Budget PC Tower?

Or Digikam which is similar to lightroom. Linux has served me well for the last 10 years. Other photography software to use for photography Darktable, Rawtherapee, Lightzone and Gimp. All of which are free.
 
Rosedale said:
Personally, I'd ditch Windows 10 and install Linux - it may not help with your photographic stuff (although you can use Gimp) but it will give your laptop a new lease of life.
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Out of frustration Andrew I searched for an alternative last week and came across Linux, but with our lass doing this Office Course I thought it best not to try something
I don't understand.

If I download Linux, will it automatically delete Windows?
In doing so, will I keep all my images and documents?
 
bulldog5988 said:
Or Digikam which is similar to lightroom. Linux has served me well for the last 10 years. Other photography software to use for photography Darktable, Rawtherapee, Lightzone and Gimp. All of which are free.
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That's interesting Keith. So is the image software you mentioned similar to Adobe Elements?
 
All done :giggle: I called them direct and had the ram upgraded to 16gb for an extra £12.00...Should be here next by next Tuesday...As always, I appreciate everyone
taking the time to help:giggle:
 
Haldir said:
All done :giggle: I called them direct and had the ram upgraded to 16gb for an extra £12.00...Should be here next by next Tuesday...As always, I appreciate everyone
taking the time to help:giggle:
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Good choice, enjoy your new computer.
 
twist said:
Good choice, enjoy your new computer.
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Appreciated twist :giggle: Although I fear I might not have much access to it as I'd hoped. I spent a few hours on Saturday and Sunday cleaning my old office up.
Since it ceased being a working office several years ago it became a bit of junk room. I finished cleaning it yesterday afternoon, and last night I noticed that our lass
had already put a few house plants in there. Whilst I too love house plants, it's not a good sign:giggle:
 
Haldir said:
Appreciated twist :giggle: Although I fear I might not have much access to it as I'd hoped. I spent a few hours on Saturday and Sunday cleaning my old office up.
Since it ceased being a working office several years ago it became a bit of junk room. I finished cleaning it yesterday afternoon, and last night I noticed that our lass
had already put a few house plants in there. Whilst I too love house plants, it's not a good sign:giggle:
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I know your pain, i used to have a nice office in the spare room when i was shooting professionally. When i stopped it slowly turned into a room for my wife to do nail art in, and now i'm literally in a cupboard under the stairs :D it makes for an excellent little man cave though, no natural light, shut the door and you're isolated :cool: It's also the only room i've ever been allowed my Star Wars posters up in......
 
Haldir said:
That's interesting Keith. So is the image software you mentioned similar to Adobe Elements?
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Not a clue, now nothing about Adobe Elements
 
DigiKam Is probably quite a bit like PSE, offering keywording and some management tools as well as good (though destructive) image processing tools. It didn't used to have cloning tools for dust spot removal etc, though they may have been added since I last used it. I liked their colour balance and sharpening tools better than those in Lightroom, but overall I feel Lightroom capable of creating more pleasing images (and it's non-destructive).

Darktable is a good non-destructive editor, but when I tried it, seemed less capable than LR. Raw Therapee is similar.

There's a lot of free software available if that appeals. I found I had better results with paid software, but your experience might be different, and there's a lot of satisfaction from using stuff that doesn't cost money (although you could donate).

A quick comment on Linux - I've been using it since the early 2000s and still have a box here running a couple of different DEs on Mint. For DigiKam under linux you'll need either the KDE desktop or to have most of KDE installed (your package manager should install it for you). Generally the mainstream versions work out of the box in a way to make Windows users jealous, being very very backwards compatible with hardware, but it can be a challenge to get used to if you're not comfortable with computers.
 
ancient_mariner said:
DigiKam Is probably quite a bit like PSE, offering keywording and some management tools as well as good (though destructive) image processing tools. It didn't used to have cloning tools for dust spot removal etc, though they may have been added since I last used it. I liked their colour balance and sharpening tools better than those in Lightroom, but overall I feel Lightroom capable of creating more pleasing images (and it's non-destructive).

Darktable is a good non-destructive editor, but when I tried it, seemed less capable than LR. Raw Therapee is similar.

There's a lot of free software available if that appeals. I found I had better results with paid software, but your experience might be different, and there's a lot of satisfaction from using stuff that doesn't cost money (although you could donate).

A quick comment on Linux - I've been using it since the early 2000s and still have a box here running a couple of different DEs on Mint. For DigiKam under linux you'll need either the KDE desktop or to have most of KDE installed (your package manager should install it for you). Generally the mainstream versions work out of the box in a way to make Windows users jealous, being very very backwards compatible with hardware, but it can be a challenge to get used to if you're not comfortable with computers.
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Much appreciated Toni. I think I'll keep Windows on the new tower for now, hopefully I'll be fine with Elements and Affinity running without issue. Then I'll have a look at Linux for the laptop, I think that'll appreciate not having to work so hard...I've never really looked at using alternative software to Elements other than a CS version which I couldn't afford. One of the reasons I got excited finding out about Affinity on here last week, it has the Pen Tool...I found Elements pretty much covered everything I was doing at the time, including "Ghost" clothing effects.
I'm not sure even now if I need anything other than Elements generally, although Affinity offers "Stacking" which I'd like to try again...No doubt I'll pick up quite a few tips on here regarding
new techniques and available software:giggle:

Test Shot 1 MS2.jpg
 
I have several of these PCs, both DELL and HP, and you need to be careful because of the limited number of PCIe slots inside.
Aslo it may be difficult to upgrade the RAM because many of these use ECC RAMs which are not compatibel with the usual RAMs you but for consumer PCs.
So if you want 16GB RAM you really need to get one with 16GB RAM fitted.
Alao many of these do not have USB3 ports if you should need that.
 
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Be careful if you install Linux - it's a great OS and I personally use Linux Mint 18.3 and 19.3.
Using these it is very easy to transition away from Windows.
But I would say that it is better to use a seperate PC for it if you are not sure about installing it since it is VERY easy to overwrite things you may want.
Also it's not possible to install it on a modern UEFI computer without disabling secure boot, and if you do install it with secure boot disabled and then re-enable secure boot, Linux will no longer boot.
 
petersmart said:
I have several of these PCs, both DELL and HP, and you need to be careful because of the limited number of PCIe slots inside.
Aslo it may be difficult to upgrade the RAM because many of these use ECC RAMs which are not compatibel with the usual RAMs you but for consumer PCs.
So if you want 16GB RAM you really need to get one with 16GB RAM fitted.
Alao many of these do not have USB3 ports if you should need that.
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Appreciated Pete...I'm having 16 GB Ram fitted, hopefully that'll do the job nicely. I should be OK with the spec of this machine, even in the long run. As long as the image software
works and I can get on line, I'm not one for playing with PC's or upgrading really. The lad I spoke to said I could always add a better graphics card at a later date for about £35.00.

petersmart said:
Be careful if you install Linux - it's a great OS and I personally use Linux Mint 18.3 and 19.3.
Using these it is very easy to transition away from Windows.
But I would say that it is better to use a seperate PC for it if you are not sure about installing it since it is VERY easy to overwrite things you may want.
Also it's not possible to install it on a modern UEFI computer without disabling secure boot, and if you do install it with secure boot disabled and then re-enable secure boot, Linux will no longer boot.
Click to expand...

That's off putting, I'm in the Plug n Camp, so if it's something that doesn't sort itself out, I'm probably best leaving alone!
 
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