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Chapter 14 ✦ Creating Your Own Workspace
the speed of the current fastest processors on the market; however, if you add a gigabyte of RAM, you
still have a computer that can function at a very comfortable pace — although not speedy by any means.
Most photographers get the greatest amount of use from the desktop style of computer. The only real
reason to choose a laptop is for portability. If you do more than an occasional destination wedding, you
will certainly be looking at a laptop. Otherwise, the desktop tower systems provide far more features and
speed for the same amount of money.
RAM
RAM stands for Random Access Memory. This memory chip is where your computer temporarily stores
small amounts of information that it is using. Each time you open a program; the code for that program
is read into this memory and held there waiting for you to do something. When you close the program,
the code is deleted from the RAM. It is important to note that RAM is different from your hard drive.
The hard drive stores information permanently while the RAM only stores information while the electric-
ity is on.
RAM is particularly important for photographers because every time you open an image, you read it into
the RAM. If you open Photoshop, all of the code for the program is also read into the RAM. If you run a fil-
ter on the image, the processor chip makes changes to the image in the RAM. As you can ...