mac to pc

[Markbk]

This may not be the best place to ask this, but have any of you switched to PC from Mac? I used mac (mainly) & PC (some) for about 5 years. I am planning/in the process of moving back to windows.

Anyway, I use a D90 & lightroom. I have photoshop on the mac but never use it- program is so complicated plus lightroom does a lot of photo work. Would buying PSE be much of a benefit and does LR3 do mostly what PSE does?

 

[winparkman]

I go back and forth between a Mac and a PC. I use the PC and LR more. When I process photos, LR is fine and I have no need for a graphics package.

This may not be the best place to ask this, but have any of you switched to PC from Mac? I used mac (mainly) & PC (some) for about 5 years. I am planning/in the process of moving back to windows.

Anyway, I use a D90 & lightroom. I have photoshop on the mac but never use it- program is so complicated plus lightroom does a lot of photo work. Would buying PSE be much of a benefit and does LR3 do mostly what PSE does?

--
OK, not so purely a hobby.

 

[manual_dave]

Photoshop Elements should not be very hard to use, especially if you are using the basic tools like levels, contrast, and color balance. Just find some basic tutorials online and learn the skills. It will take you 20 minutes.

If you are moving to Windows, there are a ton of free image editing applications. One of them is The Gimp (gimp.org). Another is Paint.NET. These are just as good as PSE if you are doing general photo editing.

 

[marike6]

Some people have a higher tolerance for dealing with anti-virus issues, updating McAfee, etc. I can't stand all the busy work re: antivirus stuff on Windows. This is one of the main reasons I use a Mac. That and I much prefer the OS X GUI to Windows. I quit using Windows years ago, and I am so much happier now. When Vista came out, I bought a laptop. I sold it 6 months later, as I hated it. I know Windows 7 is an improvement, but my guess is it is still the bloated, slowish OS that is was under the name Vista.

That, and the multimedia tools for photography as so excellent on the Mac. Aperture, iPhoto, Lightroom 3 (I know it's not Mac only like the others), Photoshop. Also, I could never live without Photoshop, I use it everyday. From batch resizing images, to cloning dust, blemishes on portraits, all of the awesome plugins for Photoshop like Nik filters. I have Lightroom 3 as well as PS and Lightroom does not have much in the way of the cloning, retouching tools that Photoshop has.

Photoshop really is not all that complicated, and you can use it quite happily without using 80% of its features. The ability make layers alone is extremely useful. Not 100% necessary, but the are countless books on Photoshop (Photoshop for Photographers) that will make using it much more enjoyable, and make you more productive. Once you learn just the few things that you will use for your images, things that really are not available on more "photo browser" oriented software like Aperture/Lightroom, you will find Photoshop Elements to be too basic.

Lastly, it's a great time to be a Mac user, will all the excitement with the iPad, iPhone, cool new MacBooks, etc. And OS X keeps getting better and better. If you really want Windows, why not dual boot or run it with VMWare Fusion, which is such a great emulator, that you one you start your Windows Virtual Machine (or Ubuntu VM for that matter), it will have you thinking that you booted into Windows.

 

[belfastbiker]

Both my PC's (hackintoshes) dual boot Windoze and OSX. BTW multi-license pricing from MS SUCKS vs. Apple's.

Working in Win feels like I'm in the past, it's clunky, and it seems I have to reboot to install many things.

OSX is glorious - 10.6.8, haven't tried Lion yet.

BTW if you like Mac and you're poor, I highly recommend buying £700 worth of compatible PC equipment and getting similar performance to a Mac Pro costing £3400.

 

[rdc13]

I use a PC at work and a Mac at home (graphic designer/illustrator). I am partial to the Mac after years of use. Heavy Photoshopper but no LR experience. But I'd rather use the Mac for photo work. Yes the programs are the same, but the Mac platform is just less buggy.

 

[TDMfoto]

This just in from the "another country heard from" department...

I use PC at home, Mac at the school labs. Sure, I'd take the Mac to the desert island, but with 64-bit platform, LR3 and PS-CS5 run quite well. I don't really notice much difference.

I use LR and PS-CS5 together.
LR provides elegant workflow solutions.

• heavy-duty card imports, keywording, massive adjustment synchs(changed my life), quick launch into PS-cs5 with catalog synchs, especially nice to the HDR and pana-stitch engines. Very strong printing engine, too. I lived with only LR for quite sometime. a bit of local adjustment brush and the gradients go a long way, BUT...

PS is only choice for fine editing.

• certain of its engines are much stronger - better algorithms than LR's.
• color correction and softproofing will become an issue sooner or later for everyone
• true layers and fine local adjustments critical if you're processing for artwork
• extensive contols on curves.

PSE is no substitute (I do have PSE7), doesn't have the good stuff. Will do layers for compositing, has lighter curves control. Nothing wrong with it, but I used LR a lot more over PSE, and didn't really "get it" until I got CS5.