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DL Cunningham
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p.1 #1 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

Hello to all,

Didn't feel that Sports Corner (where I usually post) was the appropriate place to post this so here goes.

I am needing to upgrade and buy a new desktop computer and monitor for photo editing/processing. I know the sky's the limit with this question, but I want to get it set up well but not break the bank. I have not purchased a new PC (other than a laptop) within the past 6 or 8 years and am tired of patching together old, unreliable equipment.

I am in my 3rd year of shooting primarly sports action and T&I, so I take and edit thousands of images at a time.

I am not very familiar with the latest technology in PC's, so I could use some suggestions on specs, brands etc for PC and monitor.

In addition, my workflow seems very tedious, labor intensive, redundant slow and inefficient. I generally use PS to upload, edit, sort etc. I'm curious about other options. I know Photo Mechanic seems popular among sport shooters.

I think you get the general idea.

Thanks in advance.

Donnie

Mar 30, 2008 at 07:41 PM

vidoprof
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p.1 #2 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

I use breezebrowser to go through my images. I use PS for editing.

I bought a Quad core q6600 with 4 gigs of ram nice video card, 2x500gig hd's for about 1200 a few months back , so prices should be a little less.

I also got a 24" LG monitor that calibrates for me pretty well. That was another $500. I just bought a couple of 750gb hds for about 120 each too.

That's what I got. I would say contact a local shop or build it yourself for cheaper.

ryan

Mar 31, 2008 at 04:32 AM

Alex Nail
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p.1 #3 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

Lightroom is an awesome workflow tool. I would suggest that. As for the computer, 4 gigs of RAM and a Q6600 should do nicely.

Alex

Mar 31, 2008 at 11:10 AM

dan727
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p.1 #4 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

Alex Nail wrote:
Lightroom is an awesome workflow tool. I would suggest that. As for the computer, 4 gigs of RAM and a Q6600 should do nicely.

Alex

The Q9300's are now more widely available. These are the new quad cores from Intel. The offer lower power consumption and higher FSB (more data pumped between components).

The Q6600's are still a great cpu since the price is dropping and you are looking at a price of $249 for a retail Q6600 versus $279 for an OEM version of the Q9300.

If you tend to keep the same PC for a while you may be better off with the newer technology though. The Q9300's support SSE4 which are multimedia extensions that can speed up software that is written to take advantage of that. Which with any new technology it may take a while for patches and updates to be written to do so. We are still waiting for software to catch up to quad cores so if you are price conscious get the Q6600.

Edited on Mar 31, 2008 at 01:18 PM

Mar 31, 2008 at 01:17 PM

Scott Sewell
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p.1 #5 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

You're probably not doing much (if any) PJ-type work or you'd probably already have Photo Mechanic. I find PM better for PJ work because (for me) it's a little easier to caption and add IPTC data to images. It also is the program I use to FTP images.

If you don't have PM, I would suggest Lightroom. I dragged my feet about getting LR and finally picked it up a couple of months ago. I still use PM for any PJ work I do and to ingest everything, but LR fits the bill for most everything else.

If you're using Photoshop as the only tool in your workflow you will be much happier with either PM or LR.

Edited on Mar 31, 2008 at 01:54 PM

Mar 31, 2008 at 01:53 PM

claudermilk
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p.1 #6 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

I go a slightly different route as I personally hate LR & consider it junk. For downloading I use Downloader Pro which renames & stores files automatically based on the EXIF timestamp. I do the initial review/cull in BreezeBrowser, use IMatch for my DAM (it pulls in the BB ratings), and Bibble for RAW conversion. This combination has worked efficiently for me for thousands of images.

Mar 31, 2008 at 04:52 PM

Scott Sewell
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p.1 #7 · New PC and workflow suggestions?

claudermilk wrote:
I go a slightly different route as I personally hate LR & consider it junk. For downloading I use Downloader Pro which renames & stores files automatically based on the EXIF timestamp. I do the initial review/cull in BreezeBrowser, use IMatch for my DAM (it pulls in the BB ratings), and Bibble for RAW conversion. This combination has worked efficiently for me for thousands of images.

I'm curious to know what you don't like about LR? Seems like that one program does what you're currently using four to do.

Just curious.

Mar 31, 2008 at 07:44 PM


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