Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: michaelbiondo on September 02, 2015, 06:58:10 pm

Title: Need for speed! Lightroom & Photmatrix plug in 645Z files
Post by: michaelbiondo on September 02, 2015, 06:58:10 pm

Need a second computer in the studio so I am looking for a Mac to run Lightroom & PS with 645Z files. Workflow includes exporting to Photomatrix via the plugin.
Currently using a Early 2013 Macbook Pro 15 inch 2.7Ghz Intel i7 with a 759 gig ssd and 16 gig of ram. This is not a bad set up and does a pretty good job but I am wondering if there is anything to there in the Mac universe that would be significantly faster. Mac Pro? or a new Macbook Pro or save some cash and buy a used 2013/2014 Macbook pro? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
MB

Title: Re: Need for speed! Lightroom & Photmatrix plug in 645Z files
Post by: graeme on September 03, 2015, 06:26:44 am

New 15" MBP if it's portability is of use to you or a 27" imac ( retina or otherwise ). The Mac Pro might be a good idea if you need more than 32GB RAM but my impression of the machine is that you're shelling out a huge wad of cash for two high end graphics cards that will sit there doing very little most of the time. And for most photo editing tasks it won't really be noticeably faster than the imac or MBP.

Title: Re: Need for speed! Lightroom & Photmatrix plug in 645Z files
Post by: michaelbiondo on September 03, 2015, 07:23:49 am

thanks for info, I hear that Lightroom uses the graphics cards but am not certain if that applies to the cards in the MP.

Title: Re: Need for speed! Lightroom & Photmatrix plug in 645Z files
Post by: graeme on September 03, 2015, 09:23:41 am

Quote from: michaelbiondo on September 03, 2015, 07:23:49 am

thanks for info, I hear that Lightroom uses the graphics cards but am not certain if that applies to the cards in the MP.

Yes, Lightroom will use the graphics card on my retina imac but it doesn't seem to use it very effectively. I can't recall reading any reports / reviews stating that the MP's graphics cards make Lightroom fly.

( I'm no expert on this stuff: I just went through a similar buying decision a couple of months ago. In the past I've used Powermacs & a previous gen MP but this time went for the imac. The new MP just didn't convince me on a cost performance comparison. Maybe it would if I was working 12 hours a day on 80 megapixel files & editing 4K video. As ever YMMV ).

Title: Re: Need for speed! Lightroom & Photmatrix plug in 645Z files
Post by: rdonson on September 05, 2015, 07:22:34 pm

If you're willing to wait until October its a good bet that Apple will announce a new lineup of Macs featuring the new Intel Skylake processors and other goodies.

Title: Re: Need for speed! Lightroom & Photmatrix plug in 645Z files
Post by: michaelbiondo on September 10, 2015, 07:13:07 am

Defiantly willing to wait a bit to see what comes out in October.