Photographers spend hours uploading and editing photos, so they require a machine with speedy performance, a fast hard drive, and a bright display.
Photo editing software can be resource hungry for your laptop. Particularly, if you’re working with lots of raw files.
And as your laptop is a powerful photo editing tool, with all that power, there might be heat problems, especially when traveling in summer.
Laptops have become much cooler in recent years, but heat is still an operational problem.
Laptops are smaller than desktops, components are packed more tightly, the casing is ultra-small, so there’s not much room for the heat to disappear.
Cooler notebooks last longer, and too much heat can make your system crash.
If you are on a trip, and you are going to process your photos during a trip, you don’t want your notebook to crash with your new images.
Air vents, fans, and heat sinks try to cool your laptop down. Sometimes, it’s not enough. Overheating can happen if there’s some malfunction, like when a fan isn’t working correctly.
But it can also be a user’s fault if he blocks the air vents.
Here are some simple tips on how to keep your laptop cool:
1 – Don’t cover the vents
Make sure the vents are not covered up. This is especially a problem when they are at the bottom of the notebook, and you put the machine on cloth (like watching a video in bed). Keep your laptop off your lap.
2 – Check the fans.
Download a fan diagnostic software either from the manufacturer’s site or from the software download site. Opening a laptop case might be an option, but on newer machines, it might void the warranty.
3 – Laptop Cooler Pad
Try to use a notebook cooler pad that has a top layer made of glass or metal or aluminum (like a metal mouse pad), that acts as a heat sink.
4 – Tilt the Laptop
If you don’t have either, use some small object like a real book to tilt the computer a bit so that air can circulate better under the machine.
5 – Dust
Notebooks are like Hoovers; they suck in all the dust around them. After a few months, the air vents of your laptop are clogged up with dirt. The ventilator has to work harder and harder to cool it. That is why many notebooks get noisier over time. Use your hoover or some compressed air to clean out all the dirt.
Some notebooks with high-end graphic cards can overheat nevertheless during demanding editing sessions.
6 – Extra Fan
A notebook cooler can only blow from below, so it might help to get an additional USB fan to add some cooling air from above.
Conclusion
Landscape photo editing is a form of art itself. It gives the photographer the ability to express themselves.
Editing software, like Photoshop and Lightroom, might be harder to learn than actual landscape photography.
You need to invest lots of time in editing your photos, and lots of money to a proper laptop, as editing can truly make or break a landscape photo.
