Advice on a good laptop for editing

[Hoag]

For the most part, I will leave the issue of hardware to others. Personally, I have a MacBook Air that I use for quick editing on the road, but I use an iMac at home for the bulk of my editing.

As for software, I am assuming that you are doing photo editing from what you have said. Right now, the "industry standard" is a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop. I was a LR user since I was a part of the beta test group. I lost interest however, when they went from a purchase to a subscription business model and started to look for alternatives.

There are several alternatives to the LR/PS combo available, and I have tried most.

First, not knowing what type of camera you have, I want to say that Capture One Express is a free download that is actually an extremely good program that will get you most of the basic functions. You won't be able to do layers, but if, as you say you are just starting out, then it will offer you all you need to get started.

Again, if you have a Sony, the full version of Capture One (C1) is an extremely powerful photo editing software. It was originally developed for the Phase One Medium Format digital cameras. They do offer some camera specific discounts (Sony for instance) but if you are using a different camera brand, then it is several hundred dollars. I found that with this power, came a very steep learning curve. I could do everything I needed, but sometimes I did it with the grace and finesse of a bulldozer.

Another option is Luminar. Luminar is heavily Artificial Intelligence (AI) based. This makes it very easy to get the 90% solution, but the fine tuning of an image may be a little less than ideal. I also found that Luminar took a LOT of time while it did the number crunching after you made a change.

The next one is ON1. This is what I settled on, and use for all of my editing today. ON1 is a very powerful program and can do virtually everything that the LR/PS combination can do. It will do HDR, Focus Stacking and Panoramas for instance all in the same program. These are not things that you would use underwater, but could come in handy above the surface. I found that even with all the power that ON1 has, it was very intuitive to use. Yes, of course there was a learning curve associated with it, but it was a much flatter one than I experienced with C1. Another benefit (for some) with ON1 is that they offer a significant discount to Teachers, First Responders and Military (both active duty and vets). If you fall into one of those categories, then it has a price that is hard to beat.

So, those are the editing programs that I have used. Which one do I recommend? Well I am not going to recommend any of them.

Once you get your new computer, whatever computer you settle on, then download the free trial for these programs. Take a single image, and edit that one image in each of the programs. Find out which one meets your needs best and which one seems the most intuitive and logical for the way your mind works. You can get exceptional results with any of them but while I find ON1 makes sense to my thought process, you might gravitate toward another. I have a friend that I do a photo trip with almost every year. For him, Luminar meets his needs best.

As for which is the best or easiest software, only you will be able to make that call for yourself, and only after you have tried them to see how you like them.

 

[Hoag]

If you intend on editing videos, then a mid to high end graphics card. An RTX 2070 or similar.

A 4k monitor otherwise you're taking pictures in 4k and higher but only seeing a quarter of that resolution (@ 1080).

Get a lot of RAM, it's relatively economic these days. At least 16GB installed in parallel mode.

Processor?
Either Intel or AMD

But something with lot of threads because that's the future.
AMD gives you more threads at less cost than Intel.

So 4k monitor
Mid to high the motherboard
I'd get an AMD processor but processor with high thread count
At least 16 GB of ram
Video card depends on whether you intend to ever edit videos

The difference between a video editing video card and non-video editing is about $200

Is that worth getting now and not have to resort to selling your video card to upgrade?
Only you can decide.

What's your budget and do you intend to edit videos?

The OP has repeatedly said he plans on editing photos. I don't think he ever mentioned video editing.

 

[dlofting]

The OP has repeatedly said he plans on editing photos. I don't think he ever mentioned video editing.

The OP didn't, but another poster asked for hardware recommendations and did mention video editing.

 

[Hoag]

IMO, any laptop that will run your software of choice should be fine if it has a good screen for color. Otherwise it's the software that does all the work. I've always been a Windows user, but purchased Macbook Pro laptops for both myself and my husband before we retired last year. I've been really happy with mine and my husband loves his because it has iMovie which he now uses for editing diving videos. (ETA: I bought MacBooks because they are lightweight for travel and tend to be pretty sturdy.)

As far as editing still photos, I've tried lots of different free programs. Of the free apps I tried, I didn't love any of them. The apps that purported to be as good as Lightroom and Photoshop weren't very intuitive to use. Others just didn't have the functionality to do a good job editing UW photos even though I liked them for land photography (which I also do).

In the end, I finally broke down and subscribed to the Adobe photography bundle which includes both Lightroom and Photoshop. Lightroom turned out to be amazing for removing the blue that you get especially when diving deeper. (Note that I haven't edited my avatar which is why it's still so blue.) I'll also say that I hate that this is a subscription rather than a one time purchase, but I wasted money with apps that had a one time payment and didn't work as I'd like. The bundle is $20 a month....basically giving you one of the apps for free. If you pay for the entire year at once, you do get a discount.

Also, one hint about Lightroom if you go that way. There's not a way to save your edits in lightroom as a new file that can be opened in another app. What you have to do is open the photo to Photoshop directly from Lightroom and then save the photo from Photoshop. I find that strange and annoying, but it is just a couple of clicks to accomplish the mission.

Did you by any chance try ON1? I find it to offer everything that they LR/PS combination offers but all in one piece of software. It might be worth it to download the free trial and try editing a few of your existing photos to see if it meets your needs. You might find that you ultimately stay with LR/PS, but I really like ON1.

 

[Dan]

4 years ago I went the cheap way. I bought Lenovo Yoga3 from eBay for $500, with the following spec:
Intel(R) Processor 5Y70 CPU @ 1.3 GHz
8 GB RAM, 512GB SSD.

For software photo editing, I use a freeware called Picasa from Google.
For video editing, I use another freeware called Shotcut.

For shooting pictures underwater, I use Sea&Sea DX6G. For videos, I use GoPro Hero 6 Black. Here are some of the results:

Here is an easy tutorial of Shotcut:


I learn that 8GB RAM is not enough and especially with 4K videos that I’m thinking to start making. So today I bit the bullet and bought DELL XPS 15 7590 with the following spec;
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.6GHz
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
1 Thunderbolt 3 port
2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
1 HDMI port
1 SD port (for transferring pix from DX6G)
1 Headphone port
Including Adobe Premiere Elements 2021, Adobe Creative Clouds, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021, tax & shipping for $1729.40.

 

[Degenerate]

Good luck buying an Nvidia 2060 for less than double the retail price.

Indeed, anyone looking to upgrade their GPU now is going to have a very bad time.
Can't find a single store here in Sweden that has anything remotely useful in the way of GPUs in stock, and no known dates on when they will get any.
Sure you can buy from eBay sellers but their pricing is pretty silly right now as well.

I would never recommend someone to buy a "finished" desktop as it's typically cheaper to just buy the parts and build it yourself, and you can get the exact components you need.
But right now that seems like the only reasonable way to get your hands on a new GPU that isn't insanely priced.

 

[Diverlady13]

Did you by any chance try ON1? I find it to offer everything that they LR/PS combination offers but all in one piece of software. It might be worth it to download the free trial and try editing a few of your existing photos to see if it meets your needs. You might find that you ultimately stay with LR/PS, but I really like ON1.

I didn't know about that one. I'll give it a try, though! I prepaid for Lightroom/Photoshop for a year, but I'm still trialing free or less expensive products that might work just as well. I've used Adobe products for years because I subscribed to the entire Creative Cloud for my business. Sold the business and retired last year, so I'm always up for savings. I'd rather spend money on travel and on the house I'm building.

 

[dmaziuk]

I would never recommend someone to buy a "finished" desktop as it's typically cheaper to just buy the parts and build it yourself, and you can get the exact components you need.

That hasn't been my experience as the exact components I want tend to add up to noticeably more than a ready-made system with "equivalent specs".

But right now that seems like the only reasonable way to get your hands on a new GPU that isn't insanely priced.

+1.

SLI'ing 2 old cards is an option but it never beats a single new card on price/performance. So it's only feasible if you can get them second-hand real cheap and/or you want it right now.

PS. of course there are other problems with buying used GPUs real cheap for the purpose of SLI'ing them, so: don't try this at home.

 

[Dan]

4 years ago I went the cheap way. I bought Lenovo Yoga3 from eBay for $500, with the following spec:
Intel(R) Processor 5Y70 CPU @ 1.3 GHz
8 GB RAM, 512GB SSD.

For software photo editing, I use a freeware called Picasa from Google.
For video editing, I use another freeware called Shotcut.

For shooting pictures underwater, I use Sea&Sea DX6G. For videos, I use GoPro Hero 6 Black. Here are some of the results:

Here is an easy tutorial of Shotcut:


I learn that 8GB RAM is not enough and especially with 4K videos that I’m thinking to start making. So today I bit the bullet and bought DELL XPS 15 7590 with the following spec;
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.6GHz
32GB RAM
1TB SSD
1 Thunderbolt 3 port
2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
1 HDMI port
1 SD port (for transferring pix from DX6G)
1 Headphone port
Including Adobe Premiere Elements 2021, Adobe Creative Clouds, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021, tax & shipping for $1729.40.

I did a comparison test of processing a 18s video clip (taking the sound out). XPS takes 1:52 while Yoga3 takes 7:47, 4x longer. The 8GB RAM of Yoga3 also makes choppy & rough project scanning that makes it hard to edit. The 32GB RAM makes the scanning smooth to almost like viewing the final product. I’m very happy with the XPS i7 processor. It’s like night & day, comparing it to what I have done in the past with Yoga3. Sometimes I had to process the final editing all night with Yoga3.

 

[btscott]

I just went down this road in a big way as I needed to edit 4k video and upgrade my RAW image game.

I bought a desktop as the I/O is much better and can wait til I get home to do my edits. I think if you plan to do just photos, a laptop is perfectly fine. However if you want to do photos and video, I found a laptop lacking. If I were to buy a laptop, I would buy at least an I7 processor and a good gpu. Look for a gaming laptop.

What I bought in a desktop

Ryzen 5800x processor
Nvidia 3060 Ti gpu
36 GB 3200 Ram
1 TB ssd storage

27 inch Dell U2720q monitor

Software
Davinci Studio w/Speed editor keyboard
Capture One Pro
Affinity Photo

I'm impressed with all the hardware and software in particular Capture One and Davinci Resolve.

Steep learning curves on both, but will pay dividends in the long run.