Anyone do their work on a laptop?

[mark]

The title says it all.

Hardware and software requirements are not an issue. I'm wondering about the practicalities.

 

[Luckless]

All computers are a compromise, and the suitability of a laptop for photo work is really going to come down to your needs and what you're willing to settle on.

Biggest issue for me has been the screens, and the workload I've been able to drop on a laptop. For seriously heavy lifting I have always relied on custom built home workstations in big old clunky boxes that I could fill with excessive numbers of bulk hard drives and loads of ram, and have saved my laptop for lighter jobs with smaller numbers of photos or more minor edits.

External monitors are also my friend, and I'll use them where I can. A single screen is 'good enough' to work with, but being able to spread things over two or three monitors is so much easier to work with in my mind. [And at this point it is a rare laptop that can't run an external monitor or two.]

If you don't need tens of thousands of images on hand at a moment's notice, and typically don't work with things like gigantic photo merges, then a moderate laptop can easily meet photo editing needs at this point, and screens are a lot better than they were six years ago if you're picking your hardware with care.

I would suggest you try and throw a heavy workload against a laptop before you commit to buying it however. There are lots of systems out there that look like total number crunchers on paper, but quickly keel over after a minute or two due to thermals.

 

[jim10219]

I don't, and won't. I prefer to work in my office. It's quiet. It's convenient. And my brain is trained not to go in there unless I'm going to do work, so concentration is easy. Plus, desktop computers are much cheaper and you can get bigger screens and have much more room to spread out. I can spend hours in there and it'll just feel like minutes as I get lost in my work.

My wife, however, loves to work on laptops. She likes to sit on the bed, couch in front of the TV, or chair in a coffee shop and work on photos from there. She typically still uses a mouse (on an old book) or Wacom tablet. It takes her longer than me to get the same work done because she's having to put up with distractions, and she physically wears out quicker due to the poor ergonomics, but she enjoys it more that way. To her, it's less of a chore if she's not focusing on just that one thing. It keeps her from getting frustrated and giving up.

So I would say the practicalities of it depend mostly on how you like to work. For someone like me, it's not at all practical. For someone like my wife, it certainly is.

 

[mark]

All computers are a compromise, and the suitability of a laptop for photo work is really going to come down to your needs and what you're willing to settle on.

Biggest issue for me has been the screens, and the workload I've been able to drop on a laptop. For seriously heavy lifting I have always relied on custom built home workstations in big old clunky boxes that I could fill with excessive numbers of bulk hard drives and loads of ram, and have saved my laptop for lighter jobs with smaller numbers of photos or more minor edits.

External monitors are also my friend, and I'll use them where I can. A single screen is 'good enough' to work with, but being able to spread things over two or three monitors is so much easier to work with in my mind. [And at this point it is a rare laptop that can't run an external monitor or two.]

If you don't need tens of thousands of images on hand at a moment's notice, and typically don't work with things like gigantic photo merges, then a moderate laptop can easily meet photo editing needs at this point, and screens are a lot better than they were six years ago if you're picking your hardware with care.

I would suggest you try and throw a heavy workload against a laptop before you commit to buying it however. There are lots of systems out there that look like total number crunchers on paper, but quickly keel over after a minute or two due to thermals.

One or two images at a time is all I will be doing. The most intensive thing I've done on my laptop is record and edit audio files and screencasts so I don't know how it will handle image processing but I will not be doing all of those things you mentioned. Going through some PS tutorials were handled well.

 

[Lee Rust]

Most of my post-processing is simple tonal adjustments and cloning, with an occasional photomerge panorama, so my Mac laptops have always been sufficient. The newest one has the Retina screen and that was a big improvement.

 

[StepheKoontz]

The screen is the big issue for some laptops. A TN screen is almost useless for photo editing.

 

[mshchem]

I have an old huge laptop and a new light laptop. I agree with Stephe the screens are miserable. I'm going to be talking to my computer friend. I want a huge bright monitor and a couple big backup hard drives. My new laptop,... not enough USB ports. I'm scanning 6x17 Fujichrome takes 10 minutes, 100 Mb files. Scanner, USB wireless mouse. I suppose Bluetooth mouse would help. My WiFi router is slow.
I miss one thing about the huge corporation I used to work for. IT kept everything running.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I have a small MacBook Air that I do all my serious digital neg work on. Sometimes I'll take a file to school where I have a few big screen iMacs in my classroom (I teach photography).... but really, the little laptop is good enough.

 

[guangong]

As far as video and photography goes, as well as preparing publications I use desktop computers with large screens. A more comfortable mouse and keyboard are also important. As for writing, I use paper and fountain pen. When finished I dictate to computer. For APUG, I use an iPad, which, because of its automatic spell correct feature often assumes it knows what word should be used, rather than the word I had in mind,

 

[Chan Tran]

I bring a laptop with me on trip to check out my photographs but I don't to the editing with it. I found it's difficult to calibrate a laptop screen. If I were to attach a screen to the laptop then it doesn't make sense to use the laptop as it's no longer portable.
But that I am talking about photography and it's my hobby and not my work. For my real work I must use the laptop because a lot of time I have to do it in places that don't have an outlet and I have to move around quickly. I do a lot of work with the laptop on factory production floor.

 

[MattKing]

Some laptops offer a monitor port - built in screen when on the road, plus a good screen when at your desk.

 

[KenS]

I have a small MacBook Air that I do all my serious digital neg work on. Sometimes I'll take a file to school where I have a few big screen iMacs in my classroom (I teach photography).... but really, the little laptop is good enough.

Andrew.. Sir, (or might/should that be SIr Andrew..)
I was 'introduced' to 'desk-top' machines in a Govt. research facility and had to 'prepare' poster session for scientists attending meetings. Since I was not (and still not) really interested on all the power ...and things that a main-frame can 'do'.. (but did take a 'short course" for "Fortran" (it was only Version IV in those days) but I used my own small mac for 'preparing' and forwarding to the local typesetting company to 'get' yards of text which were cut and mounted onto small 'boards' that could (and were) carried to many Scientific meetings
I then invested in a bigger mac (which still sits on a shelf in my basement) but nowadays...much prefer my Macbook and Photoshop) for getting the scans from my Epson scanner onto Pictorico 'film' (using the 'best' colour of ink) for making prints using the archaic' print processes from home mixed 'emulsions' onto a quality 'water-colour' paper for printing out under my home-built UV light source. I has proven to be somewhat more "work".. and a LOT slower.. but (somehow) much more 'satisfying'.

Ken

 

[Luckless]

I have a small MacBook Air that I do all my serious digital neg work on. Sometimes I'll take a file to school where I have a few big screen iMacs in my classroom (I teach photography).... but really, the little laptop is good enough.

How much we can get done with relatively low powered systems is kind of impressive these days.

I know a few photographers who end up doing the bulk of their workflow on their phone even. They'll upload their photos on-site with a low powered laptop and sync with lightroom while they're still in the field, do their culling and initial grading with their phone while on the train home, then do finalized edits/sign off of finished images with a larger colour calibrated monitor back in their office.

As long as you're scaling your expectations to the reality of the hardware you're using, then you can go a long way with pretty much any relatively modern system. A MacBook Air probably isn't going to get you very far in processing astronomical data from 10,000 telescopes, but the hardware for that is 'probably a bit overkill' for cropping and straighten some holiday photos you want to print and hang...

 

[Ariston]

I've bought a lot of laptops over the years, thinking that I could use the portability, but I almost never use them. Having a real keyboard and mouse are just irreplaceable for me when it comes to comfort. And I have nothing so pressing that it needs to be done on the go.

I'm talking about my real work, though. I do very little photo editing in my photography hobby, because I just do not enjoy sitting in front of a computer.

 

[jbuenavides]

I do use a laptop to check the quality of the photos, if I feel like something is odd I do edit it. I have a wireless mouse so that it won't be hard for me to fix minor issues.

Also, I use the same laptop for my work on an online pet supplies shop.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

The title says it all.

Hardware and software requirements are not an issue. I'm wondering about the practicalities.

Yes, but only so I can be mobile if I need to be. I have a dedicated digital work area with a very large calibrated 4K display attached to an external GPU, so when I go there and plug in, I get a massive boost in visual processing firepower. OS-X and Adobe’s products use the external GPU, so when I’m there I’m actually the slowest component. I do a fair amount of video editing (in addition to stills and film), and it’s a real joy to have an editing system that can render 4K video with a full complement of layers and effects faster than real time. The setup costs money, but time is money, and nothing sucks time more than waiting for video to render.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

All computers are a compromise, and the suitability of a laptop for photo work is really going to come down to your needs and what you're willing to settle on.

Biggest issue for me has been the screens, and the workload I've been able to drop on a laptop. For seriously heavy lifting I have always relied on custom built home workstations in big old clunky boxes that I could fill with excessive numbers of bulk hard drives and loads of ram, and have saved my laptop for lighter jobs with smaller numbers of photos or more minor edits.

External monitors are also my friend, and I'll use them where I can. A single screen is 'good enough' to work with, but being able to spread things over two or three monitors is so much easier to work with in my mind. [And at this point it is a rare laptop that can't run an external monitor or two.]

If you don't need tens of thousands of images on hand at a moment's notice, and typically don't work with things like gigantic photo merges, then a moderate laptop can easily meet photo editing needs at this point, and screens are a lot better than they were six years ago if you're picking your hardware with care.

I would suggest you try and throw a heavy workload against a laptop before you commit to buying it however. There are lots of systems out there that look like total number crunchers on paper, but quickly keel over after a minute or two due to thermals.

two years ago, I switched from an iMac to a MacbookPro with a large screen; works perfectly and is very fast; I keep all the apps on an internal SSD and all data files on a external HD; I'm running Photoshop, Illustrator andIn Design simult6aniously on it without an issue.