Hi! I'm a Lightroom-only user. I'm a photo artist and I use LR intensely for photo editing with dozens of retouching points (sometimes more than 100) for architecture/street photography/landscape photography.I work on only one photo at a time (24mpx). So I don't have to import hundreds of photos for my workflow (no wedding or sports reportage)... I'm hesitating a lot between these two configurations which are about the same price.The Mac mini M4 pro 12/16 48GB of RAM 1TB ssd is at 2254€Studio base 14/32 36GB of RAM 1TB ssd is at 2294€What is your advice, dear friends?

D

DINH0D4C

Question

Mac mini M4 pro 64 go vs Mac Studio 36gb for Lightroom

Forum|Forum|5 months ago
December 12, 2025
3 replies
746 views

Hi! I'm a Lightroom-only user. I'm a photo artist and I use LR intensely for photo editing with dozens of retouching points (sometimes more than 100) for architecture/street photography/landscape photography.
I work on only one photo at a time (24mpx). So I don't have to import hundreds of photos for my workflow (no wedding or sports reportage)... I'm hesitating a lot between these two configurations which are about the same price.

The Mac mini M4 pro 12/16 48GB of RAM 1TB ssd is at 2254€
Studio base 14/32 36GB of RAM 1TB ssd is at 2294€
What is your advice, dear friends?

macOS

E

ExUSA

Legend

I'd lean toward the Studio, it is a more capable machine overall with a faster processor, better display support, built-in card reader, more ports, and will probably hold its value a bit better.

D

DINH0D4CAuthor

Manuel thanks ExUSA!

I only work with second-hand cameras that are often almost ten years old (Fuji x100s/t/f, Sony A7i), etc... in black and white. I've waited a long time but LR6.14 on my old PC from 2014 (Intel i7 4 core / RAM 8gb/ssd 300go) is dying. I waited as long as possible. This choice of Mac Studio should do the trick for a long time I hope.

My page: www.olivier-dinh.com

Best regards

E

ExUSA

Legend

Any current Mac would handle this workload just fine. What you are buying is longevity, a new Mac Studio should have 6-8 years of useful life at a minimum.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

Assuming the Studio Max is also M4, then it's the better performing computer due to having more CPU and GPU cores, and it is better value. 36GB of memory is also more than suffient when working with 24MP photos.