# Lightroom 3 and a MacBook Air



## macjim (Jan 2, 2012)

I'm thinking about getting a MacBook Air 13" and I wanted to know if it would have enough power to let me use Lightroom 3 on. It's the 1.7ghz, 4Gg memory version.


----------



## clee01l (Jan 2, 2012)

Barely.  It will work, but you might become frustrated with some of the lag caused by having a slow processor and a limited amount of RAM


----------



## macjim (Jan 3, 2012)

I have MacBook Pro 15" which is my main photo editing computer but I was looking for a lighter machine with power to take withe when I'm out photographing, and to able to edit and fire of photos to Flickr etc would be useful.


----------



## jimburgess (Jan 3, 2012)

Jim,
The answer to your question is "it depends", and you have not supplied much information to provide a useful answer.

What kind of images are you primarily shooting? Raw? Jpeg? Both?
What camera(s) are you using, and what's the average size of your image files that you will import?
Do you anticipate doing a lot of "heavy duty" editing in the field?
Will the Macbook Air be your primary database, or will it be used for field work?
etc., etc...

To give you some real-world perspective, my 11" Macbook Air with a 1.6Ghz Core i5 processor, 4GB RAM, and 128GB SSD runs LR 3.6 just fine. But note that I am only processing Nikon D3 JPEGs, and only doing ratings, applying metadata, web-sized exports, and basic editing--crops, exposure adjustments, white balance, etc.

If you anticipate doing "heavy-duty" editing -- like lots of local brush adjustments, cloning, hi-res exports -- especially on raw files -- you will likely run into processing limitations with the Air.


----------



## macjim (Jan 3, 2012)

W





jimburgess said:


> Jim,
> The answer to your question is "it depends", and you have not supplied much information to provide a useful answer.
> 
> What kind of images are you primarily shooting? Raw? Jpeg? Both?
> ...


Well, the cameras will be, Leica D-Lux 5, Sony nex-5n and possibly a Leica M9 if I can get hold of one. I shoot RAW but I can't say what file sizes they will be. It depends on the photo and camera as to what kind of editing but I wouldn't say I'd do heavy editing as I would do that on the MacBook Pro. Mainly field, work with the Pro for use at home. 
I've been using my iPad for light editing work occasionally when on the road but software supposedly capable of working with Leica RAW files is not user friendly or quick to use so I tend to use Snapseed or PS Express.


----------



## macjim (Apr 1, 2012)

Update. I have successfully installed and used Lightroom 4 on my MacBook Air and have Nik Software Silver Efecs Pro 2 too working well. So the answer is can handle the software just fine.


----------



## johnbeardy (Apr 2, 2012)

Same here, though mine is the 1.5 GHz version. I found it fine for doing trade show demos of LR4 and then for 3 weeks on the road, shooting maybe 150 a day. 

I haven't been 100% happy with the 128Gb hard drive's size. It wasn't the size, more that I really don't like only having one copy of new pictures. So I think you need to accompany the Air with a portable drive and I just bought a USB-powered Lacie Rugged 500Gb which seems perfect. It solves the problem in the field, and also makes transferring pictures to the main computer much faster than wifi.

John


----------



## macjim (Apr 2, 2012)

Yes, I have an external drive which accompanies it for use as my TimeMachine back up and, my Lightroom 4 library storage. I have the larger 256gb drive version of the MacBook Air and I'm conscious of the space available, hence the external drive. It just means Lightroom can't be used if the drive is at home though.


----------

