Photogirlnwcoast

Confused about how much RAM is needed to run the software editing programs like Premier, Lightroom and Photoshop. My laptop is an Apple Mac Book Pro 2014. And it keeps going into a hang mode and pauses. It has less than 600mb to work with when I launch even just one of Adobe’s programs. Working off external drives to save hard drive which has 171 gigabytes left from 256. It seems the working memory is just not enough.
Frustrates me after I get to really working on my photo and art projects. Close it down. Works a while and then hangs up again. Any ideas out there? Thank you😊

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

If you can upgrade the memory, upgrade to 16GB. I’m by no means a Mac guru (but there are some here), but I believe it has 2 memory slots. So if one is currently populated with an 8GB DIMM, buy another 8GB, but if both slots are populated with 4GB DIMMs, then you’ll have to replace those with 2 8GB DIMMs. Cost should be either ~$55 for one or ~$110 for 2 8GB DIMMs. Money well spent if you’re going to keep the machine.

Boris77

I doubt that I can answer your questions precisely since I am running Photoshop 6 on a mid-2011 iMac. When I set up Photoshop years ago I went thru the Preferences and set up parameters that favored Photoshop as my main application.
In my normal processing I open 20 photo files at a time from a SD card plugged in to the side of the computer, from a camera shooting 24MB files. I have opened as many as 50 by accident. They pop open at an easy pace allowing me to briefly view each. I then can do the normal improvements about as fast as I think, while randomly switching which pictures to work on, and then save them to the iMac.
Assuming that your set up is not too different, here are a few tips:

1) Add more Ram! I quickly upgraded my computer from 8 to 16 GB after I brought the machine home. This allowed me to open the mass of photographs, and occasionally build singular files of 150 to 200mb.

2) Activities that draw on an outside memory bank slow down operations, unless the freestanding memory is the new Solid State memory. I do all my work from/on the computer hard drive, and then transfer the finished files to another storage device when convenient.

3) I try not to have more than two programs open at one time. A friend of mine keeps about six programs running, and my photographs open 3-4 times faster than her smaller files.

4) I have heard that the most dramatic thing you can do to a laptop is replace the regular hard disc with a new Solid State Drive.

I do not use Lightroom, do not shoot and edit Video, and have never owned a laptop (do not like the small size). I think the first three thoughts above will stop the hang ups, even if it does not provide blazing speed. Good luck.
Boris

Bill Munny Loc: Aurora, Colorado

I just upgraded my 10 yr old MacBook Pro from 4g (2x2) to 8 g (4x4) of ram and 250 g old hard drive to 500 g of SSD. I run Affinity Photo which can be a memory hog and everything seems to run okay as long as all other apps are shut down, no speed demon like my Mac Pro desk top but is sufficient if you are not in a super hurry. The SSD has made a tremendous difference except on uploading which is still 10 mps. The whole upgrade cost me $210 counting labor. You will find that the memory you have will be 4x4 DDR3, not 8x0, so if you want to go to 16 g, it will cost you more than my 8 g since you will have to buy the whole 16 g or 8x8 g. Hope this helps.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Depending on your use, 8-16 should be adequate for Lightroom and Premiere, and if you do lots of work with layers in Photoshop, sometimes even 32 gb will seem slow. Your drive is overburdened, which is probably why things are hanging up. You should not work with a drive that is more than 75% full. Programs open temporary files that can easily consume all available memory. If you can substitute an SSD it would be way better than a mechanical drive. Between the ram upgrade and a new internal drive, you should be a bit faster than you are now.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

I have only 8 gb of RAM and it's plenty fast enough for my PC, probably the main cause for your problem is the MAC itself.

doclrb

Check Crucial.com or Ifixit if your have any questions about user upgradability. Upgrading RAM is not a guaranteed remedy but likely your best option.

doclrb

jbk224 Loc: Long Island, NY

Go to OWC to check out your model and upgrade options for RAM and HD. Absolutely max out the RAM and install an SSD. This link should help.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Apple_MacBook_MacBook_Pro/Upgrade/DDR3_1600MHz_SDRAM

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

As always, the more RAM the merrier.
I'm currently running 4Gb on the laptop and 8 on the desktop. It's enough for me for now.

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

Since I use my laptop for travel or lectures 4GB Ram is fine. My desktop has 32 GD Ram for all my programs

spraguead Loc: Boston, MA

I'm using a macbook pro (2015) with 16mb ram. It's fine, but I will look to at least double that when i upgrade next year. For just image processing and simple Photoshop editing, 16mb is sufficient, for larger files or video get as much as you can put in the machine.

You may also want to look at how much hard drive space you have. Photoshop reads and writes to the hard dive constantly and needs free space. For video, that gets harder. Ideally all of your source files, and edit files are on a different hard drive than your system. When we were doing more video we had a dedicated tower for that. Now when I need to do something quick on the laptop in video, I utilize an external RAID for the source and edit files. A good fast 2tb drive would work too, just make sure it's using an input interface other than the USB 2.0. I think 2014 macs still had firewire, mine uses the thunderbolt port.

Also...one more thing before you get out the credit card and make any purchases. Make sure your system and hard drive are all running nice.
Update your OS to the latest your machine can handle. Same on your software. Also, run disc utility to fix any bad blocks or file errors in your register. All kinds of problems are sometimes solved by doing this maintenance.

Richard Engelmann Loc: Boulder, Colorado

Video editors (I use Premier Elements) access current unedited files on your drives - the more complex the editing becomes, the more rapid is the drive head movement required to display the draft in the editing view. When the combined time to access bits of many files exceeds the system's physical speed of head movement, you may get a halting display of the draft view or in some cases software crashes. Adobe even recommends separate drives (scratch disks) to improve performance. A solid-state drive will make a huge difference in this aspect of editing video.

Dikdik Loc: Winnipeg, Canada

Check... your DIMMS may have to be the same type (manufacturer and size). You may want to buy 2 DIMMs (matched pair). I don't know about Apple, but with PCs, depending on your Windows OS, you may be limited to the maximum RAM you can use.

Dik

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Just a word of caution. I suggest you not have an Apple store upgrade the RAM, providing you go in that direction. Their prices are out of proportion. Upgrading RAM is a very simple procedure. I also concur with the suggestion of upgrading your operating system drive to an SSD. That will speed up the processing.
Good luck,
Mark

jonjacobik Loc: Quincy, MA

The bottleneck in your setup is the external drive and getting information into your computer. I recommend you copy the photos you want to work on to your Mac’s drive, the launch your software. When finished, copy them back to the external drive for storage.