Image Manipulation

stickroad

stickroad

stickroad

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If a Photographer needed a complete brand new system, he will be doing image manipulation, using adobe phtotshop stuff like that.

Would it be a Fast CPU and lots of RAM

or

a good Graphics card, and less of the above?

Everyone seems to be giving me different responses, i really need someone that knows i mean 100 percent sure.

Thanks
 
Pictures don't require massive graphics power. They certainly don't need 3D processing do they? :p

You want stupid amounts of CPU power and RAM for all those clever functions in PS.

I would recommend (on the graphics card route) getting a dual screen set up, or more. It made a huge difference to my own work to have so much wide space. Get something that can do massive resolutions - if you're using a digiSLR you could be looking at 3000px wide images and upwards. Even though you'd probably shrink them anyway, if you're looking for large scale high quality prints, you want that file to stay at the highest resolution, and a bigger screen makes it easier to work with high-res pictures. Imagine an a2 sheet of paper being displayed through a small monitor.

Plus...... big screens means more work area :)

I don't know what your budget is like, but there's an excessively fast form of storage about which uses RAM (RAMDisk), and makes for an insanely fast scratch disk in PS.
 
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Oh the budget is 1000 pounds:

What do you think of this?

CPU - Intel CPU Core 2 Duo E6600 2.40GHz £192

Motherboard - Asus P5B Skt 775 Intel P965 £84

Memory - Geil® Value DDR2 4.0GB PC5300 667MHz £210

Hard Drive - 2x 320 GB Seagate Barracuda® SATA2 7200rpm 16MB cache £111

Graphics Card - Connect3D ATI Radeon X1550 256MB DDR2 £45

Optical Drive - Pioneer DVR-111 Black 16X DVD £23

Power Supply - Coolermaster iGreen 500W PSU £55

Case - Asus TA-212 Series Midi Tower £26

Monitor - Philips 107E76 Black 17inc £160

Keyboard+Mouse - Advance Beige Multimedia Keyboard & Optical mouse PS/2 Bundle £5
 
^^

Possibly overkill with 4 Gb Ram ?

I would go with 2Gb and use the money for a bigger monitor or ideally dual screen 17" ( like my set-up :D )

The second screen is invaluable when Photoshopping on one screen and looking at the original image/ images on the second screen .

Just my humble opinion.

Cheers.
 
...and go for a nicer case & PSU. I forgot to say what helium said, a large high resolution monitor is pretty obvious. Oh if he's doing pro work- magazines and such- he should get the monitor calibrated. I guess you want two identical monitors purchased at the same time as they will have identical colour reproduction.

I'd probably say a 20" monitor is a minimum, although I would go for a 24". Highest resoultion you can get. A 17" 1280x1024 CRT is too small/low resoultion for huge images.
 
No, you don't need a middle/top end card for higher resolutions, a 128MB 2D passive videocard is plenty.

Scratch disc is temporary working area, loading up a 8 mega pixel image (roughly 40MB in RAW?) can takes hundreds of megs of memory, if you have several open. Once you run out of memory it'll use the hard disc. It really is painfull slow, I remember my old PC slowed down to a crawl once the main system memory ran out, HD acccessing when switching images, applying filters etc.

A 2GB, any core dual, two hard drives, ATI X1300 will be more than suitable. Get two 20" or 24" widescreen monitors and you're sorted.
 
I dont think i will be able to fit 2 screens in this Budget 1000pounds?

Also is it important to have fast ram like 800mhz or will 667mhz be fine?
 
Ok what is this setup like, Budget is £1000:

O/S - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 £58.74

CPU - Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz £204.44

Motherboard - Asus P5B (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £91.64

Memory - GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz £135.11

Hard Drive - 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB £133.92

Graphics Card - Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 256MB £46.99

Optical Drive - Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW £22.31

Power Supply -

Case - Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi £56.39

Monitor - Dell E207WFP 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor £199.74

Total : £973.90

Hows that?

Could someone recomend me a Power Supply please?

The Corsair personally i would go for that, but bit to good for what this guy is using it for.

And do CRT Monitors offer better picture quality over an LCD?
 
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For the power supply I would reccomend either the Antec neopower 430 or the seasonic S12 430. Both are excellent models while being some of the quietest around and very efficient.

The seasonic is probably the best bet as according to SPCR it is slightly better than the Antec (and cheaper). I have the Antec and can't fault it.

If you want to save a bit of money how about getting Antec P150? not the best looking case around but it has the neopower 430w psu built in and is an excellently built case (not to mention antecs legendary support). OcUK dont seem to stock it at the moment though. :confused:
 
You mentioned "Adobe Photoshop" in the OP.

I hope he's not expecting that included in the £1000 budget.

It costs ~ £450 :eek:

Mark
 
Ok guys after all of your help ive come up with this setup, how does it look?

O/S - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 £58.74

CPU - Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz £191.49

Motherboard - Asus P5B (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £ 83.37

Memory - GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz £129.24

Hard Drive - 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB £124.53 ( IN RAID 1 )

Graphics Card - Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 256MB £42.52

Optical Drive - Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW £ 22.42

Floppy Combo - Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Silver £14.09

Power Supply - Antec TruePower Trio 550W PSU £64.61

Case - Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi £56.39

Monitor - Dell E207WFP 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor £199.74

Is that ok, anything out of place?

Thanks for looking.
 
Spot on. E6300 if you want to save cash. Negligible difference especially when overclocked. Need a cpu cooler too, eg Zalman cnps9700 or ninja.
 
mrdbristol said:
You mentioned "Adobe Photoshop" in the OP.

I hope he's not expecting that included in the £1000 budget.

It costs ~ £450 :eek:

Mark
Click to expand...

Oh no lol, has that already. lol

And joeyjojo he wont be doing any overclocking. :)
 
20" monitor is a good start, but be prepared to upgrade once you realise you want more room :p

I went from one 19" TFT, to two of them, to a 24" and a 19" on the side!
and now i want a 30" instead of them both :(

need to find out if a macbook pro can power a dell 30" though :D

Whatever you end up getting, hope you enjoy it and make the most of it!
 
Thanks, i pretty much knew what kind of system a photographer would need, but wasent to sure about the Graphics side of things.

Some people i know said that i would need a good graphics card?

Video Editing is different though right? :)
 
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