How much RAM for basic image editing?

[dominicansrul93]

I am not going to be doing any big pictures or complicated things. I am just going to edit digital camera photos and pictures for myspace.

 

[Eidorian]

1 GB at least but more is always a good idea.

 

[Airforce]

512MB is fine.

 

[MichaelThomas]

Yup 512MB is fine!

 

[LeviG]

Personally I wouldn't want any less than 2gig but you should be ok with 1gig.

 

[Benjamindaines]

Image editing goes like this:

Myspace photos: 256 or 512
Heavy iPhoto: 768
Light Photoshop: 1gig
Heavy Photoshop (Image manipulating): 2gig
Photoshop Creation: 2gig +
Aperture: 1gig minimum, 2gig is good, but more is always better.

 

[CanadaRAM]

512MB is fine.

Myspace photos: 256 or 512
Heavy iPhoto: 768

Are you kidding me?

You mean, 512 Mb in addition to the 512 Mb that OSX needs to run?

If the OP is using Photoshop, under Rosetta on an Intel, 1.5 to 2 Gb total.
It doesn;t matter much how big the photos are, it matters what the software is,

iPhoto bogs down tremendously under low memory once you have more than a couple of hundred photos libraried.

OP: It would really help for us to answer if you specified the machine you are running, the software you are using and your OS version.

 

[dominicansrul93]

Are you kidding me?

You mean, 512 Mb in addition to the 512 Mb that OSX needs to run?

If the OP is using Photoshop, under Rosetta on an Intel, 1.5 to 2 Gb total.
It doesn;t matter much how big the photos are, it matters what the software is,

iPhoto bogs down tremendously under low memory once you have more than a couple of hundred photos libraried.

OP: It would really help for us to answer if you specified the machine you are running, the software you are using and your OS version.

Unfortunately I am running windows on a dell inspiron 6000. It has a pentium m 1.73, 512 ram, 128 vram, and 80 gig HDD

 

[CanadaRAM]

Unfortunately I am running windows on a dell inspiron 6000. It has a pentium m 1.73, 512 ram, 128 vram, and 80 gig HDD

What WIndows version? What editing software? Help us out a bit here, we're guessing in the dark, and on the wrong OS, to boot.

 

[MacNut]

As much as you can afford.

 

[dominicansrul93]

I use Photoshop and Windows XP.

 

[CanadaRAM]

I use Photoshop and Windows XP.

OK then.
512 Mb for Win XP and 1 - 1.5 Gb for Photoshop. =

1.5 Gb to 2 gb.

Whether the photos are for MySpace or not is immaterial.

 

[srf4real]

You guys are spoiled. I got by photoshop creating with 256 for a long time. Now 1 gig is plenty, much fewer smoke breaks...
Is the question in reference to need, or want?

 

[CanadaRAM]

You guys are spoiled. I got by photoshop creating with 256 for a long time. Now 1 gig is plenty, much fewer smoke breaks...
Is the question in reference to need, or want?

XP doesn't even start running smoothly without thrashing the swap file until you get 512 Mb... so ...

 

[b0tt094]

I can run illustrator and photoshop at 512 mb... its not lighting fast but it runs and that is all I need (Although I wish I had that 1 gb mark, that would be nice)

 

[dmw007]

OK then.
512 Mb for Win XP and 1 - 1.5 Gb for Photoshop. =

1.5 Gb to 2 gb.

Whether the photos are for MySpace or not is immaterial.

I agree with you CanadaRAM, the OP should shoot for 1.5-2GB of RAM.

 

[fivetoadsloth]

Im also on CanadaRAM's side, go with 1.5-2 gig if possible.

 

[snickelfritz]

WinXP runs noticeably better with 1GB.
I use PSCS2 with 1.25GB in OSX. Runs fine most of the time with layered 350ppi files.

 

[cgratti]

I would not run any less then 1GB.

Running 512 is going to be super slow. If you can afford at least 2GB then go for it.

 

[Eidorian]

I remember upgrading to 1 GB on XP and it flew. All of my games back then loaded like lightning!

Any Mac with integrated graphics is going to benefit a lot more from more RAM.

 

[Mydriasis]

No matter how much ram you have, you will always fill it and want more.

I used to have 512mb and thought 'hey thinks works just fine', then I got 3gb and found out how wrong I was! Now I want more, more, more....

(is that the sign of an addict?)

 

[bartelby]

Or.
Get an old PowerMac (OS 7 or 8 era), an old copy of Photoshop and be happy with 64MB!


I have 1.12GB in a PowerMac G4 running Panther and Photoshop CS and it does the job.

 

[dops7107]

I have 1.12GB in a PowerMac G4 running Panther and Photoshop CS and it does the job.

Huh! I'm still on PS7 on an original Mac Mini maxed out at 1 gig. Runs fine, provided I don't try to edit too many 6 MP images at once.

 

[bartelby]

Huh! I'm still on PS7 on an original Mac Mini maxed out at 1 gig. Runs fine, provided I don't try to edit too many 6 MP images at once.

That's the key.
If you do on image at a time then you can get away with a small amount of RAM. I don't get people who feeel the need to have 4GB of RAM to do basic, non-professional, image editing.
I guess having grown up with systems and programs (My experience started with Photoshop 2 on an LC) you get used to doing stuff with sod all RAM and having progress bars popping up all the time!

 

[justG]

Ran XP + Photoshop with 512MB RAM for years with no problems. Not the zippiest, but I only drummed my fingers on the desk while Photoshop launched; once it got started, it was fine. Latest version I ran on XP with that amount of RAM was CS2.

Hope that helps.

(By the way, if you're just editing photos for MySpace, Photoshop is overkill. You could get a freeware/shareware application that would be much less resource-intensive, and would therefore *fly* with 512MB RAM. Off the top of my head, Paint.NET comes to mind. It's a fast, free photo editor, sounds like it'd be perfect for you.)