djcoyle Loc: Kamas, Utah

I am reciently retired and have taken up photography as a hobby. I am looking to upgrade to a new computer system. Mac or PC? What program do you use to post process your images? What specifications in a computer should I be looking for to run Lightroom and/or Affinity? How do you store your images? Between photography itself and learning postprocessing I feel like I have gone back to school! Good for this ole brain tho! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

jackpinoh Loc: Kettering, OH 45419

I once had the responsibility of buying 40 computers for use in software development. I contacted several major software development companies that developed and supported applications we would be using to find out what computers they were using to develop their applications. They were all using the same system so that is what we bought.

Go to YouTube. Search for Lightroom and Affinity instruction videos. Check out what the computers the presenters are using.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I used a Dell PC for years. The OS is Windows 7 Ultimate. Photoshop CS6 Extended. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine sold me his 27" iMac. I transferred my processing to that computer and haven't done processing on a PC since. There are numerous positives to using a Mac. It takes a bit of time to become accustomed to how to do things on it, but they are easy to learn. I was up and running within a couple of days.

Oh, I still use my Dell PCs for backing up image files, etc. There is some software I use that won't run on a Mac. But, those programs are not directly photo related.
--Bob

Yankeepapa6 Loc: New York City

To me, whenever I hook up with a tutorial site most the instructors are using Mac's. So, Mac is the answer.

cyclespeed Loc: Calgary, Alberta Canada

Yes there is a reason they use Mac's.
Also try exploring the 30 day free trial of Luminar 2018. I like it because I'd sooner be " out there living life " rather than learning complex procedures Adobe expects.

djcoyle Loc: Kamas, Utah

Thank you for your suggestions. Greatly appreciated!

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I'll use any i7 based computer with at least 16GB of memory, a 1TB SSD (solid state drive) and a Windows operating system. At the present I'm using a Lenovo YOGA 910 with 8TB of external harddrives and love it!

I use Lightroom and Photoshop almost exclusively for processing. With this combo there is little reason to use anything else.

I've used Mac's in the past but found too much of my software wouldn't install / run on it. However, if you're only going to run Lightroom and Photoshop, a Mac is a reasonable platform.

bwa

Retina Loc: Near Charleston,SC

As far as Mac vs Windows/Linux goes, selecting or building a platform and computer with adequate specs is relatively easy. You first need to choose the software applications that fit your brain and meet your needs with respect to photography. In other words, start with the software and follow up with the operating system and the hardware that will best support your choice. If you are lucky, the software you choose will be available for more than one platform. it's all about the software.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

1. Mac
2. Lightroom first, then Photoshop, Topaz, Nik, On1 and other programs as needed.
3. Most storage, most working memory you can afford.
4. I store images on an external hard drive, all images linked to Lightroom.

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

Mac is fine, but more expensive and limited options for configuration and peripherals.
PC is cheaper, just as powerful, and has many options for fine tuning your configuration - graphics, card, cpu, memory, internal hard drives, I/O etc etc etc.

Most people who switched from PC to Mac did so before Windows 7, and Macs were Motorola CPU based. Things have changed considerably, and there is more convergence - they are more alike than different, including resistance to viruses and other malware.

You can spend $2800 to get a 16gb laptop with a 15" screen, i7 cpu, and 512 gb solid state drive. You would still have to add a Thunderbolt 3 hard drive - G-Technology offers a nice 4TB drive for $350.

Or you can spend $2000 to get a destop system with 32 gb ram (with room for another 32gb), 512 gb NVMe m.2 SSD, (4x faster than PCIe found in the Mac), AND three drive bays to add less costly storage drives - this configuration is priced with a 4Tb hard drive, and Windows 10. Add another $300-$500 for a display and you have an upgradeable, more powerful and flexible system.

Of course if either of these two systems are a little over the top, you can shave off at least $700 on the PC system by getting a 2 TB hard drive and 16 gb ram, which ought to be fine for all but the largest images (panos or focus stacks) in Photoshop.

With a Mac, you'd have to move to a completely less capable machine, and you'd only save $600 or $700 if you went for a smaller external drive.

There is no computational advantage to either platform - it's all about the money. Both will work well, but I would think twice about buying a computer from a company which makes the lion's share of it's profit by selling phones. Just sayin'

Ok mac-fanboys - let 'er rip! I've said my peace, and I'm outta here. I support both platforms, so I know exactly what I am talking about.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

I also have both platforms and you're 100% right!

bwa

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

👍👍 excellent professional advice.

queencitysanta Loc: Charlotte, North Carolina

I sold PC's for years to schools Acer, Dell, Toshiba, IBM, etc. including the Gatesd Foundation Grant for North Carolina of $5.5 million. Four years I bought an Imac and never looked back. now I own an Imac, Ipad and Ipone. Apple is more expensive but worth every penny.

BJW

Dear djcoyle:

Welcome aboard. I too am "almost" retired (may "rewired").
The most objective and intelligent guys on the Hog are jerryc41 and Gene51. IMHO. You won't get the political/brand bias from them.

For going back to school, try the courses on Linda.com in addition to youtube. Evelyn costs a bit, but I have found their Lightroom courses and photography courses to be excellent. With Lightroom, I was up an running in one weekend. After that it's all practice.

Earlier today, I wrote the following, in another string, but it may be relevant:

I personally switched to Mac about 10 years ago from PC. I then proceeded to switch my whole law practice to Mac. Started with IBM, tried Gateway, Dell, HP, Toshiba and others. But I moved on and I have been happiest with each of the Macs I've had over the past decade. Now that I'm doing more and more with photography, I see the ever greater value to the Mac. The smooth interplay between hardware and software is a delight. Not so on a PC, which I found constantly crashing. The Apple Care customer service is tops in the few instances I have needed them. Not so with PC machines, where you need to speak with different customer care companies for each of the brands, and if they can't figure it out, they tell you to talk to the other vendor. Royal PITA. If Apple is the wealthiest company in the world, it may be because of pricing, but it is also due to customer satisfaction. You get what you pay for.

For my work, I now use a MacBook Air. For my photography, I use a MacBook Pro, attached to a large Apple monitor. I download and store my images from camera to a portable external HD and back that up to a second external. Add to that a cloud back up for $5. per month.(BackBlaze). And Time Machine, which is indigenous to the Mac, backs up the computer every hour to a third external. From the external, I import to LR. I use Lightroom Classic CC and that gives flawless sharing of my photo Collections with LR Mobile on my iPhone or iPad. All this syncs beautifully without worrying about the quirks of piecing together various brands of PC/Windows based machines and devices.

While PC gurus say you can do comparable things that you can do with a Mac using PC based devices, I find great virtue in simplicity and reliability. Apple gives me that.

As the sages say, "Once you've tried a Mac, you won't go back..." IMHO, I'm glad I switched and stayed with Mac.

Either way, good luck.

BJW

wteffey Loc: Ocala, FL USA

The responses to this question were predictable, well meaning, and expensive. If your budget is small, and you are not already committed to MAC, just about any PC you can buy on line or from a store will run Elements, or most editing software, just fine. A large 20" or greater monitor will be essential. Computer speed is constrained by operator speed, and as a beginner your editing will be slow and methodical. Even a modest computer will spend most of it's time waiting for your input, so paying for a really fast computer is not necessary. You will need some sort of backup, but a $100 external hard drive, and/or an online backup at $50 a year will do nicely. If your budget is larger and you can justify the expense to your partner, go for it. You can always list all your expensive equipment on this site to impress people.