I’m looking for MacBook advice so please stop reading if an off-topic topic offends.
I have an M1 Max, 4TB, 64GB, 16”. I bought this somewhat high spec from what was available from UK Apple Refurbished with the key driver being 4TB to house all photos. It performs fine but as they say, I can’t take it with me, so I’m considering an upgrade from my work-time savings.
I also have an ‘everyday’ 14” M3, 2TB, 18GB (also Apple refurbished) and it seems to run my photo software quite well, albeit slower and with more disk swapping (PL8 – expect to upgrade to PL10 – Capture One and Affinity Suite, times with all three open … well, you open something and leave it sitting there in the background.). I’ve monitored with the Activity open and this machine runs into loss of memory with red figures and red portions on the graph so I think 18GB is too low. DxO is less greedy than CO which is a hog.
I started thinking I’d replicate the spec in an M4 (I know they have just announced availability of the M5 and the M4 is no longer available). But then the price builds … an option is ‘only’ GBP200 or GBP300, it’s easy to add and add and you can’t change screen size or memory or disks later then, at the end, this model hoves in at GBP5,200. I’ve been monitoring the refurbished but there is a paucity of high spec 16” and the 14” is not much better.
If I bought a new M5 then I’d expect it to last a good while (my wife suggested it might be my last computer but maybe she has something planned for me!!). We can’t know what will be needed to run AI-based photo editing in 3/7 years time so it seems like a caution to compromise on some parts of the spec.
I was dithering on the M4 but with the M5 now on pre-order I can wait a while.
M1 to M2 was a modest upgrade. Every one since has been significant. M3 to M4 was big and it seems M5 is decent, with their new Fusion technology. Later is always better in terms of longevity and will perform better, too.
I think I have to go with the M5 as nothing less (ignoring Air) is available new in the UK. From non-Apple used dealers there are a lot of used low and middling lesser Mx but the higher specs seem to bought for a purpose and retained. Overnight the final Apple Refurbished Pro of any spec/age/generation was sold, leaving only a selection of Air.
That is a lot of reading, but his style is clear and his recommendations are also clearly stated. I came across Thom Hogan when I had Nikon cameras and found his guidance useful. RAM foremost … on the M1 64G, I have pushed the RAM use very close to 36G with three photo apps open. So, 48G seems inevitable but it is easy to slide into 64G. And if I base the decision on RAM as he suggests, the core-count decision is forced upon me pretty much. Thanks for the link.
Hogan is right about memory. Lots and lots of it. I love the screen on the 15 inch MacBook Air, no mini-LED flicker or burn on long sessions.
Whether M4 or M5, 32GB/1TB is a good configuration. Since it’s a dedicated road warrior, 32GB/2TB would be even better.
For the amount of travel I do these days, I get by with an M3 24GB 512GB which is enough and does fine with PhotoLab 9, though I haven’t tried it on the AI masking which brings even an M2 Ultra to its knees after three masks.
Off topic a little but what do you mean by brings it to its knees? I have an M1 Max with 32 GB and at times it takes a few seconds with multiple masks and longer with some exports but I wouldn’t say it crippled it or that it was intolerable. Now I’m talking about a single image, not batch processing, with 45mp images from a Nikon Z7. It flies through 24mp images from my D750. Maybe its the 32GB of RAM?
Also, oddly, it seems to have sped up noticeably lately and I am at PL 9.4 which is what I started with.
Of course, I have been trying to avoid a big purchase but if I am to buy something I would want to keep for a good number of years - and given the rise in AI gobbling up computer resource, I guess I must make the big purchase.
I’m referring to 45MP Z9 or D850 images (although I think the same applies to Z6 24 MP images).
The slowdowns happen somewhere around AI mask 4 or 5 (with minus areas on each of them). When I get up to AI mask 8 or 9, every modification is incredibly slow and painful. The obvious solution is to use fewer AI masks, or to make as many local selections as possible non-AI. Which I’ve done.
I’ve had some success in mixed light situations with many AI masks making all the subjects (multiple people) look great. The AI masking builds masks at a quality level I’ve never achieved with manual work (not patient or steady handed enough to draw perfect masks).
Previously I used U-points to similar effect and will probably go back to using them more again, as the performance penalty is much lower.
My point is that if one does want to use AI masks, PhotoLab is back to sucking up all the power one can throw at it. When the Apple Silicon revolution came, even DxO couldn’t waste all that processing power and PhotoLab ran like lightning for a few years. DxO developers have caught up to Apple Silicon, there’s not enough hardware one can throw at PhotoLab for layered compositions with noise reduction.
Speaking of which, I’ve had to go back to applying noise reduction only when everything else is done. It would be great to have a toggle to turn off NR globally for preview to allow photographers to preview and set NR levels and then toggle it off for additional work.