Recommendation for Photography

[dntcry]

Hello folks!

I'm a newly started photographer who never have had any experience with macbook pro.
I am looking to buy a laptop to tether shoot and retouch on.

Can anyone guide me or give me their experience on how the macbook pro 15" 2015 or earlier model (with either specs) run lightroom, captureone, and photoshop cc?

And if anyone have experience with the same software with the latest 2016 mac pro 15". (I know it has just been released. But I hope someone already got some experience tether shooting with it etc.

Cheers and much appreciated!

- Jesper

 

[sevichenko]

You will need a big amount of ram, maybe 12-16gb is the best choice, an ssd, and a good graphic card to accelerate the filters on these apps, and a good mouse of course.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Hi Jesper!

Fellow photographer here. If the new Touch Bar models are out of your reach, the 2015 MBP will still be a fantastic performer.

When it comes to the new Touch Bar models, you're getting a smaller footprint/weight, a better display for colors, the Touch Bar (which will be adored by many, despite the negativity you often read about here in the forums), you get faster SSDs, but this won't make too much of a difference to you, and you get I/O ports that are built for the future, but be aware that you will likely need adaptors as it will be 12-18 months before USB-C is fairly standard on all new peripherals.

As far as performance goes, the processing power of the 2015 is great and you won't miss a beat if you go this route. I highly recommend 16 GB of RAM and the best GPU option you can afford. I feel like these two things should come before upgrading the processor speed, but it doesn't hurt to max that out either. So, from my perspective as a photographer, the order of upgrade importance is:

1) SSD
2) RAM
3) GPU
4) Processor

And the bottom line: if the new Touch Bar models are out of your price range, that's ok. The 2015 is still a stellar machine.

Welcome to Macs, welcome to photography, and welcome to MacRumors! Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions...

 

[sevichenko]

Hi Jesper!

Fellow photographer here. If the new Touch Bar models are out of your reach, the 2015 MBP will still be a fantastic performer.

When it comes to the new Touch Bar models, you're getting a smaller footprint/weight, a better display for colors, the Touch Bar (which will be adored by many, despite the negativity you often read about here in the forums), you get faster SSDs, but this won't make too much of a difference to you, and you get I/O ports that are built for the future, but be aware that you will likely need adaptors as it will be 12-18 months before USB-C is fairly standard on all new peripherals.

As far as performance goes, the processing power of the 2015 is great and you won't miss a beat if you go this route. I highly recommend 16 GB of RAM and the best GPU option you can afford. I feel like these two things should come before upgrading the processor speed, but it doesn't hurt to max that out either. So, from my perspective as a photographer, the order of upgrade importance is:

1) SSD
2) RAM
3) GPU
4) Processor

And the bottom line: if the new Touch Bar models are out of your price range, that's ok. The 2015 is still a stellar machine.

Welcome to Macs, welcome to photography, and welcome to MacRumors! Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions...

top answer

 

[jackoatmon]

They'll all run Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. very well. But I do agree you'll want the 16GB RAM.

I would recommend the 2016 because of the bigger-than-RGB spectrum. It's rly sick. I mean, what could be a better upgrade than the screen's dynamic range, for a photog.

And I suspect the Touchbar is going to be great for photogs for a) scrolling through images b) fine adjustments with tools

 

[Hyloba]

You will need a big amount of ram, maybe 12-16gb is the best choice, an ssd, and a good graphic card to accelerate the filters on these apps, and a good mouse of course.

Is that much ram really needed? What should use that much ram?

 

[Howard2k]

I run Lightroom on 8GB, it runs great. Sure 16GB won't hurt, but to say you need it might be a bit of a stretch.

EDIT: I should add I also ran Lightroom on 4GB and 6GB too. It worked. But when I had a bunch of apps open it was a little problematic. LR, Garageband, Email, A bunch of Safari tabs, Chrome, iTunes all at once on 4GB is a problem.

 

[dntcry]

Hi Jesper!

Fellow photographer here. If the new Touch Bar models are out of your reach, the 2015 MBP will still be a fantastic performer.

When it comes to the new Touch Bar models, you're getting a smaller footprint/weight, a better display for colors, the Touch Bar (which will be adored by many, despite the negativity you often read about here in the forums), you get faster SSDs, but this won't make too much of a difference to you, and you get I/O ports that are built for the future, but be aware that you will likely need adaptors as it will be 12-18 months before USB-C is fairly standard on all new peripherals.

As far as performance goes, the processing power of the 2015 is great and you won't miss a beat if you go this route. I highly recommend 16 GB of RAM and the best GPU option you can afford. I feel like these two things should come before upgrading the processor speed, but it doesn't hurt to max that out either. So, from my perspective as a photographer, the order of upgrade importance is:

1) SSD
2) RAM
3) GPU
4) Processor

And the bottom line: if the new Touch Bar models are out of your price range, that's ok. The 2015 is still a stellar machine.

Welcome to Macs, welcome to photography, and welcome to MacRumors! Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions...

Wow thank you very much! Just the clearance I needed. it's much appreciated! I will look into the new macbook pro. I think 16gb ram 500 ssd and the 2.6 processor should be fine? I got some external ssd I will store my files on.

 

[RabbitSpatula]

Hi fellow photographer.
I regularly use various Retina Macbook Pros from the past several years on photo shoots. We drive our machines hard with several thousand images through Capture One per day, and all the associated back up to external hard drives. We shoot mostly tethered and the machines generally perform very well. Of course, a speedy machine is aways a plus. I agree with other contributors that an SSD hard drive should be your priority. I would also add from my experience, that an internal hard drive with the capacity to hold entire jobs, in my case multi-day jobs which can take up hundreds of GB´s, is of great benefit to my workflow.

In short, I think any decently specced MBP from the last few years will serve you well. If you have the cash, A fast machine makes life more pleasant, but is not a must.

Best of luck.

 

[Sohappy]

Take a look at Affinity Photo. It's very much like photoshop but for a lower price. It will be the first app I'll buy when my macbook pro arrives. I have already tried the free beta windows version and I can't see why I would spend my money on photoshop. It even supports the touch bar !

 

[Howard2k]

Take a look at Affinity Photo. It's very much like photoshop but for a lower price. It will be the first app I'll buy when my macbook pro arrives. I have already tried the free beta windows version and I can't see why I would spend my money on photoshop. It even supports the touch bar !

Have you looked at GIMP? It's a free Photoshop alternative. It's not incredibly polished, but for the price ($0) it's hard to go wrong.

 

[dntcry]

UPDATE:

So I bought the new Macbook Pro 15" 2016, i7 16gb 500gb model 2,6ghz better graphics.

But I've been offered to buy a
mid 2014 macbook pro 15" 16gb 500gb 2,5ghz i7 NVIDIA GeForce GT750M 2GB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB,
for only 1576 USD...

As said before I want to use it mainly for photography, post editing photographs and tether shooting. Is it better for me to save my money and cancel the order I made to buy the 2014 model?

Much appreciated!

 

[HeatherA]

UPDATE:

So I bought the new Macbook Pro 15" 2016, i7 16gb 500gb model 2,6ghz better graphics.

But I've been offered to buy a
mid 2014 macbook pro 15" 16gb 500gb 2,5ghz i7 NVIDIA GeForce GT750M 2GB Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB,
for only 1576 USD...

As said before I want to use it mainly for photography, post editing photographs and tether shooting. Is it better for me to save my money and cancel the order I made to buy the 2014 model?

Much appreciated!

That's a great deal!

 

[HBOC]

i had the mid 2011 iMac for 5+ years, and it was still doing alright when i bought my new mid 2015 2.5GHZ 15" MBP.
I usually have it running 24/7, and CC 2017 is always open - mostly PS, LR, BR, ID.