I need some hardware/peripheral help

I've been making things work with a bunch of older equipment. My brother-in-law is a certified Apple cultist, and he just upgraded his macbook pro which then meant I get his cast off 2021 Macbook pro 16" It is from 2021, but he built it pretty crazily.

I know that the macbook can be used as a "desktop" via connecting to a monitor. As many of you know, the Macbook is all usb-c. Can anyone point me to a hub or whatever they are called so that I can run various devices from one connectivity "brick" or hub? My epson 4990 comes to mind.

I won't ask about keyboards as they are a fairly personal choice, and I think I know which ones I like already.

Lastly is a better monitor. I currently have a 24" LG from costco that was $120 or less. I've been looking at the Asus proart series.


Is this a decent starting place? I do not make money from photography, so I'm not willing to head into the $1k price range.

I know monitor choice could and has comprised other threads, this is simply where I am leaning.

I simply need advice regarding tying everything together.

You will need a high quality USB-C hub (powered) with both C and A connectors; avoid the ones that draw power from the USB connector on the laptop.

How many native USB C ports does the MB Pro 16 have? Ideally, you want the monitor on it's own dedicated USB port; not on the hub to avoid problems, so you will need at least 2 open connectors.

As to the monitor; it all depends on how exacting you plan to be with color space management. However, even a lot of mid-range monitors have color space compatibility well above sRGB nowdays.

In fact, the monitor you reference has, "Calman verified 3840 x 2160 resolution 4K display is factory calibrated for Delta E <2 accuracy, covering 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut".

That is pretty impressive for a sub $500 USD monitor and seems a good buy. In fact, it's way overkill if you intend to stay in sRGB color space, but nice to have if you decide to venture into larger color spaces.

Do you plan on profiling your scanner and your monitor or just settling for the factory calibration preset? If so, you will need a calibration puck and matching software, but maybe you don't want to go down that rabbit hole, which is very deep indeed...

Lastly, the VERY first thing I would do with an inherited laptop you are about to base your entire workflow around is take it to a good repair facility and have them clean it out thoroughly and replace the heat sink compound on the CPU!

Nothing like sinking an investment into a used computer only to have it fry after a few weeks due to bad thermal paste or a big hairball in the cooling system.

MTGseattle said:

I know that the macbook can be used as a "desktop" via connecting to a monitor. As many of you know, the Macbook is all usb-c. Can anyone point me to a hub or whatever they are called so that I can run various devices from one connectivity "brick" or hub? My epson 4990 comes to mind.

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Something like this can be quite handy:
OWC 11-Port Thunderbolt Dock

I believe your Macbook ports are actually Thunderbolt 4 -- almost the same thing as USB-C, but slightly different (better). The dock above connects by Thunderbolt 4, which I believe is a good thing. My 2020 has Thunderbolt 3, so I use an older Thunderbolt 3 version of the OWC dock with 14 ports. But I've never tried to run an extra monitor from it, tho the specifications say that is supported. Having an SD card reader and a headphone port in a convenient place is a plus for me. Seems like no matter how many extra ports I have, it's always about one less than I need. The Thunderbolt 3 version is less money, and practically speaking is still very fast.
https://www.owc.com/solutions/thunderbolt-3-dock-14-port

I agree with @Kino -- whatever USB hub you get, make sure it is powered or you are likely to regret it later.

I believe that is the same monitor I use. Total steal for what it is, and it is good. I have it sitting next to an Eizo for comparison. It replaced a LaCie that was a lot of zeros when it was new. I've profiled the Asus a few different ways but frankly there wasn't much of a difference. It was good out of the box.

There is a hub built into the monitor so you just need to connect it with a USB-c/Thunderbolt cable. That will run the monitor signal and the hub so you just need the one cable. Some laptops can charge off the monitor through the USB-c so you'll have to check if yours will.

I'd see if the built in hub will work for you before you go buying a dock. No sense in spending moolah if you don't have to. Plus the simplicity of just connecting one cable is nice....

Thanks everyone.

I will double check on the port specs before I order anything. We had snow and a power outage on Friday which killed my old Asus wifi router. I spent 45 min with tech support. I got 10+ years out of a $150 piece of tech, that's not bad.
I can't believe the Epson v850 is up to $1600.
Between the monitor having built-in stuff and my sister kicking me a hub she no longer uses, I'll be able to get setup once and then decide if I need an upgrade.

I've got myself mostly set up. I still haven't hooked up the scanner, but that should be fairly straightforward.

I did splurge on the keyboard/mouse;


Here is where I landed for the hub device; Small, budget friendly, pass through power and ethernet. Decent reviews as well.


Now I need to finally try and learn Gimp or suck it up and pay for Adobe creative cloud which would mean learning lightroom and/or photoshop.

MTGseattle said:

Now I need to finally try and learn Gimp or suck it up and pay for Adobe creative cloud which would mean learning lightroom and/or photoshop.

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Do yourself the favor of learning GIMP and not having to unlearn any Adobe product.

Kino said:

Do yourself the favor of learning GIMP and not having to unlearn any Adobe product.

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Look at Affinity as well. It's also free.

gbroadbridge said:

Look at Affinity as well. It's also free.

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Yes, at least the present base version without the AI addons.
So far I find that the pro of Affinity is that it's much more resource-efficient, more elegant w.r.t. dynamic adjustment layers and just a heck of a lot faster.
The cons in comparison with GIMP is that Affinity is ultimately less flexible/functional (e.g. select-by-color doesn't seem to work in combination with dynamic adjustments, several features available in GIMP are not present in Affinity) and I have some doubts about image quality if certain transformations like unsharp-mask are performed.

MTGseattle said:

Now I need to finally try and learn Gimp or suck it up and pay for Adobe creative cloud which would mean learning lightroom and/or photoshop.

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My usual recommnedation about editing software is to choose one, and then stick with it long enough to really learn how to use it. But before you commit the time it takes to learn a particular editing software, it might be good to step back and ask a few questions that might help you decide which editor you want to learn.

1. Is the software non-destructive?
Some software permanently writes whatever edits you make to the file when you Save and Quit (destructive). Other editors "remember" your edits in a separate file and do not write the edits to file until/unless you Export the image (non-destructive). With non-destructive editors you can undo any previous edits; with destructive editors, you cannot.

2. Are you going to want to edit RAW files?
If so, you need a RAW editor. For example, Adobe Lightroom Classic is a RAW editor, but Adobe Photoshop is not. If you want to edit a JPG file from your digital camera or a TIF file from your scanner, it won't matter to Lightroom or Photoshop. But if you want to edit a RAW file from your camera, then Lightroom works natively with your RAW file, but Photoshop does not. Before you can edit a RAW file in Photoshop, you must first open the file with ACR (Adobe Camera Raw); you can make some edits directly in ACR, which then converts the file into a format which can be further edited in Photoshop.

Adobe Lightroom is essentially just a much expanded version of ACR. I shoot RAW only (no camera JPGs), and for me Adobe Lightroom Classic is the only editor I need. I do have Photoshop, but very rarely do I feel the need to use it.

3. Can the editing software make local adjustments?
By "local adjustments" I mean, can you select part of an image and then change the brightness/sharpness/color/contrast, etc. of just the selected area? If you have ever printed in a wet darkroom, local adjustments is like dodging and burning (but with a lot more control). Some of the most basic digital editors can apply edits to the whole image, only, and not just some selcted part of it. That would be a severe limitation.

Since you are using a Mac, you already have Apple Photos which is not a bad editor and it's free! (used to be called iPhoto) Personally, I much prefer the user interface and capabilities of Adobe Lightroom Classic, but I would recommend trying Apple Photos first to see how you like it.

@runswithsizzers Thank you for that. I do shoot in raw almost all the time. (when shooting for ebay, etc. listings, I'll change some settings)

I haven't been even close to proficient with any editor since I think Photoshop 3.

The current subscription model/pricing of software bums me out but that's where we're at. I will explore options before spending money.

I also have the PCNW.org here in Seattle that offers "crash courses" in the adobe products once or twice per quarter.

The one good thing is that Mac OS hasn't changed so much over the years, so I am not completely lost on it. I'll definitely fumble around a bit, but I should be able to avoid catastrophe.

Free Open Source Raw File editors:

RawTherapee:
Darktable:

MTGseattle said:

@runswithsizzers Thank you for that. I do shoot in raw almost all the time. (when shooting for ebay, etc. listings, I'll change some settings)

I haven't been even close to proficient with any editor since I think Photoshop 3.

The current subscription model/pricing of software bums me out but that's where we're at. I will explore options before spending money.

I also have the PCNW.org here in Seattle that offers "crash courses" in the adobe products once or twice per quarter.

The one good thing is that Mac OS hasn't changed so much over the years, so I am not completely lost on it. I'll definitely fumble around a bit, but I should be able to avoid catastrophe.

Click to expand...

If you're RAW editing and don't want a subscription, DxO photolab is worth a look as it is perpetually licensed.

In my experience it provides better demosaicing and lens corrections than LR, but it does have a steeper leaning curve with less automation.

Its AI based noise reduction is better than LR.