iMAC or PC ?

Hello everyone,

 

I am quite new in photography. After a few months of taking pictures i decided to experience the digital

softwares like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

 

First off all i need a computer to do that and i don't know what to choose, sincerely !

 

iMac looks really cool and the monitor is absolutely excellent. On the other side the price is bigger than a

almost high end PC. So here comes the questions :

 

Does photo softwares on iMac runs almost the same like on a high end PC, better as components than iMac ?

 

I must say that i would go for the first version of iMac, adding 1 GB plus.

 

Thanks

Either a PC or Mac will do the job just as well - almost ;-)

 

Go with whichever you prefer. Some will argue for the Mac, some for the PC. In the end, it will come down to a religious war, only more extreme.....

 

When you compare like for like, i.e. decent brand-name PC with the Mac, there is little cost difference. It all comes down to personal preference, and whether the software you like will run on either platform.

I think it is still the case that you can buy a powerful PC for significantly less than than an equivalently

powered Mac. P C is right - there is no apparent difference between the Apple Mac and PC versions of

Lightroom and Photoshop, except for the name of the keyboard keys you use for shortcuts. If you have not

used photo editing software before you have a lot of learning to do. If I were you, and money was not an

issue, I would use the computer I was already most familiar with and knew how to use. That will reduce the

amount of new stuff you have to absorb. If money is an issue, go for the PC, it does the job just as well, or

spend the difference on a good monitor (some say the Apple monitors are not so good for photo editing)

and a monitor colour calibrator.

I am happier with my iMac than I was with the pc. Some folks I know in the graphic arts business prefer the Apple, but they are complaining it is getting too consumer oriented and it is starting to lower the previously nice funionality Mac used to have.

 

A neighbor had a devil of a time buying a compatable scanner. He tried a few and took them back finally ending up with a $300 HP. The software it comes with causes him lots of extra work just to make a copy of something. My Epson seems to have no such problems, but it is an older model and costs much more money. My Konica Minolta 5400 also works with Leopard and Tiger OS Macs. It will not work with Vista. Some friends in the graphic arts business bought an Epson V700 and are totally happy with that and their new Mac. The problem seems to be with the lower end stuff.

 

My nice HP laser jet letter printer 1018 is not compatable with Mac. I had to get a HP P6001.

 

I have never done the analysis myself, but people say if you dress up a pc to match a Mac features, the cost is about the same.

 

If you are used to how Microsoft programs, there is one less step to getting used to a new computer.

Mac OS, while far better, does take some learning to get used to. After two years on a Mac, I am starting to have a bit of trouble doing certain things on windows. Younger people seem to flop back and forth easier.

 

You need not do all the maintenance such as defraging on a mac like a pc. The os is made to work fully and completely on its own without your attention. Schedule it to turn on one night a week for 4 hours and it cleans itself up.

 

Vista OS is a nightmare as Microsoft has had to build in lots of security features to keep viruses etc out and it slows the system and generally makes life difficult. You still need AV after all anyway. Microsoft has had trouble making things compatable with their previous os and that makes things complicated. It comes down to Vista OS uses to much computing power that should be devoted to doing your work, not running the computer. I do not even run antivirus on the Macs. The system is just basically more secure in the way it works.

 

Microsoft will not clean out the cache without shutting down so if you do a lot of photo editing it will freeze up. I finally figured I could delete the photoshop history after each pic to eleiminate the problem.

Mac just works all day long.

 

I will never go back to Microsoft, but make your own decision.

 

Oh yes, when you have a question about the mac, customer servive is responsive and they have English speaking Americans to help. You do not end up in India.

The Mac gives you the option of running either the Mac or Windows OS's. You can even run them si,simultaneously with VM Ware.

In the past, iMAC computers have been much more restrictive with regard to hardware (printers, scanners and such) than conventional MAC computers. I can't help you with the details, but check first.

The new iMacs are perfect Photoshop computers.

Get the iMac.

 

That said....I use both Mac and PC.

I use PC for recording music as the App that I use is more PC friendly.

On the same token, Photoshop will tend to be faster on a Mac.

I switched from a Dell back in 99 to a Mac and have never wanted to go back to a PC. I think price wise you hear a lot of

people saying a PC is cheaper than Mac. I agree, however you get a lot of quality software included in a mac. I say quality

software because it is simple and useful. iLife is a great software bundle and I use it everyday. You could save money on a

PC but to load it up with equally useful software after you buy it, it would be equal to a mac or more. I have no experience with

vista but I have seen reviews of vista running faster on a mac than on a PC.

 

My 24" iMac doesn't crash. This is huge when working in photoshop. I can count on it day in day out.

Thank you guys for your answers. Some of you said that Photoshop is running faster on Mac than PC. This happens on same configurations of Mac and PC ?

 

Cause as i said in my first post i only have money for the 20" version and adding a 1 more GB memory. Is this version enough for image editing ?

 

I used Photoshop and now i'm getting into Lightroom cause it's fast for what i need. But both on a Centrino duo with 2 GB memory, after some time tend to wotk harder and harder until i close and reopen the program. This is annoying, and this i would like to get rid of.

Lightroom runs in 64 bit in iMac by default.

 

I use both Windows and Mac and find I have to screw around with the Mac far less to keep it working right. However, with one caveat, either will do the job well. The caveat, unfortunately is Vista; while I read of many people using it with no problems, I personally know of no one who has installed it who didn't later uninstall it and move back to XP.

 

In terms of the memory, it's far cheaper if you get it from crucial.com.

What about Mac monitors? The new cinema screens come in glossy only. I hear the glossy screens make things look brighter and more saturated than they are when they print. Is this a big problem or nit-picking and not really an issue for users?

Simion, while I'm a Mac user, I can tell you that the current 20" iMac is NOT a god choice for photography. The reason for

that is the display, it is not the same quality as the 24" iMac display. So, if you can't afford the 24" I don't want to see you

waste your money on the 20". HTH

I prefer and use Apple hardware because of Mac OS X.

 

An Apple iMac 24" outfitted with a 500G to 1T drive and 4G RAM makes an excellent image processing workstation. Be

sure to include enough additional money in your budget to afford an i1 Display colorimeter/calibration unit and your choice

of image processing software ... Aperture, Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.

 

Godfrey

I have gone thru this choice/selection myself for some time now. My feeling is that iMacs are great, but less upgradeable. Like the current PC I am using has had it's powersupply, harddrives and memory changed - by me. I am not sure how easy it would be to do on a iMac (well, memory is easy I hear). For one, there isn't space to put another harddrive in an imac - you have to go external for those (then cluttering the workspace with wires!).

 

And I know people will say buy Applecare so you don't have to worry about these things. But, the problem is that protection expires in 3 years, and I may not be ready to plunk down another 1800$ in 3 years to replace a new system. In that case, after 3 years, any failures have to be take care by ourselves.

 

There is much hype about how Windows is 'bad' and evil. I don't think it's Windows, I think it's the user who loads a ton of crap and expects it to hold on. And it's also the OEM vendors that sometimes just load on things on the standard install with ton of trial/free ware that I would not need. If I got rid of those, I think life will be ok.

 

To compare, I saw a HP Quad/6gb RAM/750GB HD with 24" monitor for 1099$ at Costco the other day. Since monitor and CPU are separate, you have more flexibility to replace one or the other later if you wanted to.

 

I think it's best to put the $s saved in a decent lens. After all, that's how you take a picture :)

iMacs are not upgradable, and you would not even want to take the current models apart, trust me. It doesn't matter to me if you use a

Mac or a PC, I only care about my own machines, and I've never once regretted buying macs, over a great many years. When people ask,

I'll try to answer their questions, but it's no benefit to me when it comes to what choice they make. YMMV

I'm a professional photographer and I've used both. Most anybody in the business will guide you to Mac. It's the

industry standard and the computer to which all others are measured. It's interface is built in, not a program

which runs on DOS (or doesn't run on DOS) like Windows or Vista. Most programs used for image editing like

Lightroom or Photoshop run smoother on Macs. The Mac versions of these programs also have a few more goodies then

the PC versions.

 

If you are serious about photography or think you may get serious about photography and want a good start, get

the IMac.

The only thing about my iMac is the limited number of USB inputs. If you use scanners, printers, card readers and

external drives they can fill up quickly. I am using a USB hub and still seem to run out of inputs.

 

Get the Mac tower, it's expandable.

The iMac has 3 USB 2 ports, plus a Firewire 800 port that is WAY faster than the USB ports. The MacPro had 5 USB 2

ports, plus 2 Firewire 800 ports and 2 Firewire 400 ports.

 

While the MacPro is expandable, it'd also another $1000, and has no display. An ACD in 23-24"size is another $899. Don't

get me wrong, the MacPro is a sweet machine, but the 24" iMac is fine for still photography.

Macs and PCs are really a personal choice. If you prefer one or the other then that is the one to get. I used to

run a design and development business and my experience was that PCs were a little cheaper, Macs were bit better

integrated and it seemed that it was easier to get work done on them. It was also my experience that the Macs

tended to have a longer life span than the PCs (generally). Neither is really better. They both have their

strengths and weaknesses. It just depends on how each fits with what you want.

 

I use a 24" iMac running VMWare Fusion so I have Windows XP and the Mac OS running at the same time. I use the

Mac for video and graphics apps and the PC for Office (and Outlook). from a purely practical point of view its

the only solution where you can buy one box and run Windows and the Mac OS. As far as the applications go...I

teach Adobe applications and functionally the Mac and PC versions of each are nearly identical.

 

I like the screen on the 24" iMac. Yes its glossy bit I find that the color rendition is quite good, its bright

and a very nice monitor. As far as the iMac not being as expandable as the average PC...that's correct. The RAM

is easily upgradable and the HD is not. Buy it as tricked out as you can (and they come with some pretty nice

options). Given the rate that computers change these days I'm not sure how useful expandability is. By the time

you get to a point where you need to expand something fundamental has changed and you need to buy a new box anyway.

Be sure to price out a fully equipped PC from a solid manufacturer with the same features that the iMac has. While a true

techno-weenie could no doubt build their own PC from off-the shelf components, as a non-computer nut you want

something that just works out of the box and comes with good support.

 

I can't speak directly to PC models and brands, but I can tell you that the 24" iMac makes a darn fine Photoshop machine.

 

Dan

Even though the current iMac models don't lend themselves to hard drive upgrades internally, it's a simple matter to get as

many external drives as you like. If you use the Firewire 800 interface, the connection speed is not as good as eSATA, but

it's way better than USB 2, and very useful.

 

Apple charges for hard drives and memory are typically higher than what is available form third party vendors. If you use a

hot swappable external HD enclosure you can swap external HDs in mere seconds. Everyone should have their internal

drive backed up anyway, and making a cloned drive of the internal drive, using an external is a piece of cake.

An interesting question. You may wish to read this article, that fairly covers the major differences in the three major operating system - Windows, OS X, and Linux - for the average user.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/apple-windows-linux,2080.html

 

For the photographer, if you want to run 64-bit Photoshop, you need Windows Vista 64-bit operating system; it does not run in 64-bit mode on any Mac. Lightroom will run in 64-bit mode on either platform.

The imac monitor is pretty good.

The iMac is really nice. It works well with photoshop in a very intiuitive, and the screens are quite good (especially the 24"). But they are more expensive than PCs with similar components. Also in order to fit inside the iMac's form factor, all of the computer's components have to be laptop components. They are more compact, quieter, more efficient, but I think some of the sacrifices in performance they made in terms of performance for those characteristics in a desktop application is unnecessary. A mini tower form factor PC should be able to provide better performance with desktop spec hardwares (such as quad core CPUs) for the same amount of money spent.

 

The design/from of the computer is also as simple as it can be: but sometime you'll just wish if it had more USB ports. The iMac is really good for what it is, but it does have shortcomings. (also if you use other applications not related to photography, such as some PC games, chances are they will not work on Mac)

I'd say it depends on how much price is an issue.

 

I personally own PC's. However, I have a friends who owns a Macintosh laptop and a Mac desktop. And all I can say is that they are very, very nice, especially for anyone doing a lot of video and photo editing.