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DSWfoto
Participant
Nov 13, 2018 3:12 PM UTC
Answered

Lightroom on a Mac Mini 2018

I'm considering moving from PC to a Mac Mini 2018 w/ i7, 16GB Ram.  Has anyone else tried this setup and how well does Lightroom and Photoshop run on it?

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JohanElzenga
JohanElzengaCorrect answer
Community Expert
Nov 18, 2018 9:16 PM UTC

Known issues - Running Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC on macOS 10.14 Mojave


davidg36166309  wrote

Known issues - Running Lightroom Classic and Lightroom CC on macOS 10.14 Mojave

Sigh... Did you understand a word of what I said? This thread is not about Lightroom and Mojave. This thread is about how fast Lightroom will run on the new Mac Mini.

-- Johan W. Elzenga
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30 replies

Abdulla_Bd0040
Participant
Aug 24, 2024 11:02 PM UTC
quote

I'm considering moving from PC to a Mac Mini 2018 w/ i7, 16GB Ram.  Has anyone else tried this setup and how well does Lightroom and Photoshop run on it?


By @DSWfoto
quote

I'm considering moving from PC to a Mac Mini 2018 w/ i7, 16GB Ram.  Has anyone else tried this setup and how well does Lightroom and Photoshop run on it?


By @DSWfoto

 

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stevea79370885
Participant
May 3, 2019 10:02 AM UTC

Hi

I use Lightroom on my 2018 MacMini on a 4K LG screen. It runs just fine for me. i7 with 32Gb but it is a fast as my macbook pro with dedicated GPU.

Imports are quick enough and Lightroom seems fine. Much faster than on my Dell XPS 15 of a very similar spec.

Great to have all the ports in such a small form factor. Fans do spin up but they do in the MBP as well. Nothing to really bother you.

Enjoy taking the pictures and doing the editing, don't worry about the tech too much. It will all change again in a month anyway

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    scottishchris
    Participant
    Nov 19, 2018 9:12 PM UTC

    I don't have the 2018 mac mini (although I intend to purchase one) so can only offer my experience of the past 4 years running Lightroom (up to 6.4) on a late 2012 mac mini with 2.6 ghz Core i7 and 8Gb ram. This spec was pretty top end when I bought it refurbed in 2014 and actually faster than the 'new' 2014 edition which is a whole other story. In my experience  it has been rock solid for my use. I have a 66k photo catalog with a mixture of Canon 5D, Panasonic GX1 and iphone (3G through to 8) photos. Fans do spin up with exporting and processing to DNG, but everyday use is smooth and pretty frictionless.

    Judging from the phenomenal speed results that the 2018 models are achieving (faster than imac pros and some of the mac pros!), the new mac minis (particularly the i7s) are serious bits of kit. I would advise getting 16gb as a minimum and going for the top end processor. The SSD capacity is a bit more of a question - the upgrades are very expensive in my opinion so if you have a big collection of photos you are likely to be running off an external drive as they won't be stored on the internal drive. External SSDs are reasonable these days though and the ports on the mac mini won't be a bottleneck. As other posters have pointed out, the lack of a discrete graphics card might be an issue if you are trying to drive a 4k display but I don't have solid experience of that.

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    sciulli999
    Known Participant
    Nov 20, 2018 2:17 PM UTC

    do you get fans spinning up during photo import?

    I just got my 2018 Mini last night and I imported 700 photos from a job over the weekend. The fans were on full blast during the import. I just sold a Surface Book 2 and the fans never came on during import and I think the SB2 actually imported photos faster. SB2 I was using the SD card reader built into they keyboard base, Mac Mini I have a USB-C SD card reader.

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    Reinhard76
    Participant
    Nov 18, 2018 10:50 AM UTC

    Also interested in this. Am interested to hear from someone using the new Mac mini 2018 with i7 CPU how well (fast) it performs in LR.

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    GoldingD
    GoldingD
    Legend
    Nov 18, 2018 7:17 PM UTC

    What version of LR? Stand alone or Creative Cloud?

    Stand Alone, nope, OS Mojave will not support it

    Creative Cloud, issue especially pre CC 2018, its the OS Mojave that is fouling things up. Read all the issues forum mebers are having with Mojave.

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    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    Nov 18, 2018 8:19 PM UTC

    davidg36166309  wrote

    What version of LR? Stand alone or Creative Cloud?

    Stand Alone, nope, OS Mojave will not support it

    Creative Cloud, issue especially pre CC 2018, its the OS Mojave that is fouling things up. Read all the issues forum mebers are having with Mojave.

    I don’t understand these reactions. Somebody asks about how well Lightroom runs on a new computer that Apple just introduced, not if certain versions of Lightroom have a problem with MacOS X Mojave. I’m interested in this question too, because I‘m also considering buying a new Mac Mini. And I would obviously run Lightroom Classic CC (v8] on it.

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    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    Akash Sharma
    Akash Sharma
    Legend
    Nov 13, 2018 3:16 PM UTC

    Hi DSWfoto,

    Please take a look at this article https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-move-lightroom-to-new-computer/ to know more about how to move Lightroom to a new computer.

    Let us know if that helps.

    Thanks,

    Akash

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    DSWfotoAuthor
    Participant
    Nov 13, 2018 3:26 PM UTC

    Thanks.  I'm looking more from a performance standpoint (How well Lightroom performs on the Mac Minis).  They have an iGPU (Intel HD 630) which could hinder performance.

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    Just Shoot Me
    Just Shoot Me
    Legend
    Nov 13, 2018 3:42 PM UTC

    The only time a dedicated GPU helps LR is "IF" you are using a 4K+ monitor.

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