It's actually marginally faster than what's in my laptop. The 8GB of RAM is sufficient, and the GPU will definitely help. My advice is, on import, let the machine churn through and build all the 1:1 previews, and then start work. The Lr interface may respond slowly while the previews are being built.
Intel i5-4440 CPU 3.10 GHz 8GB 64 bit machine win 10
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960
Do I need to upgrade anything?
8 Gb is marginal for Lightroom, particularly if you work with large RAW files. 16 Gb is minimal, 32 Gb is better. Find out the max RAM your system supports and upgrade.
Arguably the laptop for the RAM, I'd say. Does either of the machines run an SSD? That makes a huge difference as well. If you use the laptop for Photoshop, set it up with an external monitor in a 2-monitor configuration. I did that for several years with my big ASUS, though now I have a strong desktop machine and a more portable laptop.
Although, I think my laptop would be fine to use. It only has Windows 7 and I'd have to buy Win 10 for $120 from Micro$oft.
Lightroom needs win 10.
Is it worth it?
Or, should I just use my desktop?
Steve
Lightroom CC (the cloud-centric version) does need Win 10, but Lightroom CLassic does not. Here is the specs page for Lr Classic. So you should be fine running Lr Classic on your laptop. The processor on your laptop looks to be a little faster than your desktop processor as well. You do have a pretty capable GPU on the laptop. A couple additional thoughts:
- A good external monitor would be a huge benefit on the laptop.
- An upgrade to Win 10 isn't a bad idea in any case. There's always a slight risk that there are hardware compatibility issues, but I've run Win 10 on much older laptop hardware.
...If I get classic, can I then upgrade to the full version?
Both Classic and the cloud version are full versions. Classic is the version that is intended to operate as a "classic" desktop application. On a Creative Cloud subscription, you have access to both.
Originally posted by shoff:
...Now can anyone recommend a good book/video to get me started? I like books!
Here is one that should be good. The other author I like on this subject is Martin Evening, but it seems his latest edition was released in 2015.
