Building my ultimate workflow - 3: The Workstation by dawesy

(Come in part way through? Check out the whole series )

As mentioned in the last piece, I have started with building a new workstation to support my work flow taking into account the issues that I have identified in ’The Mess".

Firstly let me say, ‘Hi, I’m Jon and I’m a PC’. I know Macs are synonymous with graphic work, but I am a PC person and working in IT, really need to stick with a PC at home. I can also deal with issue better on a PC than a Mac. So for me, that choice was a no-brainer. Given that, let’s look at:

The Hardware
I have had a PC built up through a reputable system builder I know through work with the following Specs. I have noted the basis for my choices by each one:

1. Quad Core processor @2.8 Ghz – multiple cores allow multiple programs to run well side by side. Adobe Lightroom also makes good use of multiple cores, so more cores is a cheaper way to get performance than more speed (GHz)
2. 8GB RAM – More than I’ll need for photography, but this allows me to have other intensive applications running as well. Keep in mind if you go for more than 3.5GB RAM that you will need a 64bit operating system to be able to use it. I’d want 4 for just doing photo work.
3. OS Hard disk and a RAID Controller – I have a primary Hard disk for installing the operating system and applications. I have also had a RAID controller than controlls 4 hard disks in a RAID 5 array. Put simply this means that if one of those disks fails, I can replace it and not lose any data. This is where my photos and other personal data are going to sit. I have also put in an extra single drive to hold page files and scratch data to increase performance.
4. Quality IPS primary screen – I have added 2 24" wide-screen monitors, and spent the extra to get a quality primary screen that uses an IPS panel, rather than the cheaper TN panels. My second screen is a TN screen. I am far from the best person to go into the technical differences, but I can tell you than the difference is obvious, and I am glad I followed the recommendation to get the IPS screen for colour work
5. Spyder3 Colour Calibration – I have acquired the spyder to colour calibrate my screens, to make sure what I see is what I get. This is a simple process and now as part of my routine I will re-calibrate the monitor about once a month, ensuring I have consistent colour management.

Software
After talking to a few people and reading about it on forums, I decide to make Adobe Lightroom my main software for cataloguing and processing images. I am glad I did. It makes managing your images so much easier. That alone would be worth using it for even if you still did everything in Photoshop or CaptureNX. However on top of that, it has enough processing tools to cover 95% of most peoples needs, giving you a real one stop shop for most of your work.

I have also undertaken a Lightroom Course at the Australian Centre for Photography in Sydney.It’s been a real eye opener so far, I am 2 of 5 classes in, and I am definitely glad I took it before I started importing images.

So those are the tools I have chosen to build my new work flow around. The hardware really just to support the processing power needed, and then Lightroom to be the main tool that I use to take the files from shot image to sorted output and the Spyder3 to take care of colour management. With those taken care of, the next items on our list in “the mess” are shooting methodology and Importing Images to the work flow, which will be my next topic of discussion.

I am aware there is a lot of technical aspects to this entry and I have been lightish on detail, so if there is anything you’d like more info on hit me up in the comments and I can reply with the details there or, if needed, edit this journal or make a new one!