Photo Fusion: A Wedding Photographers Guide to Mixing Digital Photography and Video

Chapter 5. Hardware and Software

Some people like gear – especially gear related to computers. But, if you are anything like me, you want to be able to walk into a store and buy a computer (Mac or PC), load it up with software, and know it will do the job you need it to. The last thing you want to worry about is sound card, graphics processors, or how many gigs of RAM you're getting. Unfortunately, we can't ignore those are things when making Fusion is your priority.

Instead, we need to know the minimum requirements for our computers and we need to know what software we need to edit our Fusion.

Now, if you love this stuff, get ready – this chapter is for you! We have all the specs you need to make your computer Fusion friendly. You may want to upgrade some of the items we listed, and that is fantastic! If you are buying a new computer, odds are it will come with most of the items we list, but upgrade as much as you want – it can't hurt.

When it comes to software, part of your choice will hinge on what kind of hardware you are using (Mac or PC) and how familiar you are with video editing. We give you details about five software options and we also have a list of other available editing software. In Chapters 12 and 13, we will take you through an actual edit using iMovie and Producer, and we encourage you to spend a lot of time learning all about your editing software.

This chapter gives you everything you need to get your hardware up-to-date and help you select your editing software. ...