Mac or PC

[gustavoalvesgarcia]

I'm thinking about changing my old computer that is a PC by a new one. What do

you think will make a better digital darkroom? An iMac or a PC? What are the

most relevant specifications that I must be aware of?

 

Thanks for your collaboration. Best regards,

 

Gustavo

[Matt Laur]

It's just too broad of a question, Gustavo. What else will you be using the machine for? Do you have any other applications that you regularly use that will NOT work on a Mac, or for which you'd have to purchase different licenses? Do you use products like MS Office? If so, which version?

 

What sort of budget do you have? What sort of backup storage or devices do you have, or were you planning to purchase?

 

You can purchase a nice video board for the PC, and even an Apple display, if that's what you like to look at... but Apple or Windows box, you still need a hardware calibration device to have things look right.

 

And of course: what image processing software do you own, or were you planning to purchase? What sort of workflow do you have... do you come home having shot thousands of images at an event, or just a couple dozen landscape shots? Do you print on your own, or have a lab do so?

 

Relevent specs on the equipment are going to be driven by what's relevent about how you'll be using the computer.

[graybrick]

Canon is clearly superior in the manufacturing and development fields. As for the actual equipment, both Canon and Nikon have similar features, and which ones are important to you will help determine which suits you. Both are fairly comprehensive systems, will deliver excellent image quality, and will allow you to use the current lenses (save for the crop-format dedicated ones) for the foreseeable future.

[dave_hoffmann]

They both will work equally well.

[ronald_moravec1]

I switched last Aug to an iMac 24 with plastic screen. The old pc required manual history deletion or rebooting after every few pics. Pain in the you know what computer. Now you can buy Vista and that`s even worse.

 

Mac is not without problems, but so far I am like a kid in a candy store. There is some learning curve as things are a bit different. I recommend a book "Switching to the Mac" by Pogue to help with the transition. Much of the info is in help, but I like printed material.

 

Providing you do not have lights behind you, the glass screen is a non issue. I got a Mac Book with glass and with the two side by side, I see no difference. So set up the room properly.

 

If you use TIFF from a scanner or from other graphic arts applications,, get 4 GB memeory. Otherwise with regular .psd files 2 is all photoshop can handle. I have 1 on the Macbook and run some photoshop CS3 on it and it is ok. Memory useage is more efficient with a Mac so you can not do a direct comparison to windows.

 

You will need to buy a platform swap and perhaps an upgrade to CS3 to get CS3 to run. Cs4 will be out soon, so I would wait and get CS4 right off the bat. The downside is 64 bit CS4 will be for windows only. Mac will still have 32. I don`t know if that is a problem for you. I really don`t care if I never upgrade ps, but I know I will be forced at some future date. A platform swap is just $25 or so.

[Brad_]

It's about the OS.

 

Get the iMac 24" and start working your photos.

 

If, on the other hand, you like geeking with hardware, drivers, software, viruses, etc,

then get a PC.

[gustavoalvesgarcia]

Thanks for your answer Matt. I currently have a PC and use lightroom to process my .nef files. But my PC is quite old and it takes too long to process. On the other hand, my monitor and graphic board aren't very performing too. I'm an amateur photographer so I usually only come home with a dozen files to process, except when I travel. The main question here is because mac are more appealing and everyone that works with tells me that they are more user friendly and great when it comes to photo and video processing.

But I wonder if the price difference compensates. I was looking to buy the new iMac Dual Core 3,06.

I have a company portable that is where I work with office and all that. So my home PC I intend to be mostly dedicated to photograph processing.

Are you able to help me with this overview?

 

Thanks again.

[J.W. Wall]

You might go to an Apple store and let them demo the gear to you. Then do the same with a PC. See which one you like best.

[digitaldog]

A Mac is a PC (and runs Windows software).

 

I'd agree with the above post, go to an Apple store if there's one nearby, then look at

what you'd get elsewhere.

 

That you can run OS X and any flavor of Windows seems to be a pretty compelling

Apple advantage.

[marc_rochkind]

One huge difference for photographers is that very few Windows programs do color management to the screen. (Adobe apps, do however.) This includes browsers. Common programs like IrfanView and Picasa do not. (My own LRViewer does.)

 

This is not a defect in Windows, but rather a cultural tradition. Among Windows programmers, few even know what color management is. (From the programming perspective, it's far easier to do it on the Mac, nearly automatic, which probably explains part the difference. Mac programmers may not know what color management is either.)

 

Also, Andrew's comment is important: All modern Macs also run Windows, so you always have that option (with the cost of the OS).

[Uhooru]

Get an iMac 24", plug it in, calibrate your monjtor, put on your editing programs de jure, and get to work.

[robert_brake1]

It's hard to get used to that first Mac. Every time you add a piece of software or

hardware you keep expecting to spend half a day or more setting it up and getting it to

run and all you have to do is click on the icon and start using it:)

[brian_ellis19]

Gustavo - For photography it doesn't make one bit of difference, either will work fine. There are lots of things that are important if you want to produce great photographs. Which brand of computer you use isn't one of them. I used Macs in school and PCs at home. Nothing about any of the Macs I used for photography has ever caused me to even think about replacing my PCs with Macs.

[kelly_flanigan1]

The Mac is more of a click group and religion than a PC. Both when dead make decent weights to hold tarps. As with many religions dogma; preaching are strong with little facts.Folks with no issues using the other religion must be attacked; converted; with no questions. Macs are good for folks who do dumb and careless things on the web; who like to click on everything; who like dogma. There is no rule that folks have to have all in one boxes; be careless. Either box can crash and all your data lost if its not backed up. Not all folks should buy a PC ; or use a camera thats manual focus or manual exposure. Attacking the other side is a sport for many. One customer of ours thats really a Mac cheerleader got CS3 when it first came out ; up grading from CS2 but has never used layers or curvers yet.

[colinsouthern]

"The Mac is more of a click group and religion than a PC."

 

Amen to that! It never ceases to amaze me how - on one hand - the authors of nearly every photoshop book I have say that photoshop for all intents and purposes runs exactly the same way on either platform, and yet the Mac cult continually try to have us believe that it "runs oh so much better on a Mac". It doesn't.

 

They like to point out that the Mac is more secure than a PC (running either Vista or XP) - it isn't. More security flaws were discovered in Mac OS than in either Vista or XP - and they took longer on average to get plugged.

 

If you want to pay twice as much for a computer that performs no better than one 1/2 the price - and has a vastly reduced range of software available for it (also at inflated prices as developers try to recover the costs associated with developing for such a minority platform) - then buy a Mac. At least admission to the cult is free.

[Brad_]

>>> and yet the Mac cult continually try to have us believe that it (photoshop) "runs

oh so much better on a Mac".

 

Really? Where? As it's "continually" it should be easy to find a bunch of links here on

pnet...

[httpwww.someantyx.coma]

<p>I have had the opportunity to use dozen's of operating systems due to my line of work, testing technology for corporate IT. I've tried the unixes from IBM, Sun, and HP, I've used windows, Linux, and now OSX. I'm settling on OSX for now.</p>

 

<p>A few years ago, just before the swap-out to Intel processors, I picked up a nice G5 20" mac for under $1000. I was curious more than anything else, and to be honest, Vista and its over zealous approach to digital content management was threatening. I don't want my OS telling me I can't edit my own pictures. While that hasn't come into play yet and was probably just a scare tactic, it worked. I now use Mac and OSX for almost everything except coding which I do on linux. I keep a simple XP box around for the occasional game but I don't use it for anything else. I got tired of having to re-program my preferences into XP every time I booted it, from desktop settings and more. </p>

 

<p>The Mac just does what I want it to. I don't have to fight my computer to get work done, that's what really turns me off from the PC these days. For $400-$800 you can get an entry level PC. There have been some studies and I"ll try to put some links below, that show that a comparable PC with similar hardware as a Mac, cost about the same. In some cases even less. Its the budget/barebones systems that really flaw the statistics and people love to throw those at you. When you start looking and name brand, such as HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc, and compare identical systems you find out that Mac is competitive. Apple doesn't seem to want to compete on the $400 bottom of the barrel market, even a mac Mini will set you back $599 and you still need monitor, keyboard, and mouse.</p>

 

<p>The issue with Mac is that there are really only a handful of choices and they seem expensive to start with. If you find a comparable PC, same processor, same memory, same hardware, on paper it'll add up to close to the same cost. eMachines is not going to compete with apple, they don't want to, they want the walmart shoppers, not someone serious about photo editing or some other task they need the computer for.</p>

 

<p>Ultimately though it doesn't matter about the cost, performance, or which one. What really matters is your peace of mind. Do you enjoy using the system? Does it work for you? (if you're fighting the OS then the answer is no). Both systems will do what you need them to do, but be careful with crossover upgrades. Phase one for example won't do a crossover upgrade, they want you to purchase a whole new license. That drove me to other tools like photo mechanic and lightroom both of which I like a lot. That's phase one's loss and a poor marketing decision that many companies make. Now that I'm into Medium Format, when I go looking for a digital back, the phase one experience will drive me away from their products. (can phase one say oops we lost a $45k sale due to a $99 product rule enforcement?)</p>

 

<a href=http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=macintosh_os&articleId=9023959&taxonomyId=123&intsrc=kc_feat>PC World comparison</a>

<p></p>

<a href=http://www.macworld.com/article/59565/2007/08/costanalysis.html>Mac World comparison/followup</a>

[ponlawit]

Almost all professional photographer use Mac.

Almost all photo studio and retouch studio use Mac.

Color management and workflow on Mac OS is more intuitive and accurate.

(Super accurate on Apple cinema display!)

 

 

Go get iMac 24" or Macbook Pro + 23" cinema display, hand-down for me...

[colinsouthern]

"Really? Where? As it's "continually" it should be easy to find a bunch of links here on pnet..."

 

It is. And if you really want to find them - as opposed to just wasting my time so that you can then move on to the next nit pick/semantic - I suggest you go search for them yourself.

[wiley_rittenhouse2]

I'll leave aside the discussion about whether Mac or PC is better for photo work and just focus on the OS itself. I have worked with Mac OS X since v10.0, Windows since v3.1, and more recently Linux (Ubuntu and Gentoo). My favorite for the computer I *use* is the Mac, and the reason is stability. I remain frustrated by Microsoft's unwillingness or inability to do what is necessary to create a truly stable OS. Apple took the risk when they started over with the Unix kernel and built a great GUI on top of it. It has paid off. My first OS X system was a PowerBook G3 Firewire (Pismo), which I used for almost six years. In that time, it never crashed once.

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

I switched from PC to Mac almost 2 yrs. ago and I like the Mac system for my

photography. I still use my old PC for accounting, word processing and spreadsheet

work.

 

A couple of features about the Mac:

 

The OS is just for a Mac. Whereas the Microsoft has to have an OS that operates

with multiple manufacturers, configurations and other offerings. My of of thinking is

Apple is a closed system but Microsoft is an open system.

 

I like the Apple offerings that come already installed on the computers. It seems

like the same stuff is on most computers, at least in my case on MacBook & IMac

machines.

 

I've found it easy and intuitive to work on the Mac. I was amazed how easy it was

to hook up wi-fi, installing my printers using bonjour, installing bluetooth devices - I

use the keyboard and mouse, and the list goes on.

 

Is Mac more money? Maybe, maybe not. They have never been down in the two

years we've used them in my business. That's worth a fair chunk of change.

 

Your choice.

[john v.]

In a nutshell, it just comes down to what OS you prefer. If you're comparing computers (hardware), you basically get what you pay for. Obviously, a $2,000 computer (be it Mac or PC) is going to outperform a $500 computer. My advice, from somewhat who uses both Mac (home) and PC (work), I definitely prefer the Mac OS. And yes, it true; applications will run about the same on either platform. It's processor speed and available RAM that makes the difference. And finally, the Intel Macs can run Windows now, so you run both operating systems if you want and enjoy the best each has to offer. Just my 2 cents.

[allan_brown1]

I worked in Information Technology for years using only Windows based PCs and

Servers. I switched to a Mac a year and a half ago. I love the Mac and OS X.

 

You got some nice feedback from everybody and I agree with the comments of

"going to an Apple Store" if you have one near you. There is a little bit of a learning

curve going from Windows to OS X but I bet it would be tougher going from OS X to

Windows.

 

I also agree that either platform will give you good results as the software for both

systems is incredible. I own a MacBook Pro with the Intel chipset, 17" version. I've

used a lot of laptops and desktops over the years, installed them for CEOs, CFOs,

and the people who do the real work in companies; the non management employee

;-). I've probably been involved with 5,000+ variations of Windows Based PCs and

Servers. AND this MacBook Pro is the best built laptop I've every worked with. The

quality is by far better than any Windows based laptop on the market today. I'm

only talking about the MacBook Pro here (aluminum case is just amazing).

 

My wife uses a Toshiba laptop with Windows Vista and it works fine. Although any

problem I have with Vista from the simple to the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death" is

a pain to solve. OS X can be a pain too (so I am told) but it takes me less time to

figure out the little problems in OS X then it does in Vista. Honestly, I've not had

any major issues with OS X and I am sure there will be a day that it will happen

(with computers it is inevitable) but I am confident it will take me less time to solve.

 

Apple hardware (high end laptops and desktops) are more expensive but I don't

believe it is as expensive as one would think when you factor in the quality of the

units. Go to your local Apple store (if available) then go to your local Windows

based PC store, I think you'll see a significant quality difference.

 

Summary (my opinion and experience), Apple has; better built equipment (remember

I'm talking MacBook Pro), easier to use OS (nothing is perfect), and "yes" the up

front cost for Apple hardware is more (factor in Apple hardware longevity)

 

It's a tough decision. I spent several months researching it out and "baby sat" a

dying desktop before I finally switched.

 

Kindest Regards!

 

PS: Look at Apple's Refurbished Hardware, I saved about $500 going this route and

my experience has been fine. The hardware looked new, there were no flaws in the

screen, case, or anything else.

[stevenseelig]

I use a MacBook Pro and a 24" Alu iMac running 4.8.11 (no Leopard yet). I use the

MacBook Pro to acquire and do some processing of images. The Alu iMac, I use

for processing and long term storage using chained 800 FW drives from Western

Digital.

 

I lived in both the PC and Mac world and for my photography business I prefer the

mac. I only need two programs (Aperture and Photoshop) for 99.99999999% of my

photography work. And with the new Intel Macs, you can run Bootcamp or Parallels

and have a PC also (which I do for my accounting programs--Quicken).

 

Good luck

Steven

[garrison_k.]

"Dave Hoffmann; They both will work equally well."

 

Mac is slower and more expensive but takes less user time messing about. Both will print identical photographs equally well. But that's about where it ends. Less time messing with the OS and is a nod towards MAc and this is really important to some people. Mac has less viruses and malware, hardly any to report. It does not mean you are invincible like the marketing suggests.

 

All things hardware change so fast in terms of upgrades and speed. Mac is a bit more difficult to simply upgrade hardware.

 

And Mac will be left in 32 bit land when CS4 goes to 64 bit for windows next year. You'll soon be hearing from Vista64 bit users that have stuffed 16 gig of ram into their boards and are spending a lot less time in front of their computers than thier Mac friends. This will happen straight across the board for all Adobe users. Premier users also complain about the same 3gig limits.

 

"Barry Fisher: Get an iMac 24", plug it in, calibrate your monjtor, put on your editing programs de jure, and get to work."

 

PC users can't do this because...?

 

"Ponlawit Petra: Almost all professional photographer use Mac. Almost all photo studio and retouch studio use Mac. Color management and workflow on Mac OS is more intuitive and accurate."

 

False. It's the opposite. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the proportion of Mac to PC users amongst photog's is in direct correlation to the market shares of each manufacture. In the music world you can boast this statement though as ProTools for years used to be only available on Mac and seems most musicians still remain on Mac.

 

"John Vandehei: And yes, it true; applications will run about the same on either platform. It's processor speed and available RAM that makes the difference."

 

False. Spec for spec, OSX takes more ram than Vista and hence less is available for photoshop. The measurements show that OSX runs 8 to 12% slower than Vista. This is well documented in the Adobe forums and you'll have to go find your own links for rebuttal. XP runs even quicker. Of course the Mac cost twice as much.

 

"Is Mac more money? Maybe, maybe not. They have never been down in the two years we've used them in my business. That's worth a fair chunk of change."

 

You're right, time is money. So why doesn't the large or small business world run on Mac? After all, time is money and is all that matters to business?

 

Mac has been PC since the switch to Intel.It takes an educated and experienced user of computers to chose Unix (Mac) over Windows. Those are far and few between. Mostly everyone else on a Mac is the result of a combination that consists of effective marketing on Mac's behalf and previous poor experiences (due to ignorance) on how to run a PC correctly.