Octopus Overlords

It's time for my father-in-law to replace his computer and he has asked me for advice. His primary use for the computer is photo/image editing. He does this now with his old pc, a 600 MHz Dell. It was once top o' the line, but no more. Are there particular components that are especially well suited to photo editing? How about any special peripherals?

....how high end does he want to go? ....

Color calibration between monitor and printer seems to be the latest time/money sinkhole for those really interested in video editing, but chances are that he can just use his old printer/monitor/software combo for that.

In terms of your standard box...You want to make sure he's at or over the 512MB memory barrier. Some consumer systems come with less than that.

Other than that, sheer processor speed alone will make any upgrade welcome.

He's quite willing to spend the $ for a high end machine.
He won't be replacing the monitor. He doesn't care about sound (so doesn't need speakers or a nice sound card).

I would think processor speed and RAM would be the key areas to look for.

And in this case, just about any newer PC would suffice. So i'd shop around to see if any of the makers include a lot of the software that he might use.

There's no reason to get a fancy-shmancy computer for his needs.

RAM is the key, IMHO. Other than that he shouldnt need anything too fancy.

Thanks, guys. I didn't think he would need anything fancy (unlike if he played computer games), but I knew there'd be folks here who would know for sure!

Better make sure it has a good vid card for when you come over for a visit.

Giles Habibula wrote:Better make sure it has a good vid card for when you come over for a visit.

As if. When we go over, my spousal unit and my FIL go up to the computer room and fix vacation photos.