What's your setup??

[MNRyan]

This area's been kinda quiet, so I thought I'd start a new thread that might give some people some insight on what people are using for editing.

I have a
HP Envy 17 laptop
Intel Core i7-740QM 1.73-2.93 Ghz
6gb DDR3 memory
1gb ATI 5850 graphics
HP Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display (1920x1080)
dual 500gb Hard drives
For software I use Adobe CS5, Elements 9 and Lightroom 2 all running on Windows 7 Pro.
I dual screen with a Samsung PX2370 monitor and calibrate with the Spyder3pro. For printing I use an Epson Photo RX700 (max 8"x10") and Photo 1400 (max 13"x19"). I'd like to update my second monitor to a HP zr24w, but that's going to be down the road a little bit.

[flyinion]

I know the post above me (for the moment) is spam but I'll respond to the OP since I just now saw this .

Home built system:
Core i7-860 overclocked from 2.8Ghz to 3.5Ghz
8GB of DDR3
GTX560 Ti (not the newer and slower GTX560 non-Ti)
Samsung T220 1680x1050 TN panel, cal'd with Spyder3 Express
WD Blue 640GB HD, old Maxtor 250GB for scratch drive
Software, Photoshop CS3, Bridge CS3, Win7 64bit Pro

I really want to upgrade to an IPS panel now that you can get them for 300 or less, but now I'm at the point of choosing between more computer hardware, stuff for the car, more camera gear (lenses), or getting my TV calibrated again. I think the TV is going to win out for the near future.

Oh and I don't do any printing, yet at least. All pics are stored on computer and DVD, and when I need to show something it's usually to people over the Internet so all pics are edited for that for the moment. I do have a printer but it's a low end 5 year old HP.

[Canuck935]

I too have a home built system.
Phenom II X4 965
Radeon HD 4670
8 GB DDR3
SATA III SSD boot drive
1TB WD Black internal
1.5TB USB 3.0 external backup
1.2TB WD passport portable external backup

Win7 x64, Lightroom 2.

The best part: HP LP2475W monitor. Worth every penny and then some.
Huey calibration.

Printing is all done through online services (Adoramapix, Shutterfly).

[Roger79]

This thread was interesting to me because I'm currently looking into getting a new Computer/Monitor setup.
First off let me say I was looking into the IMac with the 27" monitor and all the bells and whistles, BUT then I heard while the Apple Monitor looks nice when reviewing pics, when it comes time to print your images, they tend to be a bit on the darker side.
AND I've heard you can't "Calibrate" Apple monitors, (as in Color Monkey) Is this true???

So now I'm wondering what I'm going to get.
I want the LARGE monitor for sure, can I connect a ViewSonic 27" monitor to a Macbook Pro for example???
The laptop would be convienient when out in the field, so being able to attach a large monitor back at home may be the way of killing two birds with one stone... if thats possible.

I'm just starting out in all this acquire photo equip. and as you all know, none of it is cheap.
So any help in this would be great.

Thanks,
Roger

[Franglais]

You don't think that the configurations listed so far are perhaps overkill for photo editing?

I just bought myself a new laptop with a similar configuration in order to simulate an environment with 5 EXCHANGE servers and 4 Active Directory servers all running simultaneously in 5 different networks. I use it for photo editing as well:

- DELL XPS laptop (in case I have to take the thing in to work to show people)
- Intel i7-2630QM processor (2GHz > 2.9GHz)
- 8GB RAM
- 750GB internal drive
- 64GB SSD external + 2TB classic drive external both USB3
- Samsung 24 inch flat screen over a TARGUS USB thing
- Windows 7 64 bits

It did my simulation pretty well, though it's not blazingly fast.

[Eleanor Maw]

I use a Mac Book Pro. I gave up on Windows two years ago.
I use Photoshop Elements 8, ArcSoft PhotoStudio 6 & Nikon Capture NX Ver.1.1.0.

[Roger79]

So are you able to "Calibrate" your Apple Monitor???
or ???
Thanks for your input...

[Eleanor Maw]

How often does your PC crash???
I have yet to have my Mac crash !!!

[n8]

geez. all I use is my dell studio xps lappy, cs5/lr3, and a handful of plugins. its hardly a pure photo machine, but it gets the job done. Eleanor, I'm very surprised to see you use elements with that list of high rent glass.

[flyinion]

You don't think that the configurations listed so far are perhaps overkill for photo editing?

Mine was actually built for gaming. It just so happens that means it can do photo editing with no problem as well

[Franglais]

Mine was actually built for gaming. It just so happens that means it can do photo editing with no problem as well

That makes sense. I guess you overclock to increase the sheer speed of your 4 cores to get more frames/second in your game?

I bought mine to simulate a complete computer suite and it's been very useful. I don't need sheer processing speed as much as many processors to run hundreds of tasks in my virtual machines - and - most importantly - disk I/O. I can't run multiple instances of EXCHANGE 2007/2010 without an SSD drive, though I've never been able to figure out why. They've done something to the database..

I notice that Lightroom goes through a batch of files faster on the new system but then it was pretty fast on the old one as well.

[Eleanor Maw]

geez. all I use is my dell studio xps lappy, cs5/lr3, and a handful of plugins. its hardly a pure photo machine, but it gets the job done. Eleanor, I'm very surprised to see you use elements with that list of high rent glass.

Elements does me fine, it get the job done, software goes out of date so soon that there is little point in spending lots on something you would hardly use, I don't swap heads on photos and put UFO's in the sky, so Element does what I want.

[flyinion]

That makes sense. I guess you overclock to increase the sheer speed of your 4 cores to get more frames/second in your game?

That and I also use the computer for Folding@Home when I'm not doing anything else with it. Overclocking combined with the 4 physical and 4 "virtual" hyperthreading cores gives me essentially 8 cores of power for that. Well, more accurately, the overclocking helps me complete the work units faster. For those not familiar with it, Folding@Home is a distributed computing project from Stanford University that works to understand how to cure diseases like diabetes and alzheimers.

[DaveWilky]

I have a self built system that I used for gaming 2 years ago, But now i only use the PC for my photograhic work.

Asus P5Q Deluxe motherboard
Antec 1200 Case
2 x 500gig seagate sata hdds
Asus DVD writer
8 gig DDR2 memory
Asus Xonar DX2 Soundcard
Nvidea GeForce 8800GT graphics Card
2 x 24" AOC monitors
Logitech G15 keyboard
Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet
Logitech 5.1 Speaker system.

[Anbesol]

Recently got an upgrade.

Main:
Q8400 quad core
4gb, Geforce 8400 (DX9 w s-vid), Samsung 730B 17 inch.
3 Terabytes and growing

Laptop
Core I3-380M
4GB Memory, 12 cell battery, 500gb

Theater
Quad Q8400
2GB High performance memory, 500gb, ATI All-in-wonder/DX10

Son
Athlon X2 3800+
2.5 GB Memory, Radeon X700, 250gb

And his laptop: Athlon XP-M 3000+/768mb ram

All on Windows 7 except the athlon xp laptop, which is on ubuntu.

Canon ip4300, Pro 9000 Mk II

Win 7 doesn't crash eleanor, windows xp was crap, but windows 7 is a solid OS. Plus, I don't have to fork over extra money for a special logo that only works with select proprietary hardware. I'll keep my windows, I enjoy a computer that works with reasonably priced hardware.

[Marc2B4]

OK,
I use an iMac 24" w/ 8 GB RAM, CS5, OS 10.6.8
MacBook Pro 15" W/ 2 GB RAM, CS5, OS 10.6.8

Kodak XL 1400 Dye-sub
Kodak 5300 AIO Ink-Jet

Everything works for me. Haven't touched a Windows machine since I retired from the military; I don't own anything made by Microsoft. I shoot, edit, transmit to the paper. Any prints I make are usually for give away to friends or to help me in the field out shooting. For large format printing, I send out to a lab.