Armstrong Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 MDM makes a good point about third party apple resellers and repairers. There are some excellent independent repairers around and Apple itself has a very good reputation for service. I would also research getting Apple Care and whether it fits your needs. I am pretty sure (but do your own checks) that you can get it from resellers at a discount. I'd agree with Rob go for the 27" if you can. It's worth it in terms of being able to have multiple windows open. For example when keywording you can have Alamy Measures and your browser split screen. Apple products also hold their resale value really well so if it tuns out not to be your cup of tea you will get a decent price for it. (Try and keep the original box and packaging if you have space. That always help with price.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 No problem Jim. I have no association with Jigsaw by the way. On the general question, I would certainly advocate Mac over PC. I started with Macs way back in the dark ages of Windows 3, then changed to Windows when Win 97 came out but went back to Mac in 2009. A major advantage is that things such as peripherals, OS upgrades etc do tend to work so there is a lot less time messing about. Even the blips tend to get sorted out fast by Apple and the hardware or software vendors, whereas with Windows there are so many different hardware vendors involved it can be a bit of a nightmare if things are not working. Macs are just a lot neater and easier to work and the learning curve is shallow if you have ever used any computer. The differences between Macs and PCs for high-end graphics are a lot less though than they used to be - Macs just got established in that world way back and have tended to hold their own although the really high end Macs now are mostly incredibly expensive. I would advise you to get as much RAM as you can afford and at least twice as much as you think you need, particularly if you don't get a model which has user-changeable RAM. It is really cheap nowadays (as long as you don't buy it direct from Apple) and it makes things really comfortable. Contrary to what somebody said back there, Photoshop is a memory-hungry hog and lots of RAM allows you to run a lot of programs at the same time. The main problem with talking about what Windows used to do is that Windows seems to be evolving much quicker than the Mac OSX. True Apple had a good product to start with but the advantages in imaging technology are driven by gaming which means that gaming PCs are well ahead of Apple products in graphics capability. Not that most photographers will notice but when it comes to GPU use for rendering, an iMac is now in the dark ages and a mac Pro is working with one hand tied behind it's back. Physically you cannot get a high-end graphics card in an iMac, it has the same contraints as a laptop - a GTX-775 is good but only in relative terms...... it simply cannot be cooled so it's limited ('limited' being relative). A clean install of W10 just works and with UEFI replacing BIOS, it works very quickly....... and with more SSD options, the whole machine can be running rings around what people used to think of as the pace of Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 A clean install of W10 just works In my case it didn't. It worked reasonably for a while. Then MS produced some more updates for Windows 10 and it all went very wrong, updates kept downloading and failing to install. Maybe I'm unlucky? However I note that 20 out of 115 reviews on Amazon have given Windows 10 just one star, with comments like dire, useless, disappointing, so I'm not alone. I'm not a gamer, but for LR and PSE, and general usability, I've found my MacBook Pro to be faster and smoother than Windows 10 was on a similar specification hardware. My main gripe with Windows 10 was that the updates weren't reliable and I had no way to stop them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 No problem Jim. I have no association with Jigsaw by the way. On the general question, I would certainly advocate Mac over PC. I started with Macs way back in the dark ages of Windows 3, then changed to Windows when Win 97 came out but went back to Mac in 2009. A major advantage is that things such as peripherals, OS upgrades etc do tend to work so there is a lot less time messing about. Even the blips tend to get sorted out fast by Apple and the hardware or software vendors, whereas with Windows there are so many different hardware vendors involved it can be a bit of a nightmare if things are not working. Macs are just a lot neater and easier to work and the learning curve is shallow if you have ever used any computer. The differences between Macs and PCs for high-end graphics are a lot less though than they used to be - Macs just got established in that world way back and have tended to hold their own although the really high end Macs now are mostly incredibly expensive. I would advise you to get as much RAM as you can afford and at least twice as much as you think you need, particularly if you don't get a model which has user-changeable RAM. It is really cheap nowadays (as long as you don't buy it direct from Apple) and it makes things really comfortable. Contrary to what somebody said back there, Photoshop is a memory-hungry hog and lots of RAM allows you to run a lot of programs at the same time. The main problem with talking about what Windows used to do is that Windows seems to be evolving much quicker than the Mac OSX. True Apple had a good product to start with but the advantages in imaging technology are driven by gaming which means that gaming PCs are well ahead of Apple products in graphics capability. Not that most photographers will notice but when it comes to GPU use for rendering, an iMac is now in the dark ages and a mac Pro is working with one hand tied behind it's back. Physically you cannot get a high-end graphics card in an iMac, it has the same contraints as a laptop - a GTX-775 is good but only in relative terms...... it simply cannot be cooled so it's limited ('limited' being relative). A clean install of W10 just works and with UEFI replacing BIOS, it works very quickly....... and with more SSD options, the whole machine can be running rings around what people used to think of as the pace of Windows. I'm sure you are right Geoff - Apple seems to have taken its eye off the ball at the really high end but, as you say, most photographers will probably not notice. The iMac is probably fine for most photographers but I think it probably falls down now with these very high res 27" retina screens. They look fantastic but they are probably made more with video in mind than stills photography. My son has a 5k 27" and it is so sharp it is difficult for me to tell if an image is properly focused. Same with my retina laptop. These high res screens are not ideal at all for stills photography. I think an additional monitor is just about essential in fact. If I was buying now as a photographer, I would be inclined to go for a 21" iMac and put the extra money into a decent external monitor - only problem is the 21" iMacs have only 16GB of RAM max. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 No problem Jim. I have no association with Jigsaw by the way. On the general question, I would certainly advocate Mac over PC. I started with Macs way back in the dark ages of Windows 3, then changed to Windows when Win 97 came out but went back to Mac in 2009. A major advantage is that things such as peripherals, OS upgrades etc do tend to work so there is a lot less time messing about. Even the blips tend to get sorted out fast by Apple and the hardware or software vendors, whereas with Windows there are so many different hardware vendors involved it can be a bit of a nightmare if things are not working. Macs are just a lot neater and easier to work and the learning curve is shallow if you have ever used any computer. The differences between Macs and PCs for high-end graphics are a lot less though than they used to be - Macs just got established in that world way back and have tended to hold their own although the really high end Macs now are mostly incredibly expensive. I would advise you to get as much RAM as you can afford and at least twice as much as you think you need, particularly if you don't get a model which has user-changeable RAM. It is really cheap nowadays (as long as you don't buy it direct from Apple) and it makes things really comfortable. Contrary to what somebody said back there, Photoshop is a memory-hungry hog and lots of RAM allows you to run a lot of programs at the same time. The main problem with talking about what Windows used to do is that Windows seems to be evolving much quicker than the Mac OSX. True Apple had a good product to start with but the advantages in imaging technology are driven by gaming which means that gaming PCs are well ahead of Apple products in graphics capability. Not that most photographers will notice but when it comes to GPU use for rendering, an iMac is now in the dark ages and a mac Pro is working with one hand tied behind it's back. Physically you cannot get a high-end graphics card in an iMac, it has the same contraints as a laptop - a GTX-775 is good but only in relative terms...... it simply cannot be cooled so it's limited ('limited' being relative). A clean install of W10 just works and with UEFI replacing BIOS, it works very quickly....... and with more SSD options, the whole machine can be running rings around what people used to think of as the pace of Windows. My son has a 5k 27" and it is so sharp it is difficult for me to tell if an image is properly focused. Same with my retina laptop. These high res screens are not ideal at all for stills photography. I think an additional monitor is just about essential in fact.. Not disputing at all what you are saying but one would think that it would make it easier. Have you any idea why this happens? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDM Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 No problem Jim. I have no association with Jigsaw by the way. On the general question, I would certainly advocate Mac over PC. I started with Macs way back in the dark ages of Windows 3, then changed to Windows when Win 97 came out but went back to Mac in 2009. A major advantage is that things such as peripherals, OS upgrades etc do tend to work so there is a lot less time messing about. Even the blips tend to get sorted out fast by Apple and the hardware or software vendors, whereas with Windows there are so many different hardware vendors involved it can be a bit of a nightmare if things are not working. Macs are just a lot neater and easier to work and the learning curve is shallow if you have ever used any computer. The differences between Macs and PCs for high-end graphics are a lot less though than they used to be - Macs just got established in that world way back and have tended to hold their own although the really high end Macs now are mostly incredibly expensive. I would advise you to get as much RAM as you can afford and at least twice as much as you think you need, particularly if you don't get a model which has user-changeable RAM. It is really cheap nowadays (as long as you don't buy it direct from Apple) and it makes things really comfortable. Contrary to what somebody said back there, Photoshop is a memory-hungry hog and lots of RAM allows you to run a lot of programs at the same time. The main problem with talking about what Windows used to do is that Windows seems to be evolving much quicker than the Mac OSX. True Apple had a good product to start with but the advantages in imaging technology are driven by gaming which means that gaming PCs are well ahead of Apple products in graphics capability. Not that most photographers will notice but when it comes to GPU use for rendering, an iMac is now in the dark ages and a mac Pro is working with one hand tied behind it's back. Physically you cannot get a high-end graphics card in an iMac, it has the same contraints as a laptop - a GTX-775 is good but only in relative terms...... it simply cannot be cooled so it's limited ('limited' being relative). A clean install of W10 just works and with UEFI replacing BIOS, it works very quickly....... and with more SSD options, the whole machine can be running rings around what people used to think of as the pace of Windows. My son has a 5k 27" and it is so sharp it is difficult for me to tell if an image is properly focused. Same with my retina laptop. These high res screens are not ideal at all for stills photography. I think an additional monitor is just about essential in fact.. Not disputing at all what you are saying but one would think that it would make it easier. Have you any idea why this happens? Simply because you are seeing a lot more pixels per inch on screen, the image looks a lot sharper than on a screen with half the resolution. I can't tell if images are in focus on my 13inch Retina MacBookPro which has some massive resolution. I certainly wouldn't submit to Alamy with seeing them on a normal monitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 Simply because you are seeing a lot more pixels per inch on screen, the image looks a lot sharper than on a screen with half the resolution. I can't tell if images are in focus on my 13inch Retina MacBookPro which has some massive resolution. I certainly wouldn't submit to Alamy with seeing them on a normal monitor. Have you tried viewing at 200% instead of 100%? That reduces the displayed pixels per inch to a visible level (normal eyesight and viewing distance). I think an image displayed on a retina display at 200% will appear to have a similar sharpness to the same image displayed on a normal display at 100%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted March 7, 2016 Share Posted March 7, 2016 No problem Jim. I have no association with Jigsaw by the way. On the general question, I would certainly advocate Mac over PC. I started with Macs way back in the dark ages of Windows 3, then changed to Windows when Win 97 came out but went back to Mac in 2009. A major advantage is that things such as peripherals, OS upgrades etc do tend to work so there is a lot less time messing about. Even the blips tend to get sorted out fast by Apple and the hardware or software vendors, whereas with Windows there are so many different hardware vendors involved it can be a bit of a nightmare if things are not working. Macs are just a lot neater and easier to work and the learning curve is shallow if you have ever used any computer. The differences between Macs and PCs for high-end graphics are a lot less though than they used to be - Macs just got established in that world way back and have tended to hold their own although the really high end Macs now are mostly incredibly expensive. I would advise you to get as much RAM as you can afford and at least twice as much as you think you need, particularly if you don't get a model which has user-changeable RAM. It is really cheap nowadays (as long as you don't buy it direct from Apple) and it makes things really comfortable. Contrary to what somebody said back there, Photoshop is a memory-hungry hog and lots of RAM allows you to run a lot of programs at the same time. The main problem with talking about what Windows used to do is that Windows seems to be evolving much quicker than the Mac OSX. True Apple had a good product to start with but the advantages in imaging technology are driven by gaming which means that gaming PCs are well ahead of Apple products in graphics capability. Not that most photographers will notice but when it comes to GPU use for rendering, an iMac is now in the dark ages and a mac Pro is working with one hand tied behind it's back. Physically you cannot get a high-end graphics card in an iMac, it has the same contraints as a laptop - a GTX-775 is good but only in relative terms...... it simply cannot be cooled so it's limited ('limited' being relative). A clean install of W10 just works and with UEFI replacing BIOS, it works very quickly....... and with more SSD options, the whole machine can be running rings around what people used to think of as the pace of Windows. My son has a 5k 27" and it is so sharp it is difficult for me to tell if an image is properly focused. Same with my retina laptop. These high res screens are not ideal at all for stills photography. I think an additional monitor is just about essential in fact.. Not disputing at all what you are saying but one would think that it would make it easier. Have you any idea why this happens? Simply because you are seeing a lot more pixels per inch on screen, the image looks a lot sharper than on a screen with half the resolution. I can't tell if images are in focus on my 13inch Retina MacBookPro which has some massive resolution. I certainly wouldn't submit to Alamy with seeing them on a normal monitor. Cheers MDM - thanks for the info! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 I find that unless I'm on the road and have no choice, I always check for sharpness on my 4-year-old non-retina display iMac because everything looks super-sharp on my 13" Retina screen Macbook Pro. Bumping it up to 200% works but I still feel safer if I'm sending a file to a client or uploading it to QC here if I've checked on my iMac. I love the retina display on my light little Macbook - makes reading easier on these old eyes - but I'm thinking if I were updating my iMac I wouldn't pay for the upgrade to Retina because it would be too sharp and without it the screen is pretty amazing anyway. I'm assuming you can still opt between a Retina screen and a regular one. Does anyone know if you can hook up an old iMac to your new one and use it as a second screen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlcst Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 Hi Jim, If you do decide to switch to Mac OS X, a book that really helped me was "OS X Yosemite for Dummies" by Bob Le Vitus. Worth every penny IMO. Although as others have said the online help from Apple and in forums etc. is also excellent. I also tried "OS X Yosemite" by Chris Kennedy, but that contains nothing more than copies of the help comments that already appear in the on screen menus. The "Dummies" book not only tells you what the menus do, it tells you how and why you might want to do things one way or another. Also, to ease the transition to OS-X, I bought and installed Parallels Desktop 11 which allows me to run any of my Windows programs on my Mac without using bootcamp and rebooting. Parallels is superb. It saved the day several times whilst I was still learning how to use the Mac, but needed to work on some of my "Windows" files. I still use Parallels now to run some programs that I haven't found a Mac alternative for yet. NB. To run Windows as a Virtual Machine under Parallels you will need to install a copy of Windows (using Parallels). But it was so easy to setup and use I was stunned. I also stopped the Windows VM from accessing the internet to avoid any possible problems with Windows updates and viruses. PS. I've given you a helpful vote (green arrow) for saying thanks to my earlier comments. Thank you Mark I have checked out the book OS X Yosemite for Dummies on Amazon and it gets some very good reviews not a bad price either I will definitely order that. I am sure that the forums you mention are great as a source of help to, As this forum has proven to be. I have been overwhelmed by the response to my request for advice here. Considering that I was a little nervous about asking the question I have had a marvelous response from everyone. All the comments here have been extremely helpful both the pros and the cons they have all helped me to make a better informed decision. Kind Regards Jim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlcst Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 No problem Jim. I have no association with Jigsaw by the way. On the general question, I would certainly advocate Mac over PC. I started with Macs way back in the dark ages of Windows 3, then changed to Windows when Win 97 came out but went back to Mac in 2009. A major advantage is that things such as peripherals, OS upgrades etc do tend to work so there is a lot less time messing about. Even the blips tend to get sorted out fast by Apple and the hardware or software vendors, whereas with Windows there are so many different hardware vendors involved it can be a bit of a nightmare if things are not working. Macs are just a lot neater and easier to work and the learning curve is shallow if you have ever used any computer. The differences between Macs and PCs for high-end graphics are a lot less though than they used to be - Macs just got established in that world way back and have tended to hold their own although the really high end Macs now are mostly incredibly expensive. I would advise you to get as much RAM as you can afford and at least twice as much as you think you need, particularly if you don't get a model which has user-changeable RAM. It is really cheap nowadays (as long as you don't buy it direct from Apple) and it makes things really comfortable. Contrary to what somebody said back there, Photoshop is a memory-hungry hog and lots of RAM allows you to run a lot of programs at the same time. Thanks again MDM. My you are not kidding when you say PS is a memory-hungry hog I feel like taking one of my afternoon naps whilst waiting for my old memory poor Dell take up the challenge I have some times set it, so yes Ram will defiantly be at the top of my shopping list. Kind Regards Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlcst Posted March 8, 2016 Author Share Posted March 8, 2016 MDM makes a good point about third party apple resellers and repairers. There are some excellent independent repairers around and Apple itself has a very good reputation for service. I would also research getting Apple Care and whether it fits your needs. I am pretty sure (but do your own checks) that you can get it from resellers at a discount. I'd agree with Rob go for the 27" if you can. It's worth it in terms of being able to have multiple windows open. For example when keywording you can have Alamy Measures and your browser split screen. Apple products also hold their resale value really well so if it tuns out not to be your cup of tea you will get a decent price for it. (Try and keep the original box and packaging if you have space. That always help with price.) Thank you Michael Yes a 27" will be a must for me I struggle with small screens and I like the idea of multiple windows open. Kind Regards Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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