Whether you are a professional photographer or a budding hobbyist, you are going to need a good photo-editing application. Adobe Photoshop is one of the best and most popular photo-editing software available and is usually the go-to photo-editing app for many photographers or hobbyists.
It’s an open secret that Photoshop is a very demanding program due to the vast array of tools and features it offers to users. As a result, you can’t just use any laptop for Photoshop. You need a laptop with a powerful processor and high RAM bandwidth to handle the complex requirements of photo editing.
You’ll also need a high-resolution display to accurately display colors, high storage capacity to save your files, and a comfortable and well-spaced keyboard and touchpad to allow you to work for long hours with ease. Usually, laptops that meet these requirements are quite pricey. However, there are a number of budget laptops on the market that can run Photoshop very well.
The purpose of the guide on this page is to help you understand how the features of a laptop make them particularly suitable for photo-editing. This will, in turn, help you understand what to look out for when making a decision about what laptop to choose for Photoshop.
Guide Contents
What Are The Minimum System Requirements For Photoshop?
Here are the minimum and recommended system requirements to run Photoshop, as presented on the Adobe website:
For Windows
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| Processor | Intel® or AMD processor with 64-bit support; 2 GHz or faster processor with SSE 4.2 or later | |
| Operating system | Windows 10 (64-bit) version 1809 or later; LTSC versions are not supported | |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB or more |
| Graphics card |
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| See the Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) card FAQ | ||
| Monitor resolution | 1280 x 800 display at 100% UI scaling | 1920 x 1080 display or greater at 100% UI scaling |
| Hard disk space | 4 GB of available hard-disk space; additional space is required for installation |
4 GB of available hard-disk space; additional space is required for installation
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| Internet | Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, validation of subscriptions, and access to online services. | |
For macOS
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| Processor | Intel processor with 64-bit support; 2 GHz or faster processor with SSE 4.2 or later | |
| Operating system | macOS Mojave (version 10.14) or later | macOS Big Sur (version 11) macOS Catalina (version 10.15) |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB or more |
| Graphics card |
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|
|
To find out if your computer supports Metal, see Mac computers that support Metal See the Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) card FAQ |
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| Monitor resolution | 1280 x 800 display at 100% UI scaling | 1920 x 1080 display or greater at 100% UI scaling |
| Hard disk space | 4 GB of available hard-disk space; additional space is required for installation |
4 GB of available hard-disk space; additional space is required for installation
|
| Photoshop will not install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system | ||
| Internet | Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, membership validation, and access to online services. | |
How To Choose Your Laptop For Photoshop
Screen Quality, Size, and Resolution
It’s important to have a laptop with good screen quality if you are into photo editing. As a graphic designer, you want to make sure that your end result is well-read, something that can be difficult to achieve if your laptop doesn’t have a quality screen.
You’ll need a wide-view display with a minimum resolution of 1920 x 1080 for your video editing tasks. Adobe Photoshop can still work with a lower resolution as per the minimum specifications but I don’t think there’s any graphics designer that will want to go below Full HD resolution. There are laptops that offer 4k resolutions but they are a lot more expensive and definitely not budget Photoshop laptops.
Some laptops come with In-Plane Switching (IPS) which offers the widest viewing angles. This will particularly benefit professional photo editors, photographers, and even gamers.
RAM
RAM (Random Access Memory) is the short-term memory of your laptop and files are temporarily stored/loaded here as you work on them. This makes it easy and fast for your laptop to recall these files when you need them.
Adobe Photoshop uses your RAM a lot when you are editing pictures. The minimum RAM bandwidth for Photoshop is 8GB which will multitask and run the software smoothly. 8GB RAM is good and anything above it is better. Even Adobe recommends a RAM bandwidth of 16GB for better performance.
You can always upgrade your 8GB RAM laptop or buy laptops with higher RAM bandwidths. There are laptops with enormous RAM bandwidth of up to 32GB on this list. Imagine how Photoshop is going to run on them!
Overall, 8GB RAM is good, 16GB RAM is ideal, and 32GB RAM is a luxury.
CPU/Processor
We were all taught in elementary school that the CPU/processor of a computer is the brain of the computer. And that statement is completely correct. The CPU of your laptop is essentially a small chip that controls all the operations of the laptop including software and Photoshop is no exception.
Photoshop uses the processor of computers a lot and the minimum processor requirement by Adobe is a 2 GHz processor or faster. Gigahertz (GHz) is the clock speed of your processor. The higher it is, the faster your laptop gets work done.
The laptops on this list have fast and powerful processors that can run Photoshop smoothly.
Storage Space
Photoshop isn’t concerned about the total storage capacity of your laptop. Its own is that you have 4GB of free space on your hard disk and another extra space for installation.
However, you’ll need a laptop that can store all the apps you use and your files. It’s also important to have fast storage that will speed up booting and software launching times. There are two types of hard disk technology available today – Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and Solid State Drives (SSDs).
SSDs are faster and speed up booting and software launching times. HDDs are conventional hard disk drives and do not offer these benefits. However, HDDs are cheaper than SSDs.
For Photoshop, you need SSD storage because of their improved performance for the best results. The standard SSD storage you’ll get from most laptops in this range varies from 256GB to 1TB. You may even get up to 2TB from some already upgraded laptops or you can do the upgrade yourself.
Graphics
When it comes to Photoshop, the RAM and processor are more important than the graphics card (GPU). And when you consider the fact that most modern laptops have integrated graphics cards that can power your monitor, a dedicated graphics card starts to look like a luxury. Also, some Photoshop features do not really require a GPU.
Some laptops on this list have powerful integrated graphics like the AMD Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce graphics. Having a dedicated graphics card, however, is a good thing. The performance and speed of a number of operations will be improved. If you have an NVIDIA or Radeon graphics card, you may not need to get a dedicated GPU.
Operating System
It’s a matter of Windows vs macOS when the operating system for Photoshop is concerned. Both Windows and Mac laptops are very reliable. However, Windows OS wins here because it’s compatible with all major software that has to do with graphics designing.
Battery Life
Laptop manufacturers have made a well-needed and honorable effort to improve the battery life of their laptops. It’s now possible to see laptops with a battery life of over 10 hours. The MacBook Pro on this list even has a battery life of about 20 hours.
I don’t think you should go for a laptop with a battery life of less than 8 hours. 8 hours should be the minimum and anything more than that is a welcome addition.
Final Thoughts
There you have it, the best laptops for Photoshop on a budget. Photoshop is a relatively heavy software that requires your laptop to meet certain specifications. The laptops on this list meet, and most times exceed, the minimum requirements of Adobe Photoshop.
By having any of these laptops, you’ll be able to carry out your photo-editing tasks in a fast and efficient manner and that can only be a good thing. Get one of them today and see Photoshop running smoothly and without lag. Happy photo editing!
