[Greenneck]

Hey Ive tried and tried searching for this, so I thought I should post
I want to get a mbp 13in, I want that one mostly for the size. Im trying to figure out if i buy the nicer one i5 dual core 2.8 with 8gigs ram if that will be more then enough to say import a few hundred raw files in light room while editing in photoshop with music and the internet open. Most of what I am reading is telling me I dont need an i7 processor or really need 16 gigs of ram but to buy them if I can afford it. I really dont want to buy more laptop than Ill need now or in 4 years when I could spend that money to buy a nice lens. I feel like the ssd will help more then a little boost in processing power to i7 or doubling ram. I dont want to try any more windows products

2.8GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage
Intel Iris Graphics
$1800

So If anyone has a macbook Id really appreciate if they could run their activity monitor program while maxing out their usual operations and let me know what they find out?

[Kwong]

Hey Ive tried and tried searching for this, so I thought I should post
I want to get a mbp 13in, I want that one mostly for the size. Im trying to figure out if i buy the nicer one i5 dual core 2.8 with 8gigs ram if that will be more then enough to say import a few hundred raw files in light room while editing in photoshop with music and the internet open. Most of what I am reading is telling me I dont need an i7 processor or really need 16 gigs of ram but to buy them if I can afford it. I really dont want to buy more laptop than Ill need now or in 4 years when I could spend that money to buy a nice lens. I feel like the ssd will help more then a little boost in processing power to i7 or doubling ram. I dont want to try any more windows products

2.8GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM
512GB PCIe-based Flash Storage
Intel Iris Graphics
$1800

So If anyone has a macbook Id really appreciate if they could run their activity monitor program while maxing out their usual operations and let me know what they find out?

Running a MBP Core i5. 3 year old model with 8GB RAM and 1TB Hybrid Drive. No issues running lightroom with other apps. Lightroom FYI started up consumes 1.3GB of RAM according to Activity Monitor. CPU loads spike to 25% but settled right back down. I would say you are good to go with those specs. Get a good IPS panel as i find the 13" display too small to do much editing work on.

[Greenneck]

Thanks a lot, Ive been trying to find something like that online all day thank you

[tvdtvdtvd]

I purchased a 13" Mac Book Pro with a 2.4GHz i5 and 16 GB earlier this year. It runs most things just fine, including PS
elements and organizer, (I don't have lightroom). BUT, it is noticeably slower than my four year old Dell Precision with
2.5 GHz i5 and 4 GB, particularly with graphics rendering. I notice the difference a little bit with photo editing, and
quite a lot when gaming. Looking at the specs of the two machines it's apparent the processor is not at issue and the
MacBook has more RAM. However, the Precision has a dedicated Nvidia Quadro 1000m graphics card in a addition
to the integrated Intel graphics. The MacBook only has an integrated Intel Iris chip.

You may notice some sluggishness, or not, depending on the type of Post Production you do on your images. Rendering
tasks may be a little slow depending on what you're used to, but not so sluggish to be aggravating.

I don't recall if Apple offered any graphics upgrades on the MacBook Pro, but if they do, >that< is where I'd drop some
extra coin.

[Greenneck]

i went with the 2.8gh 8ram 512ssd 13in macbook, when i imported my 2k photo library and rendered 1:1 previews i was topping out around 90% cpu but my ram health was still green.

A little while ago light room was crawling along rainbow wheel everything and I don't know why, my cpu is barely used and my ram was fine as well, but any filter even zooming in caused the rainbow wheel and almost a minute delay so I'm not really happy with my purchase at the moment, the onlything i had in the background was updating a couple apps.

[i_trax]

I do most of my work on 17":
OS X Yosemite 10.10 ( get this free upgrade , it is excellent with managing resources )
MacBook Pro (Mid 2010)
Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1067 MHz
Nvidia GeForce GT 330M 512MB

it copes very well with LR 5.6

for on the run I have 15":
OS X Yosemite 10.10
MacBook Pro ( Retina , Mid 2012)
2.6GHz Intel Core i7
8 GB 1600 MHz
Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
this one runs much faster but a bit small for my liking, use it mostly while traveling , I do not know how you could manage with 13", perhaps you have much younger eyes.
One more comment re Yosemite, I also have 15" MacBook Pro (mid 2008 ) , I haven't used it for probably last 18 months, it was painfully slow.
After upgrading 17" and 15" Retina to 10.10 and noticing big difference in performance I also upgraded my 6+ years old 15" , it jumped back to life , it is very usable now, even can cope with LR.
enjoy your new Mac!
kind regards
jack

[Kwong]

i went with the 2.8gh 8ram 512ssd 13in macbook, when i imported my 2k photo library and rendered 1:1 previews i was topping out around 90% cpu but my ram health was still green.

A little while ago light room was crawling along rainbow wheel everything and I don't know why, my cpu is barely used and my ram was fine as well, but any filter even zooming in caused the rainbow wheel and almost a minute delay so I'm not really happy with my purchase at the moment, the onlything i had in the background was updating a couple apps.

Did you resolve your issues? I have none of those problems. What version of LR are you running? I am guessing OS X is 10.9.x.

[DSims]

i went with the 2.8gh 8ram 512ssd 13in macbook, when i imported my 2k photo library and rendered 1:1 previews i was topping out around 90% cpu but my ram health was still green.

A little while ago light room was crawling along rainbow wheel everything and I don't know why, my cpu is barely used and my ram was fine as well, but any filter even zooming in caused the rainbow wheel and almost a minute delay so I'm not really happy with my purchase at the moment, the onlything i had in the background was updating a couple apps.

I think you're going to be better off with the base model 15" MBP. You can even get last year's model (refurbished or closeout) if you prefer. Upgrade the SSD (and even the RAM) if you need to. As long as you can handle carrying the larger size around, the processing power will be much better, and it will be more likely to be satisfactory 4 years down the road. The 13" model just isn't a very good value, unless you must have the smaller size.

The 15" MBP models remain the best laptops you can get for photo editing, barring some rather exotic Windows workstations which might be slightly better.

[kp0c]

Been using macs for a while, the
13in. MBP will absolutely be fine for image editing. Does having a dedicated graphic card is better, of course it is, but if I can somehow make a 2 hour HD video in final cut
Pro with overlay and all sort of transition on my MacMini 2013, trust me, you'll be fine with the MBP. For the record, you are right about the SSD being the important piece in your performance puzzle. Also, I'm still running my 2009 13in. MBP and although it's by no mean a speed demon, I still do all of my wedding and family portraits editing in Lightroom on that machine. I upgraded it with a ssd and maxed out the ram. I don't see why you wouldn't keep that new MBP at least 4 years.