How much RAM? I am fairly new to photography but hope to continue and one day be able to make some type of money. I recently purchased the new MacBook Pro Retina with 8gb of RAM. Since...

Charrito78 Loc: Camarillo, CA

I am fairly new to photography but hope to continue and one day be able to make some type of money. I recently purchased the new MacBook Pro Retina with 8gb of RAM. Since this particular model you are not able to upgrade the ram at a later date I wanted to know if 8gb will be enough for processing. Like I said I am new and I am barely beginning to learn Lightroom 4 and PS Elements. I wanted to ask the more experienced photographers out there who have done lots of processing if they think 8gb will be enough to handle the job or should I return it and upgrade to 16gb RAM.

FilmFanatic Loc: Waikato, New Zealand

I am using a 2011 Mac Mini with 4gb and it seems to do OK, I often have LR, Bridge and PSE open at the same time, and some of my film scans are quite large - 10k x 10k pixels, doesn't seem to worry it. I should really upgrade to 8gb but it's OK for now

Charrito78 Loc: Camarillo, CA

Everything i have read so far seems to indicate that I should be fine with 8gb but like I said I have never worked with alot of the processing programs so I wanted to get feedback from people like you. I

ohallboyz Loc: Boston, MA

I think you will be fine with 8, I am running CS5 with 4 and I'm managing, although I could use an upgrade!

rocar7 Loc: Alton, England

Charrito78 wrote:

Everything i have read so far seems to indicate that I should be fine with 8gb but like I said I have never worked with alot of the processing programs so I wanted to get feedback from people like you. I

8gb is plenty, but 16gb would be even better. The more RAM you have the faster the program will run. With large photo files, if there isn't enough RAM the computer will write to the hard disc to free up RAM for processing (I'm not explaining this very well). Writing to the disc and then reading the info back takes much longer than using RAM, so if you've got plenty of RAM everything will go much faster.

Leicaflex Loc: Cymru

The latest Adobe Photoshop CS6 states a RAM of 4gb so your MAC Book at 8gb is more than adequate.

normsImages Loc: Alabama for now

I running a 4 year old Pro with 8 GB Ram with no problems. I usually have LR and Photoshop open at the same time or photoshop, dreamweaver and fireworks open at the same time all depending on what Im doing. In the later I some times have a small lag time. If I were buying a new machine, for $200 difference I would go for the 16 GB. When they say mim requirements is 4 GB for PS thats not taking into consideration what else you are multi tasking the computer with, I may self will also have the mail, and safari open and iTunes or Pandora for music.

Charrito78 Loc: Camarillo, CA

Another thing I noticed is that the laptop uses 2gb to run so that leaves me with 6gb to work with. I am running an app called free memory which shows how much is being used......hmmm I already got $200 education discount and it cost $180 to add extra RAM so maybe I will upgrade just to be safe

normsImages Loc: Alabama for now

Charrito78 wrote:

Another thing I noticed is that the laptop uses 2gb to run so that leaves me with 6gb to work with. I am running an app called free memory which shows how much is being used......hmmm I already got $200 education discount and it cost $180 to add extra RAM so maybe I will upgrade just to be safe

I use istat app. It allows me to see on my iPhone what is happening on my mac book pro. I can see RAM usage, fan speeds and temps and other things. As is said my mac book is 4 years old and 8 GB is max for it. I want to upgrade but am disappointed that they have dropped the 17 model. Im considering picking up the latest 17 before they all disappear.

rebride

Plenty, do not worry about it. You'll Barely use half of that. Meter it, you'll see.

BHC Loc: Strawberry Valley, JF, USA

rocar7 wrote:

quote=Charrito78 Everything i have read so far se... (show quote)

Agreed! Two or three raw files can eat up most your ram. It won't hurt you, but can really slow down multi-tasking.

mafadecay Loc: Wales UK

Charrito78 wrote:

I am fairly new to photography but hope to continu... (show quote)

Eventually as program updates produce more ram eating patches and your computer gets cluttered with junk that starts up each time your computer does using up valuable system resources you will start to struggle. At the moment 8GB is more than ample.

I normally use 8GB but at the moment my one PC is duel booting and one version of windows 7 installed on it is only 32 bit so I have a drop to 4GB (this being the maximum a 32bit operating system can handle) and I can still edit just about.

randymoe

You will be using this computer for years. I always max out the RAM on any new computer. I recommend going for the future and max RAM. As you said it is a one time and initial decision. Do not cheap out now and regret it years later.

LaughBrian Loc: Tn

he said he is maxed out already. thats why i like my pc readyboost rocks, it will use any flash drive as added ram.

mickeys Loc: Fort Wayne, IN

more than enough memory. no need to upgrade. I have only 2gig memory in my windows pc and upgrade to 4. may do it sometime soon.