Photographer Shares His Dream Retouching Workstation Setup

Warning: Intense jealousy and GAS may be felt while viewing this video. You have been warned.

Dani Diamond is no stranger to the photography community, with his unique style and incredible hand-crafted portfolio. In his latest video, he shares his dream editing station. And at first look, it is truly incredible: two Viewsonic 27" monitors, a high-end speaker system, a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro attached to a custom-built stand that also holds a Palette system, a full NAS setup, and of course, a Herman Miller chair. This list doesn't even include his custom-built PC which could probably be done in its own article.

Why Your Setup Is Important

Editing is a long, grueling task. Being able to work in an environment that is organized and comfortable to you will help make a more efficient workflow for your long hours of retouching. For me, I know a clean workstation where I'm not stacking things on top of each other goes a long way. For Dani, a comfortable environment means bumping EDM music out of a detailed sound system and using a NASA-like button setup to save an image.

Seeing this is making me think of my editing space in a completely different light. Maybe I need to purchase a water jug that's two feet from my desk for constant fill-ups or possibly one of those cereal dispensers you find in a hotel's breakfast lounge. No matter what, it is always inspiring to see what people can do with their desk space. If you're intrigued with what other people have done with their environments, a fun place to check out is Reddit's Battlestations subreddit.

And if you're interested in every specific item from Dani's workstation, check out his Kit.com page.

After watching this video, how do you feel about your editing space?

David Justice's picture

David Justice is a commercial beauty photographer in New York City.

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19 Comments

LOL....

I like it but the title is so misleading. I would have just said "Content Creating Desktop"...as most of these are present day.

After years of freelancing in various locations with crude single monitor workstations with no tablets and bare bones calibration on which I've had to crank out millions of images to deadline, I find this rather amusing...

Exactly! going from home to work has to be very complicated!

I know eh? All that money to look good on Instagram. And I was not aware that speakers are part of the retouching process, I should try that.

He has some great portfolio though (and he uses a PC).

All that money spent and he couldn't buy a decent pair of nearfield monitors...

I use the Rokits for my at-home music work and have never had an issue. Took a rough mix made on them into a Grammy-winning studio and it was clear they had done a good job. They're good bang for the buck.

KRK Rokits are basically the nearfield monitoring equivalent of the Canon Rebel TI. You can certainly get professional results if you know what you're doing, but they're definitely at the low end of the spectrum and people mostly buy them because they're cheap and pretty. For most people it probably wouldn't make much of a difference either way since no monitor will really work properly unless you specifically design your listening space for it (which few home engineers will do).

Personally, when I retouch photos I only wear Jean-Paul Gaultier suits and A. Testoni shoes…
(Next time I will tell you about my underwear)

Pics or it didn't happen!!!!

As someone who has been a DJ for 20 years, playing house music/soul/funk in the main, you completely lost me at ‘bumping EDM music out of a detailed sound system’

Firstly EDM is horrible, like really horrible. And Rokits, whilst being very capable home DJ monitors are nowhere near a detailed sound system, plus what’s the actual point of having pairs of them stood together? it’s not gaining a single thing.

The actual photo editing side of it looks decent enough and completely outdoes my 13” MacBook Pro and £5 wired mouse from Amazon.

That is far from a "maxed out" computer tower.

LMFAO

Because?

Is that the most intelligent comment you can offer. Or, alternatively you could elaborate as to why you think his workstation setup warrants such a response from you. Go on, push yourself, you'll feel much better for it.

Okay there white knight. Power supply is too low for that build. 1440p monitors for photo editing should of got at least got a 1 4k or higher res monitor. plus the junk Nzxt water cooler.

Fair enough on those points but don't you think LMFAO is a completely absurd reaction?

Edit: NZXT is highly rated in general actually.

I wouldn't trust anything from Nzxt to protect high-end components.

Does he only produce work in landscape orientations for social media? I would flip one of those monitors to portrait or have two landscape and one portrait...