On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:10:55 -0800, "Alan Justice"
wrote:

I have recently started editing digital files and it is very slow (RAW: 16
MP, 24 MB). (Slides were slow too, but now I end up with many more shots.)
I have many hundreds of images to edit after a shoot. I use Canon software
that came with the 1D Mk4 (ver. 3.8.1.0, 2010). It takes about 2 minutes to
load 1000 images into the display when I click on the folder. This makes it
impractical to go back and forth between different folders. To best evaluate
images I display most of them full screen. It takes over 3 sec to load a
single picture to full frame. That's about 1 hour just waiting, assuming I
only want to look at each full frame once.

Is my computer the slow part, the software, or what? And if hardware will
help, should I worry more about processor speed or RAM?

I also need another 2 TB of disk space and the same for backup, and I don't
know if this computer will handle it, so I may need a new computer anyway.

I have a Dell with Pentium 4 Processor, 2.8 GHz with 2 GB SDRAM, Win XP.

By modern standards your computer is V E R Y S L O W.

I had a computer to your general specs about 10 years ago (except that
it the faster DDR memory). I now have a Dell with a 2.9GHz -7
processor and 8Gb of DDR3 Ram. This is immeasurably faster than my old
machine. Tasks which used to let me go and have lunch now happen in
less than a second. You need a new computer.

Regards,

Eric Stevens