Is my PC quick enough for my photo software

Modern photo processing software, including RAW conversion and the many filter type packages, can use a lot of computer resources. To make matters worse AI processing is increasingly being used for things like mask selection and this is demanding on processor capacity, often being pushed from the CPU onto a dedicated GPU. Usually the required computer specification for a given piece of software is provided in  minimum and recommended variants and performance can be decidedly poor at the minimum end of things. This can give rise to questions such as "is my machine good enough" and if not then "what should I upgrade to make it better".

Example specs for DXO PhotoLab 9



The good news is there are tools to check performance that we can easily run to help see potential bottlenecks, taking some of the guesswork out of it. In a windows environment (Windows 11 or older editions) we can run Task Manager. To do this you can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + Esc, or right click on the Windows Start icon and select Task Manager from the pop-up menu.


Windows Task Manager - Performance View

 

With Task Manager running, you can see how your machine is running normally. You can then start up your usual photo software (DXO PhotoLab, Capture One Pro, Lightroom, ON1 etc) and see the impact. If your photo editor is running full screen you can switch between apps just by using Alt + Tab, to pull the Task Manager window back on top. Within Task Manager you will see graphs for overall use of processor, graphics, memory and disk usage and there is an option to look at individual application processes. This should quickly give you a feel for if there is an obvious bottleneck.


Windows Task Manager - Processes View


Things to note:

  • The more memory you have the more Windows allocates.
  • Memory use tends to float up and down depending on activity (on my machine Photolab seems to take anything from 2Gb up to 8Gb).
  • Some of the main memory may be allocated for graphics, integrated graphics may use around 2Gb while dedicated GPU units may also additionally use main memory.
  • If unsure 32Gb of memory will be comfortable for most use scenarios.
  • You probably wont see much perceived speed difference between DDR4 and DDR5 (but if adding memory you will not usually want to mix the two types).
  • Crucial have a handy system scanner app that 'looks inside' your PC and will tell you exactly what memory you have in which slots and what the upgrade options are available.
  • You may need to upgrade your graphics drivers (especially if your experiencing crashes).
  • You may need to turn on GPU acceleration within your photo editing software (or turn it off if you are experiencing problems).
  • For crashes the Windows Event Viewer may throw some light on the issue (although some of the entries can be worded a bit cryptically so it's not always immediately clear).
  • You may get more performance boost from a GPU upgrade than a CPU upgrade.
  • Hard disk drives (HDD) are a lot slower than solid state devices (SSD). Not all SSDs are equal, NVME drives using PCIe are much quicker than those using SATA.


CrystalDiskInfo - drive health

You could also check out the health of your disk drives, both HDD and SSD drives, CrystalDiskInfo is a good free Windows app for this (available through the Microsoft Store).

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