Mac and image editing

Not sure about NTFS, never done it, but FAT is fine as I use a card reader to download my pics!

Photoshop CS3 just loaded in 6-7 Secs. After quitting and running again, it was less than 3.

We have connected to a PC laptop over the network, but can't remember too much about that as it is long gone! However my cousin does pop over to the shop with his Macbook and copies files over to the PC network fine if that helps.

Boot up time when I 1st got it was around 15 secs! However it has slowed down since then as we have installed a lot since. Still faster than any PC I own, but then it should do as it's a Mac Pro!

All the current iMacs have glossy screens, so I would suggest going to see one first. They sure look good, but you might hate it!

Don't worry, been a convert for over 2 years now and would never look back!

Current machine

Mac Pro with 2x 2.8Ghz Quad core Xeons
10GB RAM
4x 1TB HD
30" Cinema LCD
NVIDIA 8800GT

Running Aperture and CS3 Web Premium Suite!

Thanks Unlocker
There's an Apple store pretty much right next to work
Bootcamp would still be out - there's no way I'm paying £175+ for a Vista license just for the odd occasion But it's no problem though - I can live without it!
(And I can't agree with the "Mac costs 4x more" - when you factor in the Vista license cost )

I can hang on for a bit - cash flow won't allow it immediately. But the impetus is there for the switch over... I'm just about ready to throw the towel in on Windows!

Glad that some of you are running Win & Mac and coping with the constant switch between OS GUIs

Will keep you posted...
Matt

That's expensive for a Vista license, a quick search found Ultimate 64 Bit OEM at £120 inc.

But you can also use any XP full install disc that's SP2 or above, sure you have one of those lying around!

Also, I'm sure you know, never, ever pay the price for their upgrades, they are a blatant ripoff, I mean £240 for a 1TB drive? You can get 3 for that price, maybe even 4!

And yes, it did get used for running PC games, Bioshock was great, and it ran vry smoothly with all options turned on running at a native resolution of 2560x1600!

a mac user for 2 years now and like many mac users i would never go back to windows full time. I do however run a virtual XP from within the mac using VMWare, so i get the best of both. I recommend you make sure your desktop mac gets at least 4 gigs of ram, but don't upgrade the ram via apple as they charge ridiculous prices for it. Check out KRCS(official apple resellers) for your mac as they have some good deals on extra memory when you purchase a Mac from them. They also have some ex display imac's for £600

re glossy screens...
they appear sharper and more colorful.
don't be put off by all the glare you'll see at the store...
you are a damn fine photographer, and if there's anything you know...it's lighting...
angle of incidence = angle of reflectance...
lighting your workspace with a glossy screen is no harder than lighting a portrait with an eyeglass wearer...

Can't support your desire to switch enough...
I bought LightRoom 2 and it was a complete DOG on Windows. I really thought I wasted all that money! On an similarly equipped Mac the software flies! It is actually usable on a Mac!!

Now that you can get an iMac with 8G of RAM, you should really do well.
I do find 4G starts to slow down with both LightRoom, PhotoShop CS4 open, espcially if I have more than a few RAW images open in CS4.


1) Get "NTFS-3G" with "MacFUSE" to get full NTFS support. MAC by default reads NTFS but cannot write. This third party software gives seamless integration. (no problems for what I do)

2) I have most of my data on a Linux server over SAMBA. No problems.

3) I have the 24" Mac. Bought it in early feb, so prety new. The color is fantastic!! Very Sharp. One propblem is it is Very bright, even when turned way down. Calibrating/profiling with Eye-One is fine, but I have to keep in mind that things will be less bright on paper.
I send out to MPix and print on a Canon pro9000, and colors look quite accurate, aside from a bit of brightness issue.

4) SilkyPix charges FULL rice to change from Windows to Mac. There is no rate cut on the transfer of license. I no longer use SilkyPix. ARGH!! I love that program but will not pay full licensing when I do not even have my old Windows hardware!!!

Boot time is hard to compare.
Windows speeds up the perceived boot time by bringing the desktop up very quickly, THEN loading all your background processes.
Mac does that to less of an extent. I think by the time everything is stabilized and ready to go, the total time is probably about the same.
I am still in awe of the speed and stabality of the Mac, so I seem to "think" it boot faster.

Of course, I've only had to boot my Mac twice since I bought it in early Feb. So I do not have much experience with boot times. (Yeah, I am SOOOOOO happy since I quit using Windows!!!)

boot up time?
hard to care...Macs are designed to be left on for weeks/months at a time.
set the sleep and wakeup times in the sys pref and forget about it....
take three seconds or so to wake up fully...

Oh yeah... check out Sun's Virtual Box. It is FREE and works great.

There are some additional features available in Parallels and Fusion,such as hierarchical snapshots, but I find I don't need it. Virtual Box handles USB, network, and sound just fine.

One of the only Windows software I cannot find a near equivalent for my Mac is "MS Money", so I have little need for multiple snapshots, nor the $80 price tag.

OK, I know I'll finally shut up at some point, but one more thing...maybe two...

Startup time for CS4? eh, probably about the same. I had fast SATA drives in my Windows machine too.

CS4 seems to run slightly faster on my Mac. probably partially due to having a full 4G of RAM available rather than 3.5... of which the software only gets 2-3 on Windows.

More importantly I had daily issues, no scratch that, hourly issues with the GPU integration failing on Windows. CS4 would also crash completely at least every other day on Windows.
I've only had CS4 crash once in the past three months on the Mac.
OK sure, I can't attribute the crashes to any proven deficiency in Windows, but the trend is that nearly everything "I" do on my Mac is much more stable than it ever was on Windows.

Don't know what to say about that, but I know my blood pressure had dropped considerably since switching. My wife has even commented on the lack of four letter words in my daily vocabulary.

Brilliant Thanks for all the extra info!
Don - appreciate the comment I don't have a problem with the glossy screens - I tend to work in near darkness for photography anyway (also because the Tosh laptop has such a dim and poor display )
I use VirtualBox on PC for Linux/old Windows etc, so that was known about too.

Silkypix is due for v4, and I am hoping that I can offset the v3 Windows price against the price of v4 Mac (Though there's no firm info at present.) Looks like all the upgrades are coming at about the right time

I'm going to head off to the local Apple dealer and chat over the migration and other things....
Matt

Well, I'm now going through the nightmare that all of my work laptops now have viruses which means I am now going through the aggro of reinstalling the whole lot again. Had removed AV due to massive performance issues, looks like I'm going to have to live with losing a lot of performance for some virus protection from now on.

If my business didn't rely on hardware that was made solely for the Windows platform, the shop would have switched years ago as well!

Have made the decision to switch the shop's office PC for a Mac so I have no worries with virus / banking etc. that is now a major worry and headache I don't want, so off to the Apple Store tomorrow night for a Mac Mini.

Question for Amoringello, what did you replace MS Money with?

I could not find anything that could replace MSMoney, and every search I did on the subject results in the same thing... no replacing MS Money.
I, as others, hate Quicken. So we're really out of luck.

Therefore, I use Virtual Box to run Windows and that one application.

I did find this whilst browsing today, will download the demo when I get home and let you know.

Please do. I may give that a go as well. Thanks for the link.
If I can dump Windows and Microsoft products altogether, I'd be quite pleased.