Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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communick@viewfinder.pro

Mac book pro / photography (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by MDMPoster@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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Please help!! Hobby photograph —personal/travel/pics of my family/kids ! I have a lot of photos sitting on SD cards that need to be edited & organized.

I have an older Mac book pro and I’m looking to upgrade. What do you edit on? I’ve only used my iPad in the past with Lightroom cc, not Lightroom classic. However, I’m considering buying Topaz and understand a computer is needed to run. So now I’m considering switching to Lightroom classic — can anyone tell me the differences ? Do I have to ditch the iPad all together if I switch to Lightroom classic ? It would be nice to still use the iPad when I’m not using Topaz. have not yet tackled learning photoshop— future goal but don’t currently use it.

I love the simplicity of using the iPad but I’m open to using the laptop .

I’m really trying to figure out what I need to make things easy—looking to buy another MacBook!

I would also love recommendations on how/where you store your raw & edited images bc I have a lot of travel photos from over the years 😃

Here are my options (I can “afford” any of these but only if it’s worth the extra cost and not wasteful): my husband and I are thinking the 18 RAM is enough — thoughts ???

MacBook Pro 14 inch $1,999 M3 Pro chip (11 Core CPU 14 GPU) 18GB RAM 512 SSD

MacBook Pro 14 inch $2,399 M3 Pro chip (12 Core CPU 18 GPU) 18GB RAM 1TB SSD

MacBook Pro 16 inch $2,899 M3 Pro chip (12 Core CPU 18 GPU) 36GB RAM 512 SSD

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[–] Over-Tonight-9929@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Why Topaz? Topaz isn't the same as Lightroom. Topaz is more for 'special' things like noise reduction, upscaling, sharpening,... It's not an organizing and processing software like Lightroom is.

Just use Lightroom Classic. It's nearly the same as the other version but a bit more feature-packed and the interface is way better. Works on all devices however if you tend to post-process a ton of photos daily/weekly, a better machine is recommended. You tablet will do fine for family and travel photos...

[–] joshuaevan@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I’m an iPad-only user. For organising my photos, I use the built-in Photos app. For editing, I use Darkroom (which is an amazing piece of editing software) and if I need something more advanced I‘ll use Affinity Photo 2.

[–] SvnKswttr@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I switched from an Mid 2012 13" MBPro to the MacBook Air 2020 with the M1 two days ago.
The old MBPro took about 2 min for running a single image through topas. The MBAir does it's magic on the same images in less than 20sec. I got it directly from Apple as a refurbished model for less that 1k€

My 8GB RAM is sufficient.

Also using LR-Classing. Amazingly fast.

For the LR-CC-Version I cannot comment.

[–] chari_de_kita@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Base model M1 MBA with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD? Been looking at that as a potential replacement for my 2013 13" MBP (work computer) to tide me over until the prices of the older MBPs drop so I can upgrade from my 2019 16" MBP.

[–] SvnKswttr@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Yes, correct. Works as a charm :)
Only downsides: no integrated SD-Slot ans only one USB-C port.

But that's manageable

[–] FlakyConference6145@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Before buying Topaz also have a look at Affinity Photo 2. It's like Photoshop, is PS compatible, but at a fraction of its price. And you find tons of tutorials on Youtube.

There's also a demo available.

[–] HeWhoBringsTheCheese@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Get an M2 macbook pro or even M11 macbook pro with the SD card slot. Don’t waste your money for marginally higher speed. It won’t affect your exporting performance in any real sense.

Also, get DxO Photolab instead. No subscription, best noise reduction

[–] fsckerpantz@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I think at the end of the day if you can do your editing on an iPad and you find it easy, then you should stick with it. Unless there is a reason to switch to a laptop and use other software you should stick to what you know and have.

I have a 2016 MBP and do a fair amount of editing and processing in Lightroom Classic. Working with HDR and panorama is a pain point for me and was going to purchase a new 14" MBP 36GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. I'm not professional by any stretch of the imagination but I am also a developer so the extra RAM makes even more sense.

[–] Comprehensive_Tea924@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

You can use light room classic on the iPad