Best Laptop for Photo Editing

Whether it is amateur photo editing or professional photo editing, the quality of the work and your own capabilities depend largely on the specific laptop that you have which makes choosing the right photo editing laptop a priority for getting a quality finished product.

While it is possible to do very basic photo editing on most devices, from any kind of laptop to your mobile devices, when it comes to using specialized photo editing software and ensuring that all elements of a photo are balanced just right for the perfect look, you are going to need some reliable hardware for running demanding software and storing large quantities of photos.

The best laptop for photo editing needs to have a fast hard drive, a range of different ports for easy exporting and importing of photo collections, a large enough amount of storage for maintaining a sizeable library of images, and a processor and graphics card that can handle all of the necessary editing applications like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator that can be graphics-intensive.

Editing photos also requires a high-resolution display that can accurately reproduce a wide range of natural colors so that what you see on the screen is what you will also see in prints and the end product, whether it is for your own use or as part of a professional service.

The Best All-Around Photo Editing Laptops

An all-around laptop is one that combines processing power, storage space, screen resolution, and price into one that achieves a great middle ground for anyone who wants to try and get the best of all of these worlds without completely blowing the bank. These versatile laptop options are just right for amateur photo editors and people who either do not need gigantic amounts of hard drive space or who work with images with extremely high resolutions since these particular laptops represent the mid-range for photo editing.

One such laptop that is a great all-around option for photo editing is the ThinkPad P15 Mobile Workstation. The ThinkPad P15 has a larger 15.6” FHD screen with a 1920x1080 screen resolution, although some of the models within the of this workstation series can go up to a resolution of 3840x1260 with OLED screens and Dolby Vision.

The basic models of the ThinkPad P15 Mobile Workstation have 10th generation Intel Core i5 processors with vPro that has a processing speed of between 2.60GHz and 4.60GHz, allowing it to easily handle programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. The more budget-friendly ThinkPad P 15 models come with either 256GB or 512GB of hard drive storage space, allowing them to hold medium-sized photo collections, with either 8GB or 16GB of memory.

These workstations are equipped with the NVIDIA Quadro T1000 4GB graphics card for extremely precise graphic power for processing images with high resolution. The P15’s Ultra Performance Mode also allows the system to maximize its airflow and thermal saturation efficiency to improve the processing speeds of the laptop, ensuring that when you are working on a demanding project that the laptop will be able to keep up, no matter what.

Another great all-around photo editing laptop is the Legion 5i gaming PC. Gaming laptops are renowned for their processing speeds and graphics capabilities, and all of this can be extremely useful when buying a laptop for the purpose of photo editing. The Legion 5i features a 10th generation Intel Core H Series processor that can reach a maximum processing speed of 5.0GHz when put into Turbo Boost Mode.

The large 17.3” FHD IPS screen with 300 nits is large enough for you to easily work away on any type of image. Combine that with a NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti 6GB graphics card that allows it to produce clean, precise images and a memory of 16GB the Legion 5i will be able to seamlessly run any photo editing software.

The Best Laptop for Photo Editing When Traveling

If you are somebody who travels a lot, then you are likely going to want to be able to work while heading to any destination and make the most of your time instead of sitting idly on a plane for hours. This means that the best laptop for photo editing and traveling will need to prioritize a compact design and a long battery life while still incorporating all the requirements for an effective photo editing laptop.

The ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 5 is a great combination of compact design with an extended battery life. This 2-in-1 laptop has a minimum battery life of 13 hours, although batteries can be upgraded to a life of over 19 hours if necessary, ensuring that this device can last through almost all flights around the world as well as layovers where multiple people are competing for charging stations and you may not be able to charge for long, if at all. Its 360 degree hinge and touchscreen also allow it to easily be turned into a tablet in cases where it is impractical to be using the keyboard.

The X1 Yoga Gen 5 has a 14” UHD screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 which again can be upgraded to a resolution of 3840x2160 for high resolution work. Its Intel Core i5 processor can reach speeds up to 4.20GHz with either 8 or 16Gb of memory and a hard drive capacity of either 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB depending on your choice and allowing you to store many large photo collections at once on the device.

Another one of the best laptops for photo editing when traveling is the ThinkPad T14s AMD. The ThinkPad T14s has a total battery life of up to 16 hours, making it another long-lasting charge laptop that will stay on for most flights around the world and let you continue working to make the most of your travel time.

The different models of the ThinkPad T14s allow customers to choose between up toa AMD Ryzen 7 Pro processor with a maximum of 4.10GHz of processing speed. All of the models come with the same 14” FHD screen that produces realistic colors with high resolution, and users can also choose between 8GB or 16GB of memory along with either 128GB, 256GB, or 1TB of hard drive storage capacity.

The ThinkPad T14s also comes with an Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics card that will be able to handle most applications that you need to use for photo editing.

The Best Photo Editing Laptops for Under $1,000

Whether you are an amateur photo editor or work for a small business and cannot justify investing thousands of dollars on a laptop to get all of your work done, there are still some great photo editing laptop options that are a little bit easier on the budget under $1,000 and that still do a lot of the same jobs as the more expensive options.

One of these options is the ThinkPad T490s. These devices contain 8th generation Intel Core i5 processors that reach processing speeds of up to 3.90GHz. The screen is a comfortable 14” in size allowing you to still see all of the required details necessary for photo editing with an FHD IPS anti-glare screen with a brightness ration of 250 nits.

8GB of memory along with 256GB of hard drive storage space gives you enough room to work on multiple photo collections, and the battery life of the T490s also outpaces most other laptops with charges lasting up to 20 hours, making this another great option for traveling as well.

Along with an Integrated Intel UHD Graphics card, this device also includes many different connection options including 4xUSB 3.1 slots, a Micro SD card reader slot/Micro Sim slot, an optional smart card reader, and HDMI 1.4 port, and more.

For an additional option under the $1,000 mark, photo editors should also look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7 laptop, with the cheapest model of this laptop sporting a 10th generation Intel i7 processor that produces up to 3.9GHz of processing speed. Since this is another laptop with a 14” FHD IPS screen, you know that it is large enough for the most detailed photo edits, especially with its Integrated Intel Iris Plus graphics card. It also has a higher memory capacity of other laptops with 12GB and a hard drive storage capacity of 512GB.

The Best Photo Editing Laptops for High Demands

Sometimes it is best to simply invest as much as necessary in the right hardware that is guaranteed to get the job done. If your budget is not at the forefront of your mind and instead you want something serious that can take on large, complicated editing jobs with lots of detail, then the following two laptop options may just do the trick.

The first is the ThinkPad P15 Mobile Workstation PC which combines a powerful processor with the NVIDIA Quadro T1000 4GB graphics card and a 15.6” FHD screen with Dolby Vision that produces up to 500 nits, ensuring that every detail shows up in high definition with vibrant, realistic colors. The ThinkPad P15 has an 8GB of memory along with up to 512GB of hard drive storage, ensuring that it always keeps up with your demands.

The other great option for a photo editing laptop is the Lenovo Legion Y740 gaming laptop. As we mentioned before, gaming laptops make great photo editing laptops due to their high resolution and processing speeds that allow you to run a wide range of editing programs without the computer slowing down or crashing. The Intel i7 processor in the Legion Y740 produces up to 4.50GHz of processing speed with a large 15.6” FHD screen which utilizes Dolby Vision and NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics card for the best and most vibrant visual display.

A 16GB memory card along with 1TB of hard drive storage space ensures that large and high resolution works can be easily handled, and large collections of images can be stored.

Regardless of whether you are constantly traveling and need something compact with long battery life, something that fits within your budget, or if you need something with the best specs on the market that can handle more complex image edits with enough space to store entire collections, our collection at has something to offer everyone.

Shop Related Products

ThinkPad P15 Mobile Workstation

Workstation power anywhere

IdeaPad Gaming 3i

ThinkPad P1 Gen 3 Mobile Workstation

The power to do even more

P340 Tower Workstation

P340 Tower Workstation

Robust, uncompromised performance

Shop Products

Shop Accessories

The Lenovo Advantage






