buying new Mac laptop with LR in mind

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 17, 2020
3 replies
359 views

I am curious how LR will operate on a new Macbook Air with intel i5 processor and 8gb of ram. I am not planning on heavy post processing. I mostly need a laptop for importing and storing images while I am traveling. I know I could use external hard drives for this, but I am also interested in a laptop for light duty email and web browsing to replace an older, Windows model. I am leaning toward the new 13-inch Air for reasons of affordability (and the fact that I have iMac at home and iPhone), but not sure how LR will function doing rudimentary importing, keywording, sorting, etc. Any input will be appreciated!

This topic has been closed for replies.

99jon

Genius

It would be possible to use Lr mobile on the iPad and Classic on the iMac if you are subscribed to a Photography Plan. But as Theresa says if you want to use the desktop software on the go then you would need a laptop.

N.B. You cant install older versions of Lightroom on a new Mac running Catalina OS.

B

brucefriedlandAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks. I should have mentioned I subscribe to the photography plan and my primary LR use is the desktop LRC. I was worried about the MacBook Air not having a dedicated GPU, but it sounds as if that won't be a problem for light duty LRC tasks. The cloud-based approach with later transfer to LRC desktop is a good option to consider as well.

Theresa J

Community Expert

Keep in mind that Lightroom uploads everything to a cloud, so you don't need a lot of hard drive storage. If you want your photos stored on hard drives you should Lightroom Classic instead. If you use Classic, you need a laptop not an iPad.

99jon

Genius

I think it should do all the things you mentioned without a problem. Some are now going for the iPad Pro rather than the MBA and using a camera connection kit to get images into the Lr app and into cloud. Once in the cloud they can even be downloaded into LrC.

I suggest you also enquire in some of the Apple forums. Here is one link:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2020-mba-lightroom-performance.2228124/

B

brucefriedlandAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks. Very helpful advice!

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded