Which portable for basic Lightroom 6?

[Dante_Stella]

Dear RFF,

I am going to a photo workshop this weekend and just learned that I need to bring a laptop.

Since I don't actually own one that I can put software on, could you recommend a Surface, a tablet, or a 2-in-1 that is relatively cheap (maybe under $500) and can run LR6? I know there are some ultra-cheapies out there, but if I am buying one, I would like it to be useful in other contexts. Getting DNGs off an SD card is a must, whether directly or via a USB 3.0 reader. SSD is a plus.

I was thinking about using the household's iPad, but I don't think it can read DNGs and spit out JPGs back onto a card or flash drive. Or can it?

Thanks!
Dante

 

[Dwig]

The iPad can't run Lr. If you have Lr/CC and not Lr6, you get some additional lightweight apps for the iPad that can do a few things, but the images must first be imported into a full copy of Lr/CC and exported to the iPad. Import on the iPad itself is very limited. If the workshop includes any Lr instructions, the iPad will be worthless.

Your budget restriction limits you to Windows 8.1 notebooks and tablets. Be sure that the device you get runs Win8.1 64bit. Some of the lower end models run that 32bit version of Win8.1. Lr6 & Lr/CC require the 64bit version.

Lr is a bit difficult to run on any screen smaller than about 10". Even then, controls are quite small. Because of this and the fact that you often need to mouse while holding down the Alt key, I find that a trackpad is a poor substitute for a real mouse when using Lr. A touchscreen is not of any real use with Lr.

I have an old Lr4 on my 8" Dell Venue 8 pro (Win8.1/32bit) and it is functional when using a mouse. I wouldn't want to do much work on that little screen, but it is possible to do some minor editing, sorting and exporting for email or web. The larger 10" screen on my wife's Toshiba notebook (a 2-in-1-ish foldover design) a significant improvement.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I think LR mobile can export jpegs into the iPad photo library? From there I bet you could get them onto an SD card with the camera connection kit. Might be kinda fiddly though.

 

[willie_901]

The least expensive MacBook Air would be the most useful in other contexts.

I doubt (pardon my presumption) the additional cost would be wasted in your household over the next five years or so.

Otherwise I have no idea how a less expensive device would meet your needs. The staff at your nearest Big-Box electronics store may be able to help.

 

[porktaco]

i'm very excited about surface 3 (they start at 499). HOWEVER. it's small (10") and a wee tad underpowered. surface 3 pro (starts at 799 and has a 12" screen) is probably better for LR. me, i'm waiting for the fall and surface 4. lol.

 

[Oscuro]

Dante,
If you are committed to DNG then a laptop with a card reader built in is likely the solution. If your "ecosystem" is Mac, I'd go with a MacBookPro in 13" but if it is Microsoft, then I can't really recommend anything as my awareness of laptop solutions in that world stopped nearly ten years ago with Lenovo (highly recommended, still) and the odd ASUS product.
The MacBook Air, for me, was too flimsy (I'm on the road 7-9 months of the year) and, at the time, I couldn't find one with a built-in card reader.

Not to advocate for "upstream" workflow changes, but I currently work with an iPad mini 3 and use Snapseed and Filterstorm for post. The SD cards are made by eye-fi and transmit directly to the iPad. It's incredibly liberating. One camera and the little iPad.

Here's the thing - I'm an old Kodachrome user - very little B&W in the portfolio. So, no post (besides resizing for web, etc.,) is kind of my default modality and therefore JPGs, once I've bullied the camera to where I want it, work just fine. However, I know that the new eye-fi SD cards (X2?) support DNG and it would appear that there are some apps (Filterstorm Pro and Snapseed at least) for the iPad that support it as well.

For field production I use a little Canon Selphy printer that doesn't print anything but 4x6.

I used this workflow with an iPhone 6+ for a while. Fed by a D3 and an X100. FTP when WiFi was available. That was fine, but the real limiting factor was the battery/data/ equation. I listen to a lot of music and I keep much of it on my phone. Doing my edits while listening to music or talking to my family....mitigates the long absences.

As I said, liberating. But if LR is the requirement, any small laptop with at least 8GB of RAM and a card reader will suffice. I like the MBP because of the Retina screen. Stellar, Stella.

Good luck,

O

 

[Dante_Stella]

Thanks asll - some notes. I got a Surface 3 (4Gb/128Gb) last night and got Lightroom up and running.

1. The computer runs fine. The Atom 7 does well with Windows 8. Windows 8 needs work. It's in a weird place where some applications want to be Windows 7 and some want to be Windows 10.

2. Lightroom has a very cool tablet mode, but it looks like the only easy way to switch modes is to snap the keyboard on and off. Maybe I missed the easy way.

3. I don't know who codes for Adobe, but they should be replaced. LR 6 (CC) renders M 240 files slowly (a full-size image takes up to 10 seconds; though admittedly you don't do that a lot - but inexplicably, this repeats when you switch frames even if LR has made a full-size preview). That is consistent with what I see out of my 4Ghz quad-core i7 Retina 5K (which is a couple seconds, at a processor benchmark that should be 10x higher). I thought the slowness was an older Mac Pro issue, and that's why I bought the Retina. Idiot me. There ought to be nothing difficult about rendering a 24mp Bayer file.

4. In terms of configuration, the $499 stripper model is not worth it. You can't upgrade the RAM or the storage, and by the time you add all the ancillaries that Microsoft wants (keyboard, pen, etc.), you are really looking at the difference between $850 and $750, which is 13%. Based on my experience with LR 6 on much more powerful machines, I would be hesitant to spend more than twice Surface 3 money for a high-spec Surface 3 Pro. The marginal performance difference is not proportionate to the price difference.

5. The Surface 3 screen is nice, and it's not noticeably different from the 3 Pro. That said, it is a tiny bit smaller, with a proportionately reduced resolution. It fits better in a camera bag.

6. The charger is not what you expect. The Surface needs 2.5A to charge, not the 2.1 that a lot of battery packs deliver. So if you think you are going to run this on an external, you will be very surprised. You have to use the Microsoft Micro USB cable (same connector but has proprietary electronics), and your best case is running but not charging the computer (and the battery will get quite hot).

Anyway, this is far less of a toy than an iPad - but not something I would use if I did heavy duty graphics work (the way LR is written, I would only run that on a machine with brute processing force - and that is no tablet). After this weekend, it will be dedicated to a business purpose and written off.

And MacBooks?

Dante

 

[majid]

The cheapest MacBook is $1,300 and you'll need to pay dearly for the USB-C adapters. It's really a side laptop for people whose primary computer is a desktop, as is my case. The 11" MacBook Airs are a bit cheaper but have dismal non-IPS screens. CPU is a bit wimpy, but the ultra-fast SSD compensates for that somewhat. Retina MacBook Pros are the laptops to get for heavy graphics work in the Apple world, but they are way beyond the budget you listed. Then again, so is every MacBook. On the flip side, they keep their resale value pretty well.

The Dell XPS 13 is probably the best truly portable machine on the Windows side of the fence.

The Chromebook Pixel has great hardware specs (Core i7, 16GB RAM, 4MP IPS display for $1.3K). You can install Linux as a replacement for ChromeOS, and apparently Windows 8 as well, although there are some warts: http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-install-windows-8-on-your-google-chromebook-pixel.350111/

 

[sevo]

As long as I only keep a small database of the files from the current job/past month or so, Lightroom actually does very well on a Thinkpad x61 I bought used for 60€ (originally for use as a tethered monitor) - requirements only bloat out of proportion when the databases grow large...

 

[willie_901]

I thought all USB and USB2 devices worked with USB3 ports... no adapter required. However there is a 500 mA power limit so USB3 is not intended for charging devices. Of course the transfer rate would be device dependent. And Firewire would require a Thunderbolt adapter.

The price for Thunderbolt drives has dropped too.

Video output is another story (unless you use an Apple Thunderbolt monitor or also own a compatible iMac). Then are USB3 hubs that sell for around $130. This is about the same price as buying all the individual USB3 adapters/power cords Apple sells.

 

[Dwig]

I thought all USB and USB2 devices worked with USB3 ports... no adapter required. However there is a 500 mA power limit so USB3 is not intended for charging devices. ...

Your wording makes these statements a bit confused.

USB 3 hosts will fall back to USB 2 and USB 1.2 protocols when such devices are attached. Full-spec USB 3 hosts provide 750ma while the older spec'd hosts provide only 500ma which is sometimes shared between two ports. The power provided by a USB host is intended for powering the attached client devices (e.g. Mice, Keyboards, ...). Devices requiring more power have to provide their own (e.g. Printers, "desktop" hard drives, ...).

The issue Dante was referring to involves charging the tablet via its MicroUSB charging port and not the tablet providing power to attached devices via its standard USB3 port. The Surface 3's MicroUSB port is for charging the tablet only. It is now a data port.

The are issues with some USB2/1.2 devices when attached to USB3 ports, especially when attached to a USB3 hub. The higher speed USB3 data can interfere with some wireless signals used by USB2/1.2 dongles that communicate with mice and keyboards.

 

[willie_901]

Dwig

Thank you for this detailed information.

 

[Dante_Stella]

I will have some updates on the Surface 3, notably that you should be generating 1:1 previews for easier work later. There are a lot of nuances to this system, and one big issue is the default power management settings, which hibernate the machine (as in it stops working on stuff) after a couple of minutes of non-use - even when plugged in. Not the thing for overnight bulk image processing! It also has phenomenally slow write speeds to a Lexar 128Gb 633x MicroSD card - in the neighborhood of 16mb/sec.

 

[Godfrey]

Dear RFF,

I am going to a photo workshop this weekend and just learned that I need to bring a laptop.

Since I don't actually own one that I can put software on, could you recommend a Surface, a tablet, or a 2-in-1 that is relatively cheap (maybe under $500) and can run LR6? I know there are some ultra-cheapies out there, but if I am buying one, I would like it to be useful in other contexts. Getting DNGs off an SD card is a must, whether directly or via a USB 3.0 reader. SSD is a plus.

I was thinking about using the household's iPad, but I don't think it can read DNGs and spit out JPGs back onto a card or flash drive. Or can it?

Thanks!
Dante

I know you already have the Surface, but thought I'd dwell on the iPad possibilities for a moment.

Getting camera image files onto the iPad is easy: Apple sells two cables with Lightning connectors, one with SD/SDHC/SDXC and the other with USB 2 (or 3?) connector. Many cameras nowadays have their own built-in wifi and apps that can transfer (JPEGs) directly from camera to iPad (my Olympus E-M1 has that, the new Leica Q has it, I know that some of the Fujis, the Sonys, etc do too). I use the card reader or camera connector mostly, however, to move both JPEG and raw files.

Raw converters for iPad do exist: PhotoRAW and PiRAWhna. I've used PhotoRAW and it does an ok job. The iPad is not an ideal environment for raw processing but it can work well, depending on the iPad model; it works pretty well on the iPad mini 3 and iPad Air 2.

Once you have your image converted to a JPEG, there are a host of good editing solutions ... Snapseed, Photogene, ... even Apple's Photos can do a good job of minor tweaks on JPEGs.

Getting finished JPEGs from iPad to an external storage device is also possible using a WiFi connected drive and file management software. Of course, what are you going to do with them from there ...? You'll need to connect that to something else, I bet. ;-)

Normally what I do when traveling is capture JPEG+raw, try to get the camera set up so that I can use JPEGs mostly. I input to iPad. If I need to use the raw converter, I run those and output to JPEGs. I then use Photos, Photogene, or Snapseed to do finish work. I then build slide shows using Pages, Keynote, or iMovie, and connect the iPad to a television or other HDMI display (another connection device) to show the images. That's with an iPad mini that has 128G storage on board... I cherry pick the images I keep on it so that I don't jam it full too fast.

But yes: any Windows or OS X computer running Lightroom is more efficient if you're really into doing a good bit of editing. Since I'm all OS X/iOS based, I'd buy a MacBook Pro or Air 13" (that way you get the card reader built in).

G

 

[sevo]

The iPad will not run Lightroom - which presumably is a requirement for the workshop.