[filmscanners] RE: Digital Darkroom Computer Builders?

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

Anthony,

I was merely pointing out that for under $1000 you can get some pretty high
powered systems.  By shifting the monies around, you could probably get a
slower processor and buy more RAM; for a few additional dollars, you can get
a RAID motherboard or even add a RAID card with up to four 7200 RPM EIDE
120MB Western Digital hard drives with 8MB caches.  I personally would
prefer two 21 inch CRT monitors or a single 21 inch CRT monitor and a 17 CRT
inch monitor for the palettes to a single LCD monitor of any size or a CRT
monitor bigger than 21 inches.  These are all questions of how you slice and
dice the final cost figures for the most part even with respect to off the
shelf systems.  One can always add or substitute components to the basic
system.

I find that I get along very well with 1 GB of RAM and 240 GB of hard drive
space in a RAID along with an additional 240 GB of hard drive space outside
the RAID. My system is a custom build one in that I decided on the
components to be used; but it is not one that is special to digital darkroom
work any more than any other type of work.  I employ a dual head Maxor
graphics card and a 21" Hitachi monitor along with an older 17 inch MAG
monitor for the palettes.  To this I have attached an photo color inkjet
printer, a b/w postscript laser printer, a medium format film recorder, a CD
drive, a SCSI flatbed film scanner, and a SCSI medium format film scanner.
This system works fine for my professional photographic needs - to be sure
it would not be the most efficient if I was engaged in being a mass
production lab or studio rather than a small commercial studio, custom black
& white lab, and copy and restoration facility.

-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Anthony Atkielski
Sent: Monday, October 21, 2002 4:21 AM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: Digital Darkroom Computer Builders?


Laurie writes:

> Most of the desktop machines that I have seen for
> sale at under $1000 in the big box discount stores
> have ADM 2000-2200 GHz XP or Pentium IV 2.0 -2.4
> GHz CPUs with a minimum of 128 MB to 256 MB RAM,
> a 40 to 80 MB 7200rpm hard drive with a 2MB cache
> which can be upgraded to a large harddrive for a
> small additional fee, and a 17 to 19 inch color
> display monitor which is also ugradable for a small
> additional fee although the quality of those
> monitors may be questionable.

For a good image-processing system, you need to add a zero to the RAM and
disk space, and add at least 2-5 inches to the monitor size and make it a
high-end monitor (I prefer Sony).  Configuring multiple disks as a RAID
would be even better, since the defective memory management of Photoshop
often must be compensated by fast disks.

Processor speed is rarely an issue.  About 99% of the delays I see in
Photoshop even with a 1.8 GHz processor are caused by disk I/O.

Overall, you can never have too much memory, too much disk, or a processor
or disk that is too fast.  However, many vendors (and buyers) place too much
emphasis on processors speed, and far too little emphasis on the other
characteristics of a configuration, even though these latter characteristics
are usually much more important.

Also, the utility of a good monitor cannot be overemphasized.  And a
digitizing tablet is essential, too.

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