Toronto Photography Meetup Group

So I'm thinking the best way to advance my lightroom (and other post) skills is to bring my lightroom catalog with me to where people can give me active pointers, such as TPMG socials, events, etc, as there is only so much I'm leaning from videos and watching people do it.

Currently I have a netbook which while portable is not capable as an image processing machine.

Where should I look that isn't too expensive, and will keep up with my 24MP raw files?

It's important to consider the screen as it is near impossible to adjust a photograph in Lightroom using a screen that doesn't display contrast, shades and colours well.

+1 I worked off of a laptop in Europe, editing and uploading photos to a client. I did the best that I could, but when I got home I had to readjust all of the photos lol.

I'm sure there laptops out there with better screens, but theyre probably not cheep. I was using a Lenovo X220 because it was really small and it was more powerful than my home PC.

I recommend the Mac laptop. Its pricey, but it will do exactly what you want.

To clarify, I'm looking at a laptop as an aid to doing lightroom since people can show me pointers out and about, (though a good screen that can be somewhat colour calibrated is a plus).

My desktop platform is a Dell Vostro 430, two 24" screens, so there's obviously a preference to doing my main processing at home.

I am happy with my Sony Vaio... I currently do 100% of my image processing on that machine. I keep my display calibrated as often as I can.

Aah.. thats tricky. Because you want something thats more powerful than a netbook, but potentialy just as portable and cheap as one.

Alienware

These guys sell some of the powerful machines for 3D ..
I think you wont go wrong for lightroom

http://www.boxxtech.com/products/goBOXX ... rodid=1720

Hahah, both of the above options dont fall into the "not too expensive" category.

The Alienware is great for raw power but it was best designed for gaming. I think the screen is calibrated for gaming/videos and not image processing. In any case, it's not a practical solution. If you're looking at an Alienware, you might as well look at Origin's stuff (http://www.originpc.com/choose-eon-gaming-laptop.asp) as they are cheaper and the specs are much better than Alienwares.

Like what Bartimus said though...this will be tricky. A portable machine that can handle image processing efficiently, won't come cheap. You might as well just lug a Mac Mini and an ultra thin LED monitor.

Plus the 24MP is a HUGE factor.
My Macbook (now 5 years old) has the processing power to handle my 16MP raw files, but there is insufficient ram for which to do so efficiently.

I will caution you that if you insist on editing raw files on this thing, especially in any "portable" sense, you should be looking for a machine that has at least 6GB of ram. Even still you'll be hard pressed to find a machine that matches all of your specs as you are essentially trying to throw the kitchen sink at a netbook until you hit about $1400.

Let me clarify:

If I need absolute portability, I have the netbook, and I have an iPad.

This machine doesn't have to be portable, heck a 17 inch screen is not outside the realm of possibility, but based on the discussions it's sounding like 8 Gigs of RAM, and an i7 processor... strangely enough equivalent to what I'm running on my desktop now .

Mac mini i5 2.5ghz

Really no need for a super fast computer to run lightroom or CS5 for that matter. I run both on my lenovo laptop that is running a Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 (4 gig ram) and it's plenty fast. But I will mention that my raws are not the size of yours.

The obvious answer is you give me the plates and I show you how to use lightroom. No need to buy a laptop just for LR show and tell.

(click 'auto' everywhere)

well with laptops you will always run in to the issue of poor lcd pannels
i use this one
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_ ... _id=042295
not the greatest resolution and a tn pannel but i dont think you can get anything as good as an s-pva pannel, i would recomend getting an s-pva pannel from tell to use when at home.
it has a nvidia 540 as its video card and the new version of photoshop will utalize it for extra processing power.
hope that helps at least a little

I missed the not too expensive part ...... my bad ....

Thanks for the suggestions thusfar. I came into this asking the question of whether this was even conceivable at sub-$1000.

Some of the systems I've taken a quick look at, which I note not all of them take care of all my needs:
http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.asp ... CA&topnav=
http://store.apple.com/ca/product/FC723LL/A - way too expensive for me.
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6834230111
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/product/asu ... 93deccen02
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/ ... CatId=4938
http://canadacomputers.com/product_info ... _id=042462

I may wait and see the prices drop a bit?

you're nuts, well then, I can't tell you how to spend your money

starving kids in Africa....starving kids in Africa

Let's be serious here .. have you seen the minimum requirements for LR3 or CS5? .. the laptops you referenced will be more than enough to handle these apps .. hell .. even current sub $500 laptops will handle these apps fine. I would just set a budget - looks like it's ~$1000 and get the best laptop, with the features you want - because you are well past being able to run LR and CS5 adequately. My 2 cents.

My Toshiba Satellite A100 runs them

Like I said above, it's not necessarily about CS5 or LR: it's about the 24 (and possibly larger) MP files I'm dealing with. It's one thing to talk to someone shooting a Rebel or even a D3S for computer performance, but my needs are better suited by asking people shooting the D3X's, 5DII's, and a lot of 1D-blanks's (so if it works for you, please remind me what camera you are using so I can compare apples to apples).

Best is relative. Again, an IPS screen is typically a 500 dollar addon-can i survive without one, and still get my spider to provide nominal performance? Is the quad core i7 necessary (or is the peformance boost evident in LR or CS5 vs say the i5 chip?)

I know I have a lot of questions, but frankly I'm not a computer person anymore like I was 10 years ago. Technology changes too fast, and even in my line of work I consider all computers to be black boxes... some of them 6 kilowatt black boxes, but boxes nonetheless.

My Sony Vaio i3 quad core laptop was $800 .... And the lcd panel is really nice..... Probably best lcd's I have ever seen on a laptop. Its the main reason why I buy Sony vaio computers. And as far as spec's go..... More than capable of doing what you need. I run CS5 on my machine no problem.

Like Rhommel says. The i5 will suit your needs.
Even my ancient macbook can handle the files. The problem on my end is the 2GB of memory limit.

You need to be able to load the full sucker into ram and then make your adjustments to it.
To optimally work with your software running and at least one of these things open you ideally want to have 4GB of free memory - that is after the system is running and other software is up.
Thus you probably want to go with no-less than 6GB.

As others continue to push and modern processor will do you just fine.
Whatever your budget, you should have no-less than 4GB of memory.

I've done some editing in LR3 and CS5 of my 5D Mk2 Raw files on my 2nd gen Macbook Air 13" 4GB ram. No issues. The new Macbook Air are even faster.

What he said

IPS screen should be great for colour correction.

One tip that has helped me is to ensure I am always in the library module while viewing and starring the images and I only go into the develop module to perform an edit as the library module reads from previews whereas the develop module loads the actual image file each and every time.

Fits my price point. Will still do some research, but I fear that 12.5" is a little too small for what I'm looking for. Adobe has a minimum resolution requirement for lightroom, but what is a good resolution to get the best bang for usefulness?

I had a look at the Sony Store based on lxdesign's suggestion above, and came across the S-series, either the VPCSE15FDB, or the VPCSE13FDB (the chief differences between the two are i7 vs i5, and 1GB video vs 512MB video, and the $300 price difference, ouch). The 1080 screen appeared during my brief look in the store to have good colour, and good angles for screen viewing. I can safely wait until boxing week in hopes they go on sale.

Think of the possibilities - you will be doing tethered shooting before long

Soon you will need one of Joe McNally's tripod rigs!
http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2008/01/ ... ripod-rig/