Brian

This is the problem with laptops. That model does not have a IPS-Based Display Panel, which is what you want if you are editing photos. That laptop would probably be good for culling, not editing. Sorry.

Oh, the ONLY time you edit in 16 bit, if if you have severe banding or have a photo that is going to take a lot of work / fixing. 98% of the time, editing in 8 bit is fine. I don’t care what website claims otherwise. They are lying.

Backup any important stat files, actions, favorites, etc. before doing anything.

As far as the current versions of Photoshop CC, you want to keep up-to-date. I'm not understanding the 16-bit part...you mean 64-bit? If so, that applies to Mac Users running mac OS Catalina. It also really applies to people running Photoshop CS6. If you are on Mojave, you are fine. It's the Catalina Users that have to worry.

As far as the Dell 8700 handling Win 10, it should...if Windows 7 works on it, there is a good chance Win 10 will be fine. Once Caveat, If there is some sort of driver that isn't compatible with Windows 10, and there isn't one available, you are screwed. Case in point: I upgraded a friend's 2012 Sony VAIO Laptop to Windows 10. The update went well. Everything worked...except for the WiFi Adapter. That's right, a laptop that has no working WiFi after the update. Sony's answer? Buy a new laptop. Fortunately, the Ethernet Port Worked. You need to have a blank 8GB or 16GB Thumbdrive Handy and use the Windows Media Creation Tool. I can't link to it with my Mac, as Microsoft is detecting it, but if you Google "Windows Media Creation Tool" it will be easy to find. Basically, if you have Windows 7 Pro, you should be able to upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro for free. You just need to have enough HD space available (500GB free is a safe number) and a Thumbdrive that will be used for the Windows 10 Installer only, so after you create it, but it in a bag and label it. After you create the thumbdrive, you boot off of it and follow the prompts. Leave your computer connected to to the internet and it will contact Microsoft's Servers and upgrade your License Key. Bear in mind that this is a one-way proposition. You will not be able to down-grade back to Windows 7 if something isn't 100% compatible.

Windows 7's end-of-life is Jan 14, 2020. What does that mean? To put it bluntly, Microsoft is taking it behind the barn and shooting-it-dead. There will be no support or updates, no security patches or service packs starting in 5 days from now. Will your Windows 7 stop working? Of course not. It will work just fine. That said, it's a sitting duck and any malware or other nasty stuff that takes advantage of a security hole can be exploited. So being on the internet with Win 7 isn't a good idea after Jan 14. Of course, Microsoft hasn't really been pushing out updates recently for Win 7, so it's probably not a huge deal for the short-term. Since they are dropping ALL support for it in a few days, IF something were to happen, requiring an update / patch...guess what? You are SOL.

Sweet!! Permissions will mess you up. "Everyone" usually works for a Home Workgroup.

Here are the current specs (1-2020) that I'm recommending for a "What's a good computer to buy?" threads: Intel i7 / Intel i9 (or AMD Equivalent) 16GB RAM / 32GB or more (Preferred) 500GB Main SSD HD with a larger 2nd 7200 RPM 4TB HD / 1TB Main SSD HD with a larger 2nd 7200 RPM 8TB+ HD (Preferred) A video card that has is own separate and dedicated Video RAM. 4GB (Minimum) / 8GB (Preferred) A power supply that has enough wattage to support the video card Windows 10 Home / Windows 10 Pro (Preferred) I'd get a i7 now as the current versions of PS CC are taking advantage of the Architecture that makes a i7 faster. Personally, I'd skip getting a i9 or AMD equivalent. Take the savings on the processor when choosing a i7 and put it towards a graphics card upgrade that has it's own dedicated video memory. That computer at B&H does not come with any storage or operating system. You will need to purchase that separately. Personally, that computer is not for you. I realize the price-tag is small, but you are throwing money away. It's for people like me who have spare parts laying around. Honestly, the "Gaming" in the title is really pushing it. That's marketing. I would never use a computer like that for gaming. What I'd use it for? Building a Lab that has it's own server and need workstations for educational purposes. Not to do any real work. So take the $720 price tag. Now add $215 for a 1TB m.2 drive and $100 for Windows 10 Home. So that automatically puts the cost to $1035. Not to mention you are stuck at 8GB. There isn't a way to upgrade the RAM!! So please, for the love of all that's Good-and-Green, DO NOT BUY THAT B&H COMPUTER. If you want to throw money away, I take donations. Here is a Dell XPS Configuration that meets my specs. As I have stated above, today's $700 computers are last years cheap $400 models. It's a really bad time to be buying a computer that is made in China. You are looking at spending between $1200-$1500 these days. Sorry, no way around it. "But...but!! My Budget!! I can't afford..." Save up for a few more months. The Tariffs aren't ending any time soon.

You can always add a second hard drive for not a lot of money. Yes, you can install it yourself. It will take you about 15 mins to accomplish. Yes, you can do this, even if you aren't technical. Yes, I can help you. The tough part? Getting the friggin' case open. LOL!! THAT'S the hard part. Mounting the HD is usually pretty straightforward. Most HDs clip into today's cases. Now, with that Dell it meets all of my basic specs except for one thing: I do not like the "Integrated Graphics." You definitely want to spend a little more and get a better video card. Trust me on this. Please...Spend the extra $250 and get the AMD Radeon RX 570 with 4GB dedicated video memory. The AMD cards seem to play well with Photoshop these days vs. NVIDIA Cards, at least as far as their drivers are concerned. Granted, NVIDIA usually has a different set of drivers that work better with PS, but there is more leg-work of un-installing and re-installing a new set of drivers. The current versions of Photoshop rely on the Video Card GPU (CPU) and it's dedicated video memory for a performance boost. Video Cards are becoming just as important in choosing the right CPU chip and this trend when it comes to Adobe will continue from now and into the future. You do not want to have "Integrated" or "Shared" anything when it comes to a video card and Photoshop. Now if you were just wasting time on FB and watching Netflix, then it's fine. Photoshop? Notsomuch. WD Elements External HD. I'm not a fan of those, even though I love Western Digital Drives. I personally buy the WD Caviar Black 7200RPM line. They are great drives, run fast, run cool and are reliable. Those cheaper HDs will fail on you. It's just a question of when. Here is an internal 6TB Caviar Black Drive on Amazon. If you really are determined and want an external HD, I'd pick this WD External HD instead. Yes, even though it's a "Gaming EHD," you can simply re-partition / reformat it for use with a Windows (or even a Mac) computer. It's a high-quality drive and I know this is due to it being a 7200RPM model. The "Green" or "Eco-Friendly" HDs fail all the damn time. I want my HDs sucking up power and being reliable. It doesn't do the planet a damn bit of good if it ends up in a landfill. In reality, there isn't THAT much of a power savings with a "Eco-Friendly" drive. We are only talking about a couple of watts. It's not going to make a dent in the grand-scheme of things.

I was going to suggest a zoom with a fixed aperture. You listed both. Since your camera body has a APS-C (Crop) Sensor, you take the focal length and multiply it by 1.5 to get the "Angle of View." 16mm on a Crop = 24mm on a Full Frame Sensor, and so forth. Since both lenses are 16mm, that takes care of the wide. The difference is the Aperture, having the ability to shoot at f/2.8 at all focal lengths is a nice thing to have. The 16-55 f/2.8 also more of a higher-end lens and will definitely replace your kit lens. So ask yourself this, do you want more "reach" or want more shallow Depth of Field. If you are looking at a walk-around lens, either will do. One just has more reach and the other gives you that fuzzy-wuzzy backgrounds a little better. That said, since you have a 24mm f/1.8, that takes care of this issue. I'd say go for the 16-70 f/4. It's $700 and is more of a multipurpose lens. You need more zoom / reach and not DoF at this point. You have that covered with your primes.

The funny part is, the 50mm f/1.4G works better on a DX camera than a full frame. So if the lens checks out, feel free to sell it.

Buying a new lens instead of computer / camera body is actually smart. You'd be surprised on just how much a difference a pro-grade lens is vs a consumer model. You will end up spending LESS time in PS, believe it or not. That's due to the sharpness, colors and contrast are all better that you get with a quality lens. If you want my help with the lens, post a thread in the "Gear Talk" section."

Can you post a screen shot? I have lots of experience in this area. Are these shared / mapped drives? Are you on a Workgroup? Is your computer's IP Address Static or Dynamic? There is also another Windows 10 feature that needs to be turned on that isn't on by default in order to access mapped drives. Usually though, that is with servers. Anyway, post a screen shot. One thing with buying a digital copy of Windows 10 Pro, is that it is married to the Windows that you upgraded on your computer. YOU CAN NOT TRANSFER IT TO ANOTHER COMPUTER. I've tried. The only way to do it, is within say 14-days or less it to call Microsoft and have them void the license key and refund your money. Even then it will take an hour or more of convincing the Microsoft Reps to do it, and they will need to speak with multiple managers. I speak from experience. It's a real Pain in the Ass. (I had a customer buy a laptop from Best Buy and had to do a "Anytime Upgrade" to get it to Pro so they could join their Domain. Unfortunately, the laptop crapped out in a week and they exchanged it. Found out the hard way that we couldn't just unregister the Windows 10 Pro key and put it on the replacement. It doesn't work that way.)

You betcha. And faster. And it has a stationary screen that's easier to calibrate. Lasts longer too. Truth be told, I DO NOT RECOMMEND LAPTOPS FOR PHOTO-EDITING. But people keep asking and want to buy them, and I got tired of arguing. To really get a decent laptop for editing photos, you are looking at spending $2000-$2500. Why? Mostly it's finding a IPS-based screen. The other thing is getting a laptop that has enough space on the boot HD, and has at least 16GB of RAM, preferably 32GB. Not to mention having a video-card with it's own dedicated video memory. All of that adds up and at that point you are into a "Gaming Laptop" for those kind-of-features, not the "$500 Special" at Best Buy. Low on budget and lasting a long time...those are contradictory phrases in 2020. If you want something to last 7-8 years, you are going to be spending more. Period. It's always been that way. As with a lot of things, you get what you pay for. With the current US-Tariffs on China, it's a real bad time to be buying a computer. The Manufacturers have passed the Tariff Charges down to the customer. It's a $300-$500 increase from prices in 2019. So today's $700 computers are last year's $400 models and you really need to read the fine-print on the specifications going forward. That said, you can get a decent computer for about $1000. Anything less and having it last 8 years might be pushing it, but YMMV. I used my 2009 iMac just fine until I got a Nikon D850. That caused all sorts of upgrades to my computer. Talk about expensive. Before that I shot with a D700 and then a D3s and had that replaced with a D4s. So I was stuck in 2009-2014 and my 2009 iMac worked just fine. Fast-forward a few years and I ended up spending way more money than I wanted to. Building your own PC, it sounds romantic...but you will usually end up spending way more money in the long run. Sure, it's great to customize it and get quality components, but that costs money. Just like eating Steak at a fancy restaurant vs buying a Big Mac at McDonald's. The volume that manufactures purchase things makes the computers more affordable. Look at what you need to buy: Case Power Supply (At least 500 Watts) Motherboard (One that works with the CPU Chip you select.) CPU Chip (Intel i7 or equivalent) RAM (16GB at a Min / 32GB Preferred) Video Card with it's own dedicated Video Memory (4GB Video RAM at a Minimum) SSD Boot Drive (500GB at Min) 2nd Larger Data Drive (1TB is fine, the more the better) Microsoft Windows Home (Windows 10 Pro is preferred) Each time I try to Build-my-Own computer, and I have higher-requirements than most people, I end up around the $2700 mark, and I still need to buy a monitor. So if you want to go with low-end components, look at building a low-end gaming computer. That should be $800-$1000, plus the cost of the monitor. As far as brands that I recommend, I usually tell people to look at the Dell XPS line, as they are decent for what they are. Unfortunately, prices have risen and they are putting in cheaper components to keep the costs down. Just like you don't truly get a "Gallon of Ice Cream" anymore; it's "Almost a Gallon," but still costs the same. Anyway, back to the Dell XPS series, you really need to look at the "Special Edition" to get the better quality options and it pains me to write that. A year ago, I could recommend a $800-ish system for smaller budgets and it would work well. Now...that price is at least $1349 and you still need to spend around $200 for a IPS Monitor. (See that $500 China Tariff increase?) At this point, see what your tech-friends can find for you. Otherwise, I'd plan on spending $1500+ in today's market for something that is decent and "lasts."

You mean like this one? Sandisk USB 3.0 Card Reader It's about $30. Chances are, your fancy memory card is too powerful for the card-reader that is built into the computer. From a technological standpoint, it physically won't work. The cool part with that reader is it takes both modern CF and SD cards.

Today's 8GB is yesterday's 4GB. It's way too small for today's modern Photoshop. In fact, I recommend 16GB at a bare-minimum in 2020 and really would like for you to have 32GB. Especially if you have a camera that is 24MP or more. Heck, I have 64GB of RAM in my iMac to handle my D850 100MB Raw files. I don't think you can upgrade the RAM on your laptop as it's soldered to the board. You are forced to upgrade at the time of purchase and pay Apple's extremely over-priced upgrade options. Often upgrading to 32GB adds $600 to the cost. If I went 3rd party and got the same configuration from say Crucial.com, it's be less than $150. That's right, a $450 "Apple Tax." I'm afraid it's new computer time. Budget for a new MBP that handles Photoshop well: $3800-ish. Mac Laptops are insanely over-priced and really only give you a good 4-5 years before you look to purchase a new one. Just like the boat you are in now. 2014-2020 is what, 6 years or so? I'd say you have had a good run. It's only money, right? Edit: If you are running PSE, 8GB "Might" be enough, but in 2020 I still recommend 16GB RAM at a minimum.

Older calibration devices, like the ColorMunki have a temporary work-around using another calibration tool's software. Spyder5 Series has some sort of update patch to make it compatible with Catalina. Long term, look at buying a SpyderX Pro, which is what I'm going to do. Older calibration devices, while work-arounds are in place, there is no guarantee that the older devices will work long term. Going forward, you want 64-bit software on everything. From Microsoft Office 365, to calibration software, to browsers...EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE 64-BIT FROM THIS POINT GOING FORWARD. Starting in the year 2020, 32-bit is dead as far as Apple is concerned. They migrated iOS to 64 bit a few years ago and now they are enforcing it with the mac OS. So if you are determined to keep using 32-bit, you are stuck on Mojave. Period. If you are buying a new Mac or want to upgrade, 64-bit is mandatory. I'd buy a SpyderX Pro, which has 64-bit Calibration Software. Yes, it sucks to spend money, but in this case, it's the best recommendation I can give you.

Third party lenses like Sigma, Tamron, etc. Plan on going through 3-4 lenses to get a good copy. Those companies aren't known for great Quality Control. So you can send in the body to have it looked at, but parts are really rare for that camera. Nikon doesn't even repair them anymore. It might be time for a new camera body.

The 50mm f/1.4G is a worthless piece of crap. You are going down a rabbit hole and are just going to waste money. Seriously, when "Ask Brian" was on FB, I had 100's of threads about this stupid lens mounted with a D700. Even those who sent them in to be married / tweaked by Nikon had mixed results at best and really had in-consistent results. Get rid of the lens. It's not going to work. But! But! But! My husband bought.... Bought a piece of shit lens. Even on other bodies, the 50mm f/1.4G is "better" but still as inconsistent. Plan on taking 3-5 shots to get one mostly in focus.

This one's a little tough. Why? Because even the new laptops come with small SSD Drives, usually 256GB! The models with 512GB SSD HDs are becoming a little more common, but they can still be tough to find. 1TB SSD Drives have lowered in price, but with your model, it's the m.2 interface type of SSD, which is expensive, especially a 2TB size. Right now it really depends on your budget and what you are willing to spend. The US Import Tariffs on China had made all the computers increase in cost from about $300-$500 as compared to the prices from last year. Everything seems to come from China, from whole computers to components, and those Tariff costs are being pushed to the consumers. So today's $700 computers were last year's $400 models, so you really need to read the technical specifications. That $1000 computer might be a low-end model in terms of specs. In terms of Mac vs PS, Macs aren't "Better," they are just "Different." The cheapest route for you at this point is to upgrade your laptop to 2TB. Windows Laptops that meet my specs of being "Good for Photo Editing" seem to be around the $2000-$2500 mark. Mac Laptops are even more expensive. Why? Finding a IPS-based Display on a laptop is difficult, not to mention one with at least a 512GB HD and 16GB RAM (at a minimum.) Laptops are built for streaming & portability these days, not meant for desktop replacements. The ones that are...usually are expensive, plan on a $1500 budget at a minimum.

Yeah, 7-8 years is all you get these days when it comes to computers. You've had a good run. Are you planning on staying with some sort of laptop or desktop? You could invest in a Wacom Tablet so you can continue using a Pen. Also, what budget do you have in mind?

Be sure to run Windows Update to get the latest patches and fixes. What Anti-Virus software did they pre-load? I'll bet you it's McAfee. Worthless program. Believe it or not, the standard (and free) Windows Defender works really well. Yes. Well, Safari is color-managed as well. But I personally use Firefox. Yes. I'd download both Chrome and Firefox. Use Firefox only for judging images. Chrome works fine for general browsing. For anything that has to do with Pictures or accurate colors, be sure to use Firefox. One thing to mention about Chrome...is it's basically "spy software." People like it because it's fast and free. They always seem to forget that Google Chrome harvests a ton of data about you and your browsing habits. Give this article a read, it's concerning on what Chrome records about you and where you go online. Personally, I use the current version of Firefox. Colors are accurate and it respects one's privacy and it's not THAT much slower than Chrome. Also be sure to download the Adobe Reader DC, the Free Version. I can't directly link to it since it's their website is detecting my Mac, but if you Google, "Get Adobe Reader DC" it should take you to a page to download it. Just be sure to un-check the optional offers / stupid virus protection thing. Just get the Adobe Reader DC, open it and it will prompt you to change your Windows setting to set it as the default .PDF viewer program. You want to do this and not use Edge. The only time I use Edge is to download other browsers. That's a tough one. For the most part, yes. You don't have to go all Nuclear though, just right click on the tiles and select "Unpin from Start." In the future I'm going to write a document in where I go step-by-step on what to do with a new computer. Unfortunately, I need to get a Windows 10 computer first for home. I fix Windows Servers and Computers all day, and the last thing I want to dork around with when I get home is my personal computer. That's why I have a Mac. That said, for educational purposes, and to write tutorials, I will need a Windows 10 Computer. As to when I'm going to write that tutorial, it's on the list. No idea of time-frame.

I'd have to see a screen-shot on what you are talking about. This is a new one for me. When you purchase a store-bought computer, you aren't really buying "Microsoft Windows" per se, but the Dell Version of Windows, the HP Version of Windows, etc. etc. So your manufacture's copy of Windows 7...though legit, may not be truly up-gradable, depending on your license key and exact version that is installed on your laptop/computer. Unfortunately, you won't find this out until you attempt to upgrade.

Head to Crucial.com and run their scanning tool. After it completes, it should take you to a page for you to purchase a 32GB Kit. I've bought RAM from them since the 1990's and their prices are reasonable. I trust them.

If you want speed and don’t want to use a cloud service, a Synology NAS unit might be on your short list. Or setup a Windows Workgroup and share a folder on a computer and Map a Network Drive to it.