requirements for a computer to use Lightroom

[msi1337]

I just got into photography and have a terrible A4 HP Laptop with a 1366 res screen. Using Lightroom has been a pain because I can't see everything on screen. Given an $800 or less budget, which laptop would you choose and why? (Used is fine)

 

[Rifter]

I would probably spend that money on a monitor not on a new laptop. I just upgraded from a 22" 1080p TN panel to a 25" 1440p IPS panel and it was probably the best thing i have ever done to improve my lightroom editing.

 

[jtvang125]

Most laptops around that price will have a 1080p screen. A little bit better but having all the window panes open you're still not going to see much. I would suggest using that money for a bigger monitor and upgrading some of the internals (RAM and SSD). 27" and larger 4k monitors are now going for about half your budget. You'll want as much vertical resolution as possible. Also LR is very RAM hungry and having your pictures, catalog, and scratch disk on a fast SSD will help a lot.

If your current OS is only 32bit then I would go with a new laptop because 32bit is going to greatly hinder LR in memory allocation and data access. Just get one with the fastest cpu, most memory, and a ssd that your budget will allow.

 

[msi1337]

one thing I should have mentioned in this is that I have no room in my house for a monitor. We live in a 1000 sq ft house that just isn't big enough for us. I had thought about making a small htpc and hook it up to my TV in the bedroom to use for editing?

 

[CuriousMike]

Google "Lightroom is slow as sh!t".

OK, maybe just "how to optimize lightroom".

You'll find various items such as building previews and where your cache is located will help.

You'll also end up with the following conclusion: Maximum CPU speed and SSD. The GPU really doesn't matter.

 

[jhansman]

Just my $.02, but if you're going to run LR on a laptop and portability is not paramount, I'd get a large screen, 16GB of RAM, and a fast SSD for storage. All that may break your budget, but LR generally leads to Photoshop, and while they work hand-in-hand nicely, they love resources.

 

[zCypher]

My computer has i7, 32gb ram, 512gb ssd, and i still wish lightroom was faster. But honestly, the 4K screens make all the difference. I would recommend that you get at the very minimum, a 27" 1440p screen for a good lightroom experience. Thankfully you can find a lot of good deals on 27-28" 1440 and 4k screens nowadays. That would be a better bargain than buying another laptop. Then if you have any money left, you can look into upgrading parts of the laptop.

 

[bfun_x1]

I'd agree about getting a quality screen. Trying to adjust color and tone on a bad screen is kind of pointless.

 

[MrSquished]

My computer has i7, 32gb ram, 512gb ssd, and i still wish lightroom was faster. But honestly, the 4K screens make all the difference. I would recommend that you get at the very minimum, a 27" 1440p screen for a good lightroom experience. Thankfully you can find a lot of good deals on 27-28" 1440 and 4k screens nowadays. That would be a better bargain than buying another laptop. Then if you have any money left, you can look into upgrading parts of the laptop.

if you have a PC that fast and LR is still not fast enough, it's probably not a hardware issue but software related.

I have an i7 laptop that LR runs very nice on. I have a self-built i5 desktop that is pretty beasty and I reinstalled windows and LR on it and it was nice and fast. After a month it became unbearable. LR is so finicky with software issues, the adobe forums are littered with complaints about powerful rigs struggling with LR. I've just been too lazy to reinstall windows on the desktop since the laptop works so well but I know it will work fine again - the question is for how long?

 

[Syborg1211]

if you have a PC that fast and LR is still not fast enough, it's probably not a hardware issue but software related.

I have an i7 laptop that LR runs very nice on. I have a self-built i5 desktop that is pretty beasty and I reinstalled windows and LR on it and it was nice and fast. After a month it became unbearable. LR is so finicky with software issues, the adobe forums are littered with complaints about powerful rigs struggling with LR. I've just been too lazy to reinstall windows on the desktop since the laptop works so well but I know it will work fine again - the question is for how long?

Try disabling graphics acceleration if you're having problems. It's bugged for certain hardware and slows things down like crazy. I used to make a stroke with the spot brush or spot removal tool and the stroke wouldn't appear til way after I stroked. After disabling graphics acceleration, the actions are pretty much real time now. This has been a bug for years, and Adobe still hadn't fixed it.

 

[MrSquished]

Try disabling graphics acceleration if you're having problems. It's bugged for certain hardware and slows things down like crazy. I used to make a stroke with the spot brush or spot removal tool and the stroke wouldn't appear til way after I stroked. After disabling graphics acceleration, the actions are pretty much real time now. This has been a bug for years, and Adobe still hadn't fixed it.

Thanks I'll give it a shot. Just checked my desktop and graphics acceleration was enabled, and that's where I started to run into issues after a month. On my laptop it was disabled, where its been running great. I'll try to test it out before I fly overseas, otherwise when I get back.