Photoshop Speed: Create Size Variants from 36-Megapixel Images

2015 Apple MacBook Pro Retina

Authorized Apple dealer B&H Photo loaned MPG the Apple 15.4" MacBook Pro Retina (Mid 2015), 2.8GHz / Radeon R9 M370X / 16GB / 1TB, the configuration MPG recommends for power users, photographers, videographers, etc. Save money on AppleCare too.

This test is as real world as it gets, one that your author does day in and day out for generating lens rendering aperture series.

Thus it is of great practical value to ask whether the combination of faster SSD, slightly faster CPU and faster GPU in the 2015 MacBook Pro Retina could improve upon the late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina.

The results show what one might expect for many real world tasks: a 16% reduction in time required for the task.

Deciding whether to upgrade is a combination of performance, screen technology, battery life, and other features; these all need to be weighed as factors as per real value. Since the 2015 MacBook Pro Retina model tested is an about $3100 configuration, trading up may at least start with a realistic assessment of performance differences for daily tasks—always a superior approach to benchmarks.

The MPG 2013 Mac Pro with dual D700 GPUs, 64GB memory, 1TB SSD, and custom upgrade to the fastest Intel Xeon chip (3.3 GHz 8-core) ekes out a 9% reduction in time over the 2015 MacBooK Pro Retina. At about 40% of the cost, the MacBook Pro Retina sure looks like a darn fine performer for the price.

Photoshop Performance Preferences at Memory Usage = 70%, Graphics Processor = Advanced, History=30/Cache Levels=4/Tile size = 1024K.

Real-world (daily task) in Photoshop: creating a dozen size variants from twenty-eight 36 megapixel images