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How much Ram - Lightroom / Photoshop

I'm up grading my Imac and i run Photoshop and lightroom and they are often open at the same time, how much Ram should i get?

Posted on Jul 15, 2020 9:30 AM

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Posted on Jul 15, 2020 11:07 AM

I’m on the Adobe Photography plan and have a 27” 2017 iMac. I’ve maxed it out with 64GB of RAM purchased from OWC/Macsales. When I have both LR and Photoshop open, occasionally the the RAM usage will go to 40GB and higher. A few operations in LR will occasionally use about that much, such as Merge Photos to HDR.

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Jul 15, 2020 11:07 AM in response to passage2

I’m on the Adobe Photography plan and have a 27” 2017 iMac. I’ve maxed it out with 64GB of RAM purchased from OWC/Macsales. When I have both LR and Photoshop open, occasionally the the RAM usage will go to 40GB and higher. A few operations in LR will occasionally use about that much, such as Merge Photos to HDR.

Jul 15, 2020 9:33 AM in response to passage2

What size iMac 21.5 or 27", if it's a 21.5 the RAM is not user upgradeable, however if you have a 27" have a minimum of 32 GB of

RAM. When you buy the RAM please only purchase Crucial.com or Macsales.com RAM, why because imacs are very sensitive to using quality RAM and both vendors supply very high quality products, have good pricing, provide excellent service and have lifetime warranties on RAM.

Jul 15, 2020 9:41 AM in response to passage2

I've only used PSE since retiring13 years ago so can't give you a 2020 answer. However, understand that RAM is not practically upgradeable after purchase on any 21.5-inch iMac. What you buy will be your "forever RAM."


27-inch iMac allow users to upgrade RAM later. Recommended.


I'm running PSE in a 2017 quad-core i7 iMac 27" on 16 GB RAM with no issues, but I suspect the full version will want more. If you buy a 27-incher with the base 8GB RAM, you can buy two 8GB modules from a trusted RAM vendor and have 24GB and it will only cost half of what Apple charges. I did that with my 2017 and applied the savings to getting a big factory SSD--highly recommended.


Whatever it takes, get the factory SSD. Mech drives are glacial and the Fusion drives have not been trouble-free IMHO, nor all that fast.

Jul 15, 2020 10:01 AM in response to passage2

I have a 27" 2017 iMac with i7 CPU and 16 GB of RAM. The only time I've had issues with PSE 2020 was when I was trying to edit a 300+ MB Photoshop file, using the Smudge or Blur tool. Admittedly the file was rather large, much larger than I ever use normally so I'm not surprised.


Bottom line is you should have at least 16GB of RAM and more if you plan on using large files. If the budget permits 32 GB would be a good number to shoot for as rkaufmann87 recommended. And heed his recommendation of Crucial.com or MacSales.com RAM.


Are you upgrading an existing iMac or getting a new one? If a new one order the minimum RAM and upgrade thru the two suppliers recommended. Also get as large an internal SSD as the budget permits. Don;'t go for Fusion drive.

How much Ram - Lightroom / Photoshop

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