I'm certainly no pro at photoshop, but I'm starting to use it more and more in conjunction with my digital camera. I can say that it is the one program that seems to bog down my system more than any other. One of the things I had planned for this fall was to build myself a new system....along with the new photoshop 8.0 which was just announced as "CS." I'm really looking at building this system with photoshop in mind because....in my mind....everything else should run just fine if it's strong enough to run photoshop well. I even went so far as to visit www.apple.com, and I have to admit, that 23" HD Cinema display is awfully sexy. Nevertheless, I'm not sure I'm ready to drop six grand and more on that thing along with a dual 2Ghz G5. That and the fact that both my wife and I really need a PC around to access our work e-mails from home (her remote connectivity is expressly NOT supported with MACs), so it looks like I'm going to stick with what I know (PC's). Anyway, I'm looking for advice on graphics cards and monitors that would specifically appeal to photoshop experts. If you don't have an opinion, but you know of some photoshop communities where these things are discussed, I'd really appreciate that info. I tried to find some myself.....and I thought that would be an easy endeavor......but I really haven't found anything of value. Opinions I'm specifically interested in have to do with CRT vs. LCD, one big monitor vs. two smaller ones (say...a 19" alongside a 17" instead of getting one big 21" or bigger), and what I should really be looking for in the video card. For instance, if I should use two monitors, and I should use the DVI output (I have no experience with this), should I look for a card that has dual DVI outs? Is that even available or is not needed (because the signal can be split or something)? Anyway, I used to be quite the desktop expert, but I'm probably lagging a bit behind right now, so any info you can share will be greatly appreciated. And.....if you want to step in and tell me what a moron I am for not stepping up to the plate and dropping a year's worth of car payments on the MAC, you're welcome to do so too.
Pole, if you are using photoshop for personal photo editing etc & not for profession publishing work (usually very large files), then I don't think you need a very powerful machine to run the software. I haven't check the market about the latest product lately, but generally most of the graphic cards now days are all powerful enough to handle the photoshop & so it is really up to your budget. As for the monitors, even though the quality of the LCD's have improved significantly, I still prefer using the CRT's for photoshop purpose because of better color gradation & saturation. Personally my advice to you would be to use 2 monitors instead of buying a huge one, it's much more economical & more flexible - one of them can be a LCD & the other CRT; you can shut one down when not in use etc... If you want a single monitor more than 19 inch I'll say go for the CRT... the LCD's that size are not worth the money at the moment & you won't be able to adjust the screen resolution freely like the CRT's.
with Photoshop, the main thing is that you have your monitor set to high resolution at least 1024x768 and that you have a good amount of CPU memory, at least 256 megs.
Come on rockHEAD! What computer/monitor now days don't support 1024x768 & with 256 megs of RAM? Yes, I'll suggest to get at least 512MB of ram if you want to run 2 monitors... & it would make life a lot easier if the monitor can support 1280x1024.
You can get a 21" dell trinatron or a 21" nec multisync for about $ 160-175.00 refurbished on ebay. I bought one of each. The vendor was sell2all.
