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pinnaclefitness

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Can anyone advise me on the advantages or disadvantages of Mac over PC with regard to photo editing. Also the best screen to achieve correct colour calibrations with online printing companies.

Thanks
 
Mac has a cheaper alternative to Adobe Lightroom called Aperture.
 
I did try posting to a pc orientated forum but I got a message back with some blurb about thread expired or times out or something and it directed me to open forums. I'll try again though, thanks
 
Hi,

Whether I choose mac or pc I'd go for Adobe photoshop CS 5 complete. Am I missing out on something that lightroom would offer? I don't have much experience in the field. I am being swayed toward mac though.
 
To a Photoshop user I'd argue that there's little meaningful difference between a PC and a Mac, except that to get the equivalent performance, memory and storage with a Mac will cost significantly more than with a PC.

Regardless of the screen if you want to achieve accurate output you'll need to invest in color calibration for it; there are a number of relatively inexpensive solutions for this such as Spyder and Pantone Huey.

Kevin
 
KCampbell said:
To a Photoshop user I'd argue that there's little meaningful difference between a PC and a Mac, except that to get the equivalent performance, memory and storage with a Mac will cost significantly more than with a PC.
Click to expand...
I fully agree about Photoshop. I use it on a PC at work and a Mac at home and it's not PC or Mac, it's Adobe. Exact same program on both platforms. And I guess I agree about price vs. performance, although I think there are other issues that favor Macs.
KCampbell said:
Regardless of the screen if you want to achieve accurate output you'll need to invest in color calibration for it; there are a number of relatively inexpensive solutions for this such as Spyder and Pantone Huey.
Click to expand...
Photoshop is not a really demanding program except maybe for RAM. It runs fine on any half-modern machine. It's the screen that's the big noise. You need a good monitor and you need to calibrate it. As it happens, iMacs come with very good monitors if you don't mind shiny screens. But you can buy a Windows box and then get a good IPS monitor and be in the same place. The trick is figuring out which monitors are any good except for horribly expensive NEC's or the like.
--
Leonard Migliore
 
pinnaclefitness said:
Whether I choose mac or pc I'd go for Adobe photoshop CS 5 complete. Am I missing out on something that lightroom would offer? I don't have much experience in the field. I am being swayed toward mac though.
Click to expand...
There are long threads about Photoshop vs Lightroom too.

Short version is, most of what you do it Lightroom can be duplicated using Camera Raw and Bridge that come with Photoshop. Yet many people would rather use Lightroom (or Aperture) because it's better integrated and so it has a much more efficient workflow. In other words it does not come down to what you can do, but how productively you can do it.

Where does Photoshop fit in? Unlike Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Aperture, which are metadata editors of raw files, Photoshop is an old-fashioned pixel editor. Meaning Photoshop is much less efficient at processing DSLR files, but Photoshop can do a long list of edits that the others cannot do because they don't edit at the pixel level. Photoshop is a complementary product to the other three.
 
Hardware or software standpoint?

Want to include Linux? ;)

I think a lot of people go with Mac mostly because they believe that it's what they must use for multimedia. Software is software - as someone already states, adobe is adobe and it makes no difference using PS on Mac or not.

I use UFRaw+Gimp cause I'm cheap and UFRaw+Gimp is free. Actually you can get these running on Mac, PC and Linux so sky's the limit ;)

I'd say make a list of the software you'll want.

Library/viewer?
Light photo editor?
Heavy editor?
HDR applications?
Denoise applications/plugins?

Now consider your options on various OS choices and pic one which would suit you best.

Utilize a site like " http://alternativeto.net/ " which can help let you know what alternatives may exist.

e.g.
http://alternativeto.net/software/aperture/
pinnaclefitness said:
Can anyone advise me on the advantages or disadvantages of Mac over PC with regard to photo editing. Also the best screen to achieve correct colour calibrations with online printing companies.

Thanks
Click to expand...
 
pinnaclefitness said:
Hi,

Whether I choose mac or pc I'd go for Adobe photoshop CS 5 complete. Am I missing out on something that lightroom would offer? I don't have much experience in the field. I am being swayed toward mac though.
Click to expand...
What is swaying you towards a Mac? Is it the highest cost? The lesser user base for support? The fact that not everything is available for the Mac, forcing you to run an emulator?

Or is it just because you find the main screen pretty? Be honest.
 
Dave Luttmann said:
pinnaclefitness said:
Hi,

Whether I choose mac or pc I'd go for Adobe photoshop CS 5 complete. Am I missing out on something that lightroom would offer? I don't have much experience in the field. I am being swayed toward mac though.
Click to expand...
What is swaying you towards a Mac? Is it the highest cost? The lesser user base for support? The fact that not everything is available for the Mac, forcing you to run an emulator?

Or is it just because you find the main screen pretty? Be honest.
Click to expand...
It is not an emulator.
 
I was a very early Mac adopter (1987) and I loved the damned things, despite the quite insane prices prevailing at that time. It was a no-contest decision for anyone who wanted to do anything involving graphic design, page design etc. By the mid 90's, about the time Windows NT4 arrived, i was fed up with the instability of macs (this was pre OSX before someone points it out) although i worked with both platforms for a few more years.

Ever since the release of Windows XP I see no reason to pay the absurd premium prices Apple get away with. Windows 7 makes the choice even easier - particularly as 64 bit. So save the extra money you would have spent on a mac and spend it on extra storage, additional software or (for 64-bit installation) RAM. RAM. RAM!

As someone else has remarked, the operating system is something you're hardly aware of; Photoshop (or any other Adobe product, for example) looks identical on either platform. As for RAW processing software etc, whilst I haven't used Apple-specific applications, there are plethora of serviceable options for PCs.

Apple's many restrictive practices have resulted in the fact that they have a very small share of the computer market - and this sector is an ever shrinking component of their business. Restricting their OS to their own bad-value hardware made certain that this would be the outcome. In comparison to Apple Microsoft almost seem like philanthropists. Apple's clever marketing and hardware styling is designed to make it look the other way round: amazing numbers of people still buy the "cool" proposition.

The choice between Mac and PC is principally about style and not substance. There's not much a Mac won't do but you pay a price premium for no good reason at all.
Roy
 
And if Apple continues it's silly "anti-Flash" crusade, Adobe may well cut them off and produce Photoshop only for the PC base.
 
Be realistic. Do you actually believe that Adobe would be willing to risk losing a large part of their sales just to spite Apple?

Scientist
 
with a MAC you can have window but you can't have a mac wuning on a windows.
Get a Mac mini for around 600 bucks. You can use your current monitor.
 
mario007 said:
with a MAC you can have window but you can't have a mac wuning on a windows.
Click to expand...
Yes you can. I wouldn't but some people do

http://www.hackintosh.com/

--



Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com
https://sites.google.com/site/asphotokb

'There are a whole range of greys and colours - from
the photographer who shoots everything in iA / green
AUTO to the one who shoots Manual Everything. There
is no right or wrong - there are just instances of
individuality and individual choice.'
 
SeeRoy said:
I was a very early Mac adopter (1987) and I loved the damned things, despite the quite insane prices prevailing at that time. It was a no-contest decision for anyone who wanted to do anything involving graphic design, page design etc. By the mid 90's, about the time Windows NT4 arrived, i was fed up with the instability of macs (this was pre OSX before someone points it out) although i worked with both platforms for a few more years.

Ever since the release of Windows XP I see no reason to pay the absurd premium prices Apple get away with. Windows 7 makes the choice even easier - particularly as 64 bit. So save the extra money you would have spent on a mac and spend it on extra storage, additional software or (for 64-bit installation) RAM. RAM. RAM!

As someone else has remarked, the operating system is something you're hardly aware of; Photoshop (or any other Adobe product, for example) looks identical on either platform. As for RAW processing software etc, whilst I haven't used Apple-specific applications, there are plethora of serviceable options for PCs.

Apple's many restrictive practices have resulted in the fact that they have a very small share of the computer market - and this sector is an ever shrinking component of their business. Restricting their OS to their own bad-value hardware made certain that this would be the outcome. In comparison to Apple Microsoft almost seem like philanthropists. Apple's clever marketing and hardware styling is designed to make it look the other way round: amazing numbers of people still buy the "cool" proposition.

The choice between Mac and PC is principally about style and not substance. There's not much a Mac won't do but you pay a price premium for no good reason at all.
Roy
Click to expand...
I'm the exact opposite of you lol. I've been using PCs for as long as I can remember, and I know everything about computers in general. I recently switched to an iMac last year, and I'll never look back. To be honest, every PC that i've built and owned, I've had to reinstall Windows, reformat my hard drives, and keep my antivirus crap up to date. None of that here on a Mac. No worries, it's always fast, and just in general a better experience than Windows. I'd pay $500 more for a Mac even if it had the same specs as a PC, and I've only owned an iMac for a year verses my 12 years with pcs
 
flipster103 said:
SeeRoy said:
I was a very early Mac adopter (1987) and I loved the damned things, despite the quite insane prices prevailing at that time. It was a no-contest decision for anyone who wanted to do anything involving graphic design, page design etc. By the mid 90's, about the time Windows NT4 arrived, i was fed up with the instability of macs (this was pre OSX before someone points it out) although i worked with both platforms for a few more years.

Ever since the release of Windows XP I see no reason to pay the absurd premium prices Apple get away with. Windows 7 makes the choice even easier - particularly as 64 bit. So save the extra money you would have spent on a mac and spend it on extra storage, additional software or (for 64-bit installation) RAM. RAM. RAM!

As someone else has remarked, the operating system is something you're hardly aware of; Photoshop (or any other Adobe product, for example) looks identical on either platform. As for RAW processing software etc, whilst I haven't used Apple-specific applications, there are plethora of serviceable options for PCs.

Apple's many restrictive practices have resulted in the fact that they have a very small share of the computer market - and this sector is an ever shrinking component of their business. Restricting their OS to their own bad-value hardware made certain that this would be the outcome. In comparison to Apple Microsoft almost seem like philanthropists. Apple's clever marketing and hardware styling is designed to make it look the other way round: amazing numbers of people still buy the "cool" proposition.

The choice between Mac and PC is principally about style and not substance. There's not much a Mac won't do but you pay a price premium for no good reason at all.
Roy
Click to expand...
I'm the exact opposite of you lol. I've been using PCs for as long as I can remember, and I know everything about computers in general. I recently switched to an iMac last year, and I'll never look back. To be honest, every PC that i've built and owned, I've had to reinstall Windows, reformat my hard drives, and keep my antivirus crap up to date. None of that here on a Mac. No worries, it's always fast, and just in general a better experience than Windows. I'd pay $500 more for a Mac even if it had the same specs as a PC, and I've only owned an iMac for a year verses my 12 years with pcs
Click to expand...
I've had similar experiences with some early Windows PCs, starting with Windows 95 and 98, but my experiences with Windows 7 is a whole new ball game. :)

--mamallama
 
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