Newbie: Computer configuration for photo-editing.
 

I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

Thanks


ABC
Reply to NG please

Because

editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,

larger file sizes do have impact as does RAW and TIFF due to larger file
sizes.

Remember that some users of pro quality editing software really have very
demanding uses and huge image sizes to work with

If what you are using works OK it probably is OK

Aerticeus

Because

editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,

larger file sizes do have impact as does RAW and TIFF due to larger file
sizes.

Remember that some users of pro quality editing software really have very
demanding uses and huge image sizes to work with

If what you are using works OK it probably is OK

Aerticeus

Photo editing, in general, is not a resource hog. And even with BIG files,
buying the most RAM you can afford will generally be all you NEED to do to
get the job done. The extras will make the job easier, faster, more fun, or
provide an extra level of disaster recovery.

For instance, the basic graphics card that came with your PC (Which probably
grabs extra memory from RAM when it needs it) will work just fine with
Photoshop or PhotoImpact. BUT, a slightly better mid/high level graphics
card that comes with a larger amount of its own dedicated memory, will
display changes you make to the image faster than the basic card. This may
or may not be important to the amateur, but to a professional, where time is
money, it may be worth it to spring for a faster graphics card.

A faster processor will apply changes faster.

A RAID array helps guarantee that you won't lose your valuable images.

None of these things are essential to photo editing, and most people don't
buy them until they have a pretty firm idea of what area of their photo
editing chores they want to improve.


"ABC" wrote in message
...
I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

Thanks


ABC
Reply to NG please

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:29:02 +0800, ABC wrote:

I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

You don't need the latest video card for photo editing. It depends on
how long you are prepared to wait for your software to do something.
I have a 1.2Ghz system and its plenty fast for my Photoshop needs.

On Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:29:02 +0800, ABC wrote:

I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

You don't need the latest video card for photo editing. It depends on
how long you are prepared to wait for your software to do something.
I have a 1.2Ghz system and its plenty fast for my Photoshop needs.

ABC wrote in message . ..
I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

Thanks


ABC
Reply to NG please

So far, you do not seem to be doing the things that really strain
computer power. Gaussian blur and some fancy filters will take longer
than the things you mention. Resizing can also take some time if you
use some of the fancier algorithms for interpolation. I worked many
years with a setup like yours before recently upgrading. It worked
fine, but some of the fancier functions did take awhile.

ABC wrote in message . ..
I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

Thanks


ABC
Reply to NG please

So far, you do not seem to be doing the things that really strain
computer power. Gaussian blur and some fancy filters will take longer
than the things you mention. Resizing can also take some time if you
use some of the fancier algorithms for interpolation. I worked many
years with a setup like yours before recently upgrading. It worked
fine, but some of the fancier functions did take awhile.

ABC writes:
I ask bacuse I am learning Photoimpact 7 on a K6 600mhz with 384M RAM,
editing 2048x1536 jpgs. So far seems OK.---changing brightness,
rubbing out wrinkles, one or two layers ..etc.

Why are people talking about 2.6Ghz , 1G RAM , RAID ,superfast video
cards......etc. What am I missing? Which editing procedure will need
all that power?

It all depends on the size of image you are dealing with, how patient
you are, and whether you have to pay for the time you wait.

I occasionally used to work with 100 MB+ images on an old Mac with 40
MHz processor, and 24 MB of total memory. It worked; I just had to wait
for Photoshop to load the image tile by tile, apply the filter, and go
on to the next tile. But that was when 16 MB of memory cost $600.

In general, photo editors slow down greatly when you can't fit a couple
of copies of the image you are working on in memory. Your 3 MP images
take 9 MB each, so you have room for lots of them. But some people work
on 8 MP, 16 MP, or even 50 MP images, and those obviously require more
memory to keep from forcing the computer to use disk instead of memory.

Also, your K6 is probably in a motherboard that uses older SIMM memory.
This is rather slow at moving data from memory into the CPU. I once
compared my wife's K6-2 333 MHz machine with my Pentium II-350 for some
Photoshop work. The K6 was just about as fast as the PII for
computationally expensive operations, but for just scrolling around in a
large image the PII was at least twice as fast. The PII used PC100 DIMM
memory, which provided twice as much data to the CPU per fetch. Today's
computers have memory bandwidths that are several times again what that
PII machine could do.

Finally, if you're editing a few photos as a hobby, it doesn't matter if
you have to wait a while for operations. If you do this as a business,
time spent waiting is effectively time you aren't getting paid, so it's
worth spending more for faster hardware.

Dave
(who just upgraded his fastest machine to a Pentium 3-1000)

thanks very much.



ABC
Do not reply by email.


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