Macbook Air i7 vs Macbook Pro Retina i5 I'm thinking of buying either a high-end 13'' Air (i7 and 8GB RAM $1,549.00) or 13'' rMBP with an i5 ($1,699.00).

Setting aside portability, display and other differences which I'm still pondering, how does the 1.7GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7 compare to the 2.6GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5 in terms of performance?

I do some photo editing and programming.
The Air is little slower than the retina, 
I suggest you to have a look here http://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks