MBP for Processing photos HELP!

[pingzing]

I purchased my first DSLR camera this year and I have been processing photos on an old 14 inch compaq laptop that takes forever to process my RAW photos. I've been waiting for the new Macbook Pros to come out since around May of this year. I've always wanted the 17 inch because I've heard that its nice to have the extra space to process photos. My questions: Has anybody switched from a 17 to the new 15 for processing photos? I would like to know if processing photos on a 15 is a serious pain.

I know that there will be many people that will tell me to hook it up to an external monitor, but a few of my friends have the 17 inch MBP and I know that resolution works just fine without having to use an external monitor.

I'm having a hard time waiting for the new 17 to come out!!! With my luck it will come out the same time the 5d mark II is available!!!

 

[miles01110]

Does color accuracy matter to you? If it does, the new glossy screens won't be so great for you.

 

[pingzing]

Most of my photos go on flickr and only the few great photos get printed, so i'm not too worried about color accuracy. I would really like to know if anybody has switched from the old MBP 17 to the new MBP 15 and is happy with the resolution for running aperture or photoshop. Money isn't a problem...its waiting for apple to release the 17 that's killing me!!!

 

[anubis]

Is there any particular reason you NEED to have a laptop?

Almost all of my friends who think they need a laptop end up never even taking it off their desk, let alone their house.

Maybe a nice 24-inch desktop monitor is what you want?

 

[Westside guy]

I use a 15" Macbook Pro for my photo editing in Aperture, although I did not switch from a 17". The 15" works fine. Sometimes I do plug in a 20" external monitor and use that.

Space is always good, but I don't think 17" versus 15" is all that significant for Aperture. 20" or 24" would be another matter - but that's external monitor territory. Of course, an external monitor will have much better color rendition - so at some point you might consider that anyway.

 

[Digital Skunk]

Going along with Westside guy, and anubis, I think you should either grab a 24" iMac or a 15" MBP with external monitor for processing images. The glossy screen won't hurt color, but it may hurt your eyes.

And either way, a laptop screen isn't as accurate as an H-IPS display.

I actually went from the 15" to the 17" just for the hi res display and larger screen, I won't switch back, but if I had a budget to worry about I'd grab a 15" and a 24" NEC or EIZO monitor.

 

[tcphoto]

I make my living shooting images and bought the new 15" MBP. Yes, the glossy display takes some getting used to but Apple appears to be abandoning the matte display. I have owned Apple matte displays for fourteen years and admit that I was not happy to hear about the new displays. I have gone back and looked at my websites and I am very happy with them. The 17" is just not very portable whether on location or in the studio. Take a moment and look at my sites and let me know if there is a problem.

TC
http://www.tcphoto.org
http://web.mac.com/tcphoto1/Fashion/Fashion.html