Is a Mac studio Ultra an overkill for just stills editing

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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Take a look at this YT video by "artisright ". He reviews the studio with some great comparisons to MBPs and other machines specifically for photography.

I own a base spec Studio M1 Max and process medium format stills with no issue.

I don't do a lot of panos with large numbers of stills and I don't do images with large numbers of masks.

I keep all the images on external drives so didn't need a larger internal.

I'm pleased that I didn't upgrade anything.

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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If you're worried about RAM, you can custom-order a M1-Max-based Studio with 64 GB of RAM.

• [Custom-order] Mac Studio (M1 Max, 24 GPU cores, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD) – $2599
• Mac Studio (M1 Ultra, 48 GPU cores, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD) – $3999

(Here I upgraded the SSD as well, to make it easier to see the part of the price difference that's due to the processor.)

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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Yes, unless you are into things like frequent exporting of 1000's of large files, or huge stitched panoramas, and want to get the absolute fastest speed possible.

I have a base (8-core CPU) MBP M1 Pro with 16GB RAM and it does great on "normal" PS and LR editing; the only thing I would change if I were to do it again is get 32GB RAM.

Those that really need the Ultra already know who they are. I think even the Max is overkill for most casual users of PS and LR. All the extra GPU cores are wasted on LR and PS, which barely use the GPU at all.

30mb or 100mb is just the base file, the RAW file.

Do you edit with layers? i.e. non destructively or do you edit in a single 'slider based' fashion? Generally called pixel editing.

If you dont use layers you wont see a single iota different between even an M1 chip vs the Ultra. Only if your comping through 2gb images with a tonne of layers you'll start to see a difference.

Dont waste your money, make sure you will see a benefit.

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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I shoot prediminantly still and own a Studio with the Ultra chip -- so the answer is NO

Think about your computer as a tool that should last at least 3 years and hopefully a lot longer. Don't base you decision and the spec you buy on your needs today or even tomorrow, but on what you are likely to be doing next year.

I never expected to make a few vids or post them on YouTube I made 5 so far this year.
I have taken over 35k images with the Z9 almost all 50MB files so to be able to review process and archive one needs more options -- the Ultra gives you 6 T4 ports, not just 4. AND much more processing capabilities.

An M2 chip will come sometime this year -- presumably for the MB Air first and then other MBPs including with an MAX version before flowing down into desktop products. IN the meantime the Ultra chip works really well in the Studio with its excellent cooling system.

I agree with Ken Seals; look at that Art is Right video. It has all the answers anyone here could give you re performance specs.

But only you can answer the question of whether those speed differences are worth it.

Take the big differences, in say export and making previews. The Ultra is twice as fast. Is that worth it? I'm usually getting coffee or beginning to cull while that's going on, so I wouldn't care. To others that might be critical.

And also look at the pano merge. I do those a lot, and here the difference isn't so great and not worth it to me.

At the end of they day presumably purchasing one is dependent on your workflow and so going through that video will determine whether it will speed things up for stills, and by how much.

robgendreau said:

Take the big differences, in say export and making previews. The Ultra is twice as fast. Is that worth it?

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Furthermore, that difference is exemplified by what kind of photographer is buying the Mac. The Ultra could be worth it for wedding photographers, studio photographers, time lapse photographers, anyone who imports and export hundreds or thousands of images every week, specifically in software that can actually use all cores to build previews or bulk export. Then the Ultra could shave many hours off that photographer’s work week.

But…if the photographer is the type who edits one or two images per day, in an application like Photoshop that is not good at using multiple cores, the Ultra is a supreme waste of money because it will deliver practically zero benefit for single image work.

That’s what the artisright videos show about the Ultra. The Ultra is not twice as fast most of the time. The single core performance of the Ultra is the same as the Max and the Pro and the basic M1, so in software not optimized for all cores the Ultra is no faster. For photography, the Ultra is only twice as fast in a narrow niche where multiple images are being processed and the software can use all cores, and the photographer needs to do this regularly and frequently. If just one of those conditions is not true (like the photographer does do large exports, but only 3 times a month), the Ultra is not worth it.

Yes, I like ArtisRight because he quantifies the benefits. For example, he shows that the Ultra saves about a minute exporting 100 files. So if you export 100 files once a week or so, it will cost you $2000 to save a minute of your time each week, which is a little hard to justify for most people.

For a Pro exporting 1000 files a day, it would save about 50 hours a year, and would make much more sense to spend the extra.

As other have noted, depending on what you do with your photography, you may do fine with an M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM. (I am basing this on the limited info you provided.) If a lack of ports is an issue it is much cheaper to add ports to the Mini than buying even the least expensive Studio.

If you don't have GAS and can wait a while, the rumored Mac Mini M2 version may be just the ticket if Apple keeps the price reasonable compared to the Studio series.

wilberforce_1 said:

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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Yes, unless you are into things like frequent exporting of 1000's of large files, or huge stitched panoramas, and want to get the absolute fastest speed possible.

I have a base (8-core CPU) MBP M1 Pro with 16GB RAM and it does great on "normal" PS and LR editing; the only thing I would change if I were to do it again is get 32GB RAM.

Those that really need the Ultra already know who they are. I think even the Max is overkill for most casual users of PS and LR. All the extra GPU cores are wasted on LR and PS, which barely use the GPU at all.

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This. So much of LR and PS is lightly threaded work unless something major has changed with the M1 versions so editing should be pretty much be the same.

It's those large jobs that need it so like if I had 1000+ photos and needed to get something back to a client ASAP the Ultra would be a good tool for that. But it's 1,400 dollars so if those situations aren't something you run up against just go for the Max. You'd be better off just holding onto that money and having half the amount needed for the M3 or M4 Studio that you'll replace it with and that will certainly have faster single core speeds among other performance boosts.

Memory seems to be more important than GPUs for Lightroom / Photoshop for the moment. Perhaps Adobe will update these applications to make best use of the extra resources, but I wouldn't count on it.

I agree with others, including Art, if you can afford it, and the production time for the box doesn't bother you, go for the Ultra. Otherwise, you won't be missing that much if you just get the stock Max, unless you are a wedding photographer.

I reckon that 95% of still photographers could do just fine on the base model Mac Studio. Particularly if they keep their photo libraries on external drives.

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I don't export thousand of images at a time, although I do some occasional complex editing. It seems to me, that I probably wouldn't get value out of paying the additional premium for the Ultra chip.

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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I am perfectly happy batch processing hundreds of 42MP a7RIII RAW event photos on tight deadlines with LRC and DxO PhotoLab on a...

$1099 M1 Mac mini with 512GB and 16GB.

I've been a professional event photographer for 20 years. My mini replaced a $5000 custom-upgraded 3.3GHz 8-core cylinder Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM.

Go figure.

JohnnyGregg said:

I’m planning on updating my iMac, to the new Mac studio Naturally, it’s a fair amount of money. I do not do video only once in a blue moon. I process in Lightroom and Photoshop. Mainly 30 mb files but possibly moving to 100mb files in next 12 months. Is the Ultra chip an overkill for this work?

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I have the M1 Max processing image files that wind up being over 1GB and it is amazingly fast. The Ultra is really overkill unless you're going to be working with video and 3D modeling. And even then, I'm sure the Max would be adequate. Like Jacques Cornell said, even an M1 Mini would be sufficient. Makes me wonder why I just spent nearly $4K on a Mac Studio M1 Max!

See this interesting video—

M1 Max vs M1 Ultra Mac Studio: Why pay TWICE as much?

Thank you. Very useful insight