EricW Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 After my adventure last night with Windows Vista, I'm dead set on the Mac running Leopard. How much horsepower do I need to do simple Photoshop work and run Boot Camp? What I'm talking about is: - Transferring files from my Camera - Turning RAW images into TIFF or whatever from the RAW - Displaying, color-correcting, cropping - NO Animation, movies, effects, etc - Accounting - Email - Word processing I want to get away from using a Laptop for everything just because of the risk. If it gets stolen out of my truck or broken, I'm up the creek. So, what I want is a laptop/desktop. I'm pretty set on a small iBook for the laptop b/c it fits in my camera bag. The question is how much desktop do I need? iMac? or Mac Pro What say ye? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineshootah Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 After my adventure last night with Windows Vista, I'm dead set on the Mac running Leopard. How much horsepower do I need to do simple Photoshop work and run Boot Camp? What I'm talking about is: - Transferring files from my Camera - Turning RAW images into TIFF or whatever from the RAW - Displaying, color-correcting, cropping - NO Animation, movies, effects, etc - Accounting - Email - Word processing I want to get away from using a Laptop for everything just because of the risk. If it gets stolen out of my truck or broken, I'm up the creek. So, what I want is a laptop/desktop. I'm pretty set on a small iBook for the laptop b/c it fits in my camera bag. The question is how much desktop do I need? iMac? or Mac Pro What say ye? Either would be more than enough power to do what you want, especially if you feed the RAM to it. The Mac Pro will give you more options as far as storage and multiple drives which will work well with Time Machine in Leopard, as you will have gobs and gobs of space to store files, backup , etc. For the iMac, what you see is what you get. No tower / screen issues to deal with, it is all in one unit, I think they come with a 200+ gig drive now as well, so you do have a ot of room to manipulate your photos. Both will run bootcamp just fine, however, I would suggest parallels as another option. I find that it is MUCH nicer to boot in Win xx from my active and open OSX environment, then having to shutdown, reboot and boot back into Win XX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 I can do all that with reasonable response time on a 1Ghz powerbook (except the bootcamp stuff). I plan to get a new Mac for Christmas, probably a MacBook and perhaps a separate monitor for using at home. If getting a MacBook make sure you get a SuperDrive so you can burn DVDs. You'll definitely want to play around with iMovie (HD) , trust me on this... My new Mac won't be dual boot, there is nothing on Windows that I need. There is even CAD software out for it now and the new OS-X looks awesome. I normally upgrade whenever they come out with a new OS, but as I plan to buy a new one, I don't see much point. I've had my powerbook for about 4 years. Only had two issues. The battery needed to be replaced due to a defect, no cost to me (I think it's made by Sony) and the case is a little dented where I dropped it from four feet onto concrete... it works fine still. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted October 24, 2007 Author Share Posted October 24, 2007 Maineshootah, Can I see the peripherals of the Mac through parallels? i.e. can I see the network, etc? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raz-0 Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 The main issue with the imac for dealing with digital photography with photoshop is going to be scratch/swap space and repsonse time. OS X, from an architecture standpoint is largely BSD underneath. Which means it will happily use disk based virtual memory when the machine is busy. As a rule, for most responsive operation, you don't want adobe's scratch file and the OSes virtual memory file on the same physical disk if you can avoid it. That being said, it's nothing that a little patience won't get you throguh. But buying the actual tower gives you room to install more drives. and you can have them separate for maximum performance. A USB2 or a firewaire drive is usable, but they are both slow for virtual memory not to mention I don't know what would happen if you cranked up the os or photoshop with out their respective scratch memory attached. Also of consideration is what apple is charging for ram. With a tower, you can pop it open and stuff in more affordable 3rd party ram. No idea how difficult it is on the imac, but it is something worth checking on before you buy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted October 24, 2007 Author Share Posted October 24, 2007 The main issue with the imac for dealing with digital photography with photoshop is going to be scratch/swap space and repsonse time. OS X, from an architecture standpoint is largely BSD underneath. Which means it will happily use disk based virtual memory when the machine is busy. As a rule, for most responsive operation, you don't want adobe's scratch file and the OSes virtual memory file on the same physical disk if you can avoid it. That being said, it's nothing that a little patience won't get you throguh. But buying the actual tower gives you room to install more drives. and you can have them separate for maximum performance. A USB2 or a firewaire drive is usable, but they are both slow for virtual memory not to mention I don't know what would happen if you cranked up the os or photoshop with out their respective scratch memory attached. Also of consideration is what apple is charging for ram. With a tower, you can pop it open and stuff in more affordable 3rd party ram. No idea how difficult it is on the imac, but it is something worth checking on before you buy. For $150 I can bump the iMac to 4GB. I just can't see that not being enough for what I do, but I've been wrong before (like last night for example...). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineshootah Posted October 24, 2007 Share Posted October 24, 2007 Maineshootah,Can I see the peripherals of the Mac through parallels? i.e. can I see the network, etc? Oh sure. When I need to jump into Win.. which is real real rare.. aka (Ezwin scoring for matches) parallels, recognizes everything. There has been some issues in the past such as some USB devices that get captured by the Mac OS before the Win OS, but they are rare. You can drag and drop between the OS's as well, which is real nice. As far as the ram 4G will rock. I run with a couple (2 Gig) for the basic video + photography and podcasts without problems. 4 Gigs for that you described as your standard activities will be plenty. Of course, RAM is like zero bullets.. you can never have enough! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 4G is plenty enough. I have only 256M of Ram and as mentioned before the only sluggish thing is PhotoShop, but it's still usable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mapzter Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 4G is plenty enough. I have only 256M of Ram and as mentioned before the only sluggish thing is PhotoShop, but it's still usable. Agreed, 4 GB is plenty. In my experience, the new Intel based macs need more RAM to run well than the older PPC macs. I went from a PowerBook w. 1 GB to a MacBook Pro w. 2 GB running the same mix of applications on both. For me 512 MB on the PB was marginal, as was 1 GB on an Intel mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 Eric, if you're serious about the digital imaging, you'll want multiple drives, for storage, backup, and for the photoshop swap files. PS flies, especially if the files you're working on are on a second disk, and you've got a third to use a scratch disk. PS also keeps getting bigger and kludgier and hogging more resources. Fast drives are your friend, RAM is your friend. If you buy the tower, you can upgrade those on a as needed/can afford it basis.... That's my two cents..... Of course I also like Vista...... :D P.S. When Raz-0 speaks about computers/electronics I try to listen. The desktop he specced out almost four years ago is still running strong.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted October 25, 2007 Author Share Posted October 25, 2007 Eric,if you're serious about the digital imaging, you'll want multiple drives, for storage, backup, and for the photoshop swap files. PS flies, especially if the files you're working on are on a second disk, and you've got a third to use a scratch disk. PS also keeps getting bigger and kludgier and hogging more resources. Fast drives are your friend, RAM is your friend. If you buy the tower, you can upgrade those on a as needed/can afford it basis.... That's my two cents..... Of course I also like Vista...... :D P.S. When Raz-0 speaks about computers/electronics I try to listen. The desktop he specced out almost four years ago is still running strong.... Nik, The medication is in the mail, my friend. We'll cure you of Microsquishitis®© in no time. I'm thinking hard about either the $150 Costco firewire drives or a networked RAID cabinet ($800 at Costco). And thanks to Geo, a 17" Macbook Pro is on the way... With the deals on refurb units, it was hard to say no. And I can't say enough about dealing with Apple. Pick up the phone, get a bright, intelligent person every time. It's simply a joy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nik Habicht Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 I'm perfectly O.k. with running a MAC --- but I'd need a couple of so far unavailable things to make that happen: A 12" MacBookPro if you will --- screaming processor, 4 gigs of RAM, large 7200 rpm hard drive, good graphics card, weight of 4-4.5 lbs at a price point of $1500 and/or the ability to load a Mac OS on a homebuilt machine..... Until that happens, I'm likely stuck in PC world --- which frankly works for me. I love the MAC approach to desktops and smooth, seamless integration between apps and OS; at the same time the absence of right click drives me nuts..... I suspect you're going to love the Macbook Pro.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted October 25, 2007 Author Share Posted October 25, 2007 A 12" MacBookPro if you will --- screaming processor, 4 gigs of RAM, large 7200 rpm hard drive, good graphics card, weight of 4-4.5 lbs at a price point of $1500 I'm thinking that the next gen will be pretty close to it. I'm a bit surprised that large, fast notebook hard drives aren't more readily available on the open market. It seems all the 300+GB 2.5" form factor drives are reserved for OEMs right now. That's kinda why I'm holding off on the little guy until I get the big daddy dialed in. I'm hoping by then 300+GB drives are cheap and plentiful and I can drop one in both and really rock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinUSA Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 I... at the same time the absence of right click drives me nuts..... If you want a two-button mouse then get a Mighty Mouse from Apple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AikiDale Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 Showing my ignorance here again but here goes: If PCs and Macs have the same processor and Windows can be loaded on a Mac why can the Mac OS not be loaded on a PC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaredB Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 (edited) Showing my ignorance here again but here goes: If PCs and Macs have the same processor and Windows can be loaded on a Mac why can the Mac OS not be loaded on a PC? Actually you can. If there is a will there is a way. OSX86 BTW OS X running parallels in coherence mode is the poop. Edited October 26, 2007 by JaredB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineshootah Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 Showing my ignorance here again but here goes: If PCs and Macs have the BTW OS X running parallels in coherence mode is the poop. +1000 very, very sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted October 26, 2007 Author Share Posted October 26, 2007 OK, I have parallels on order. Is it obvious how to set it for "coherence mode?" Dare I even ask what "coherence mode" is? (It obviously didn't originate in Bellevue) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JaredB Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 OK, I have parallels on order. Is it obvious how to set it for "coherence mode?" Dare I even ask what "coherence mode" is? (It obviously didn't originate in Bellevue) Very straight forward using parallels. Coherence mode is essentially allowing you to run windows applications in the virtual environment without having look at the whole windows desktop. You can run windows applications and open windows folders and click and drop files between operating systems without having to switch between OS's. Here is a pic of my desktop while parallels is running in coherence mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outerlimits Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 installing leopard on the other imac as we speak... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricW Posted October 28, 2007 Author Share Posted October 28, 2007 Please give us a Leopard Range Report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outerlimits Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 awesome...still poking around in it, but it's sweet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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