Computers for Horse Photographers
Recently, I saw a post on Facebook asking for recommendations on a good computer for Horse Photographers. Immediately my mind went to a computer tower covered with horse photos, then a mouse pad with a horse photo printed on it, and of course an all Horsey sound theme for Windows. Perhaps, instead of the Welcome to Windows chime we can hear a Horse whinny to great us. Instead of seeing the round circle spinning while the computer is processing a command we can see a Horse galloping or spinning in a circle and a horse snorting sound.
Hardware specs for Windows Computers for Photographers
Of course, what the question was really in reference to was the hardware specs that one would seek when building or buying a computer used for primarily photo editing. Since my “other” business is a Windows computer repair person, I have the ideal computer setup in my head. I’d probably choose an Alienware Aurora Desktop computer. Alienware is a 
subsidiary of Dell. I owned an Alienware laptop many years ago and it was great. I love the cool Alien head logo and they usually have some unusual colors to choose from. Not that it’s about looks, but why not have something fun to look at instead of a boring Black or Gray metal Case. Since I’m a PC person, I would build it with Windows 10, 64 bit. Windows 10 is the first operating system I have liked in many years. It’s not perfect, which is great for my repair business but it is fairly stable. As far as processors: I will take a top of the line latest Intel i7 series processor, then max out memory (RAM) 64GB would be great but I could settle for 32GB or RAM. Hard drive: I’d go with two drives, a primary Solid State drive (probably 512GB) where Photoshop and other programs would be loaded and then a Secondary drive to store all my files! Probably not more that 1 or 2TB since you do have to run a backup on it too. Oh yeah, a mirrored backup drive and cloud backup too! You can’t have too many backups of your data.On to video card, probably a dual monitor card. The GeForce GTX 10-series graphics cards are powered by Pascal to deliver up to 3x the performance of previous-generation graphics cards. They have a recommended single output video card with 8GB of it’s own memory or you can upgrade to the 12GB video dual output card for $950 (imagine that). My running subtotal currently is $3599 before the monitors. Now this would be an over the top dream machine. In reality, I have done video editing on a high powered machine and on my little Asus laptop. I work slower than the machine when I’m in Photoshop, so it’s no big deal for me to wait, but a girl can dream!
If I could offer one bit of advice to anyone buying a new computer it would be SOLID STATE DRIVE (SSD). The drives with no moving parts is a great investment and the performance payout is noticeable. So many of my clients are disappointed when they purchase a new computer and still have to tap their fingers and wait for Windows to respond. The SSD really helps with that performance.
Jody Miller is a professional photographer specializing in Horse Photography, Equine Photography, and Equestrian photography. Her work can be viewed online here in her gallery section, and she is also featured at these Arizona Galleries: Arts Prescott Gallery, Sedona’s Village Gallery , Easy Street Galleria in Carefree and Dragonfly Arts in Cottonwood.