# Surface pro 2 for photo editing?



## juicegoose (Nov 20, 2013)

Currently I use a 5 year old HP dv6t with a core 2 duo and 4 gig of ram for all of my lightroom processing. As I've gotten more into editing i've noticed that the poor computer just doesn't seem to be able to keep up. Imports and exports take a LOOONG time and any kind of cloning and healing within lightroom often has the computer acting very laggy and locking up for short periods. Yes I have even recently upgraded to a samsung SSD and a fresh windows install and it didn't help.

I was looking at upgrading to something that will better handle the workload. Again its not major workloads but still. The surface pro 2 intrigued me with it's stylus and seemingly good performance for the size. I like editing on a laptop and then finalizing with my dedicated 24" ips monitor. 

Is anyone using the Surface pro 2 for photo editing? How happy are you with the performance?

It seems that the use of the stylus would really help but I don't think that only the sp2 is capable of using the stylus to help with photo editing is it?


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## KmH (Nov 20, 2013)

A problem with using a portable for image editing is that the ambient light falling on the screen changes, negating any calibration of the colors and brightness of the screen.
Image editing pros using desktop computers re-calibrate their display(s) regularly (at least monthly).

To solve that issue many who use a portable have an external display that isn't moved.

The Surface Pro 2 has a 16:9 aspect ratio display. Most DSLR cameras make photos that have a 3:2 aspect ratio.
Consequently, a sizable % of a Surface Pros screen won't be used unless you zoom way into an image.
Plus some amount of screen real estate will be occupied by your image editing applications panels.
That's why so many image editors use dual screen display set ups. - One big screen (22" and larger) for the image being edited, the other screen for all the application panels.

The Surface screen is small at only 10.6 inches, and the specs don't say what type of display the screen is (TN, PVA, or IPS).


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## juicegoose (Nov 20, 2013)

I know it's an ips display but your concerns are valid. I think it would be nice to have a smaller laptop then my 16" i currently have. What about the laptop/tablets that are 13" or so. Something thats mobile yet powerfull


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## juicegoose (Nov 24, 2013)

Thats what my post about the yoga 2 pro is about. Seems some adobe programs have trouble with higher resolution. Anyone have screenshots of lightroom in yoga2 display?


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