LR, Photoshop and video editing

[swifty168]

I have an embarrassingly old MBP that’s become painfully slow for photo editing and unusable for video editing so using it as a gauge for what I need is a bit tricky.

Basically I need a new machine as I’ve upgraded on photography and videography gear and have data waiting to be processed.

Tossing up between base M3 max 14/30 with 36GB RAM or 16/40 with 48 or 64GB of RAM.
The 96GB is too excessive an upgrade on the base M3 Max I think. I don’t think I need the extra processing speeds on the 16/40 but since LRC and such programs tends to be memory hogs, I’m thinking the 48GB or 64GB may be a better option which forces the 16/40 option.
I do keep my computer for a very long time so will need a bit of leeway on specs. I’m anticipating at least 5 years of usage (current laptop is 10 years old).

If people feel 36GB is adequate, would M3 Pro upgraded to 36GB RAM be adequate? One issue with keeping old machines I’ve found is things get slower even with OS upgrades so maybe the Max will have more legs in them for longevity.

Usage is non-professional so time deadlines are a non-issue. But a snappy experience whilst editing would be highly desirable. A cool running laptop would also be nice since I do a fair bit of the editing on my lap but can leave it on a desk when batch processing/exporting/tasks that I can leave the laptop to do unattended.

Thank you

 

[Filmx]

Are you looking at the 14" or 16"? From what I've seen the M3 Max chips run hot in the 14" and the fans can get very loud. I have a 14" 16/40 64GB 4TB arriving on Monday. I can report back after I receive it and do some testing. I'm a little concerned about the fan noise and throttling. As for the 16" it should be fine if that's the one you're getting.

I think you'd be fine with 36GB even within Lightroom unless you're running a bunch of other equally demanding apps at the same time. I kind of regret not saving ~$600 and going with the binned 14/30 36GB M3 Max option. The M3 Pro got close enough to that version when bumping up to 36GB that it didn't really seem like that great of a value compared to the binned Max, unless 18GB memory is enough, which it isn't for me.

 

[swifty168]

I was debating between 14 and 16 but given that I have only travelled a handful of times with my laptop throughout the years, I think the 16” makes more sense.
Actually I’ve kinda taken over my wife slightly less old 15” MBP (maybe 7 years old) for most of the recent photo editing tasks but that one’s only faring slightly better with 16GB of RAM hence why I’m a bit concerned about memory needs.
But size is ok even though 14” would be slightly preferable. If 14” still performs pretty cool on low power or auto mode for editing tasks then I might still consider the 14 over 16.

 

[NEPOBABY]

Are you looking at the 14" or 16"? From what I've seen the M3 Max chips run hot in the 14" and the fans can get very loud.

That's rarely going to happen. Never in Photoshop, only long renders in Premiere and only when batching very large amount of files in Lightroom. When working and editing however no noticeable noise or heat.

 

[swifty168]

That's rarely going to happen. Never in Photoshop, only long renders in Premiere and only when batching very large amount of files in Lightroom. When working and editing however no noticeable noise or heat.

That’s encouraging to hear.
I’m not too concerned about heat and fan when I leave it aside to process.
But during editing I’d like it to run snappy but cool.

 

[raythompsontn]

I run Lightroom and Photoshop on a MBA, 16 Gig. The applications run fine. I can process 2,000 images in Lightroom in a hour leaving just the best 100. The includes color balancing all the images, cropping, and exposure applied to all 2K images. Photoshop images with 50 layers are not a problem even with multiple images open.

Based on my experience, and my use, you will be fine with a M3 Max with 36 Gig. But it is your money, not mine. If you can afford more memory, then go for the larger memory configuration. You can rarely have too much memory, but it is much easier to not have enough.

 

[swifty168]

I run Lightroom and Photoshop on a MBA, 16 Gig. The applications run fine. I can process 2,000 images in Lightroom in a hour leaving just the best 100. The includes color balancing all the images, cropping, and exposure applied to all 2K images. Photoshop images with 50 layers are not a problem even with multiple images open.

Based on my experience, and my use, you will be fine with a M3 Max with 36 Gig. But it is your money, not mine. If you can afford more memory, then go for the larger memory configuration. You can rarely have too much memory, but it is much easier to not have enough.

Thank you. May I know which camera RAWs are you processing?

My only other concern is video editing which I have much less experience with so unsure of the specs I need for smooth edits there. But it’s nothing crazy, just 4K stuff.

 

[raythompsontn]

May I know which camera RAWs are you processing?

Olympus. Although I use JPG as I get in-camera denoising in that made. I have used RAW and have notice no significant speed difference. Video editing should be fairly smooth, even 4K. Add in CGI and the resources needed jump.

 

[swifty168]

Olympus. Although I use JPG as I get in-camera denoising in that made. I have used RAW and have notice no significant speed difference. Video editing should be fairly smooth, even 4K. Add in CGI and the resources needed jump.

Thanks. Reason I asked is even my old 10 year old computer were fine with 12MP RAWs from the D700. But It quickly struggled with 24MP RAWs, that's when I kinda took over my wife's newer personal MBP since she was mostly using her work-supplied computer. The anticipation is working with 45MP RAWs but since I shoot with Olympus as well, they are either the 16MP or 20MP gen which are a little less taxing on the system.
RAW files are also considerably larger in size comparatively eg. 12MP RAWs are already larger than 20MP jpegs by a fair margin usually hence my slight hesitation about memory size.
What might save me is I don't shoot a huge amount of volume, usually no more than 500 shots a session and there's only been a handful of times where I've had to process over 2000 shots in one go.

Yea in terms of video I'm a relatively newbie so I really don't know my needs yet.

I have done quite a few Sketchup personal projects in the past and that gets bogged down quite quickly once you add enough textures and items from 3D Warehouse.

 

[Filmx]

Thanks. Reason I asked is even my old 10 year old computer were fine with 12MP RAWs from the D700. But It quickly struggled with 24MP RAWs, that's when I kinda took over my wife's newer personal MBP since she was mostly using her work-supplied computer. The anticipation is working with 45MP RAWs but since I shoot with Olympus as well, they are either the 16MP or 20MP gen which are a little less taxing on the system.
RAW files are also considerably larger in size comparatively eg. 12MP RAWs are already larger than 20MP jpegs by a fair margin usually hence my slight hesitation about memory size.
What might save me is I don't shoot a huge amount of volume, usually no more than 500 shots a session and there's only been a handful of times where I've had to process over 2000 shots in one go.

Yea in terms of video I'm a relatively newbie so I really don't know my needs yet.

I have done quite a few Sketchup personal projects in the past and that gets bogged down quite quickly once you add enough textures and items from 3D Warehouse.

The 45mp raw files from my Canon R5 are quite demanding. It took over an hour for my 2020 M1 MBP 16GB to build previews in Lightroom the other day for ~1800 files. Based on the tests I've seen the M3 Max would finish in less than 1/3 of the time. I also do some DNG conversions which can take upwards of 10-20+ minutes for 400-800 photos. This causes the fans to run full blast, maxes out the CPU and memory, and uses several GB of swap. It makes it very difficult to do any other work while it's processing.

 

[raythompsontn]

The anticipation is working with 45MP RAWs but since I shoot with Olympus as well, they are either the 16MP or 20MP gen which are a little less taxing on the system.

I used to use raw exclusively. I needed the extra +/- two stops that raw provided. The 12 bits for each color in raw versus 8 bits for jpg gave me better color balance capability.

That has largely been made moot in the current cameras except in the most extreme cases. Much higher ISO, faster CPUs in the cameras, and denoising have made life easier. There is very little need for raw in most circumstances. My opinion.

I photograph sports. I can shoot 8 fps for 20 seconds or longer using a high speed card. I have sometimes taken 3K images for a football game. Importing that many images takes less than 3 minutes. I select one image, white balance, tweak the exposure, and apply that to all the images in just a few seconds.

I then run through the images rejecting the ones I don’t like or have issues. I try to get to 100-150 images. Takes about 30 minutes. The rejected images are then deleted taking a couple of seconds. I then crop the first image and apply that crop to the rest of the images. I go through each image in develop mode, adjust the crop then tweak the exposure for images taken in the darker portions of the venue.

Once that is done I export twice, once with a watermark, once without. Generally run both exports at the same time. Takes less than a minute. Watermarked images are posted to a public facing site, non-watermarked posted to a private, non-Google searchable website for the publication to select. The export has to apply color balance, exposure balance, straightening, denoising, some spot removal and watermark for one export. Quite a lot of processing.

Total time is about two hours. The M2 Air, 16 gig, 1 TB, never falters or breaks a sweat. I have done as many as 500 image export, 4 different exports simultaneously, with no issues and done in 3 minutes, time enough to take a welcome bathroom break.

 

[swifty168]

I used to use raw exclusively. I needed the extra +/- two stops that raw provided. The 12 bits for each color in raw versus 8 bits for jpg gave me better color balance capability.

That has largely been made moot in the current cameras except in the most extreme cases. Much higher ISO, faster CPUs in the cameras, and denoising have made life easier. There is very little need for raw in most circumstances. My opinion.

I photograph sports. I can shoot 8 fps for 20 seconds or longer using a high speed card. I have sometimes taken 3K images for a football game. Importing that many images takes less than 3 minutes. I select one image, white balance, tweak the exposure, and apply that to all the images in just a few seconds.

I then run through the images rejecting the ones I don’t like or have issues. I try to get to 100-150 images. Takes about 30 minutes. The rejected images are then deleted taking a couple of seconds. I then crop the first image and apply that crop to the rest of the images. After I go through each image in develop mode, adjust the crop then tweak the exposure for images taken in the darker portions of the venue.

Once that is done I export twice, once with a watermark, once without. Generally run both exports at the same time. Takes less than a minute. Watermarked images are posted to a public facing sight, non-watermarked posted to a private, non-Google searchable website for the publication to select. The export has to apply color balance, exposure balance, straightening, denoising, some spot removal and watermark for one export. Quite a lot of processing.

Total time is about two hours. The M2 Air, 16 gig, 1 TB, never falters or breaks a sweat. I have done as many as 500 image export, 4 different exports simultaneously, with no issues and done in 3 minutes, time enough to take a welcome bathroom break.

Thanks for letting me know your workflow. It's quite different from mine as I do much less batch work and edits are often on each photo independently but depends on the situation of course.
When shooting for myself I typically shoot around 400-500 shots and reject perhaps 80% of those. Then I edit the last 100 or so more or less individually.
If I help shoot for someone else, then workflow changes of course.
Anyways, cheers for sharing your experience.

 

[swifty168]

The 45mp raw files from my Canon R5 are quite demanding. It took over an hour for my 2020 M1 MBP 16GB to build previews in Lightroom the other day for ~1800 files. Based on the tests I've seen the M3 Max would finish in less than 1/3 of the time. I also do some DNG conversions which can take upwards of 10-20+ minutes for 400-800 photos. This causes the fans to run full blast, maxes out the CPU and memory, and uses several GB of swap. It makes it very difficult to do any other work while it's processing.

Thanks for that. I haven't gone to 45MP yet but I just need to anticipate it as I think it may be quite likely even though for my purpose I think 24MP is plenty.
I also rarely need to use my personal computer for work, more admin stuff. But yea, I totally get what you're saying about multitasking whilst the computer is 'busy.'
I also don't shoot as much as your examples, so that might be my saving grace haha.

 

[Adult80HD]

IMO if you want it to last 5 years you should go for the more cores and more RAM, especially if you use it with external high-resolution monitors (4K or more). There are more and more AI-based tasks being added to photo and video editing tools and those tend to be both power-hungry--they need lots of GPU cores--and RAM hungry. My testing and similar testing done by Art of Art is Right on YouTube show that 64GB is a real sweet spot for max performance, and particularly so when you are using an external monitor.

One thing for sure: You are going to be blown away with how fast it is compared to your current machine!