digital imaging reviews & news

When it comes to buying a computer to be used for editing photographs not all PCs are born equal. And they are not all designed for doing the same thing.

A computer that will only be used to write Word documents, send email and surf the interweb carries very low expectations. Virtually all available computers are massively over-specified for this sort of use.

If you want to play games with lots of flashing lights and loud explosions then you need much more graphics power and a big, brassy screen – and who cares about colour or off-axis viewing. The basic requirement is a high performance graphics card that will cost more than most people spend on an entire system.

For photo editing a decent amount of RAM – say 4gb – and a graphics card that can handle high resolution output through a DVI connector. Integrated graphics processors that pinch memory from the system are common in lower cost PCs but not much loved by photographers who prefer discrete cards with about 1gb of RAM on the card itself.

But the famous bottom line is: it’s all about the monitor. It goes without saying that a monitor should be a good size – at least 50cm corner to corner. And it should have a resolution of at least 1920X1080 lines, the same as a high definition TV. More is better. We sit close to our monitors for photo editing and we don’t want to be conscious of the pixel structure on the screen.

The magic letters for monitor assessment are IPS. It stands for in-plane switching and is a screen technology invented by Hitachi to improve colour and to increase viewing angles on LCD monitors. The best padlets, including the iPad and ASUS Transformer, have IPS screens. We have heard rumours of notebook computers with IPS displays, and presumably they exist, but we haven’t been able to track one down.

There is an up-to-date list of available IPS desktop monitors on the Cnet web site at tinyurl.com/6mar7c4 Our preference is for a monitor with a matte screen because the reflections in glass are annoying and can affect perception of colour and contrast.

When it came to choosing a notebook computer for editing and displaying images we settled, somewhat reluctantly, on the 13.3” MacBook Pro. We don’t like the arrogant, cultish ethos of the company and we have heard alarming stories about their after-sales service (see tinyurl.com/759jx8a, and tinyurl.com/7yaohhq for the happy-ish ending) but we bought anyway. The reason? Of all the notebooks we looked at, including some expensive Windows units, only the MacBook screen displays black blacks, white whites and accurate colours. And the contrast and colour do not vary too much when viewed off-axis.

In the end it’s the picture that counts. If the colour, tonality and wide viewing angle is right then the rest can be easily fixed or left to take care of itself.

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