classic. I personally think Lightroom mobile is a good platform but you are limited because you can’t use plug-ins and a few other features that are in Lightroom classic once you have your images back over in Lightroom classic you can delete them from the cloud at that point, or choose to keep them in the cloud whichever way works best for you.
 
Laptop here.

Alienware x15 R2
12th Gen i9
2tb ss drive
32gb ram
Nvidia 3080 16gb video card
27" 4k monitor

Does all I need it to do and is portable if the need arises.
 
adobe has their cloud stuff. might be worth a look
I have a 27" iMac and use my work laptop while traveling to download, cull and maybe do some light editing. I import the catalog from my trip into my main LR catalog on my iMac when I get home. But sometimes I would like the ability to work on my main LR catalog while sitting on my back patio or elsewhere around the house - not for critical editing but for organizing and maybe light editing. Because Apple overcharges so grotesquely for their SSD capacity I store my LR catalog on an external USB SSD and my image files on an external HD. I'm curious if anyone else works like this and if so how do you manage your files? I'm not really sure how I could seamlessly share/sync my catalog and image files between my iMac and a laptop (even if I were to get a MacBook Pro) without having to just physically disconnect the drives from my iMac and connect to the laptop each time I want work on the laptop, and then disconnect from the laptop and reconnect to the iMac when I'm done. That seems annoyingly cumbersome. Anyone have any suggestions?
Ben, check out the workflow of Kathy Adams Clark. If this link does not answer your question, email her about her ctalogue location.

https://kathyadamsclark.blog/2019/03/24/external-hard-drives-and-photo-processing/
 
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