03-06-2011, 10:55 PM

Hello everyone,
I have only used windows machines in the past and I am about to be getting my Mac. I would like some suggestions to see it there is anything that I would benefit to change.
I use the following software on a regular basis
Photoshop CS4 ( I will be upgrading to CS5 with my new machine)
Lightroom 3
Photomatix
portrait Pro
adobe bridge
Adobe camera raw.

I am thinking about getting the
15" MBP with the 2.2 GHz quad core i7
500 GB 7200 HDD
Intel HD Graphics 3000
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5
high res anti glare screen
4GB RAM

Are there any suggestions?

03-06-2011, 11:31 PM

Enjoy your new Mac. You have more than enough power to handle your workflow tools.
I'm not familiar with Photomatix or Portrait Pro, but obviously there are Mac versions available for the others. For those two, if Mac versions aren't available you could set up your Mac to dual boot and run them in a windows partition.

03-06-2011, 11:57 PM

Thanks,

I will be installing Windows 7 ultimate on there as well for a couple programs that have told me they will not transfer the license

03-07-2011, 10:41 AM

I'm a part-time photog myself and made the switch three weeks ago. First thing I did (On the day it arrived) was upgrade the ram to 8gb and the HD to 750gb. Adobe gave me a one-time "cross platform swap" on my Photoshop CS5 license. The Lightroom 3 license is good on either platform. On company (OnOne Software) upgraded me to the full package of 7 plugins even though I only owned 3 of them when I had issues getting activated on the Mac. All my NIK plugins worked and activated without issue.

I don't use Photomatix or Portrait Pro but I do have one application (Lumapix Fotofusion) for album design that there's not a Mac version for. I simply purchased VMware Fusion and installed Win 7 Home Premium and gave it 2gb ram. Runs great. Even better than it did on my 4gb windows machine.

03-07-2011, 11:02 AM

Originally Posted by Midnight Rider

Hello everyone,
I have only used windows machines in the past and I am about to be getting my Mac. I would like some suggestions to see it there is anything that I would benefit to change.
I use the following software on a regular basis
Photoshop CS4 ( I will be upgrading to CS5 with my new machine)
Lightroom 3
Photomatix
portrait Pro
adobe bridge
Adobe camera raw.

I am thinking about getting the
15" MBP with the 2.2 GHz quad core i7
500 GB 7200 HDD
Intel HD Graphics 3000
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5
high res anti glare screen
4GB RAM

Are there any suggestions?

That MBP is MORE than enough to handle anything. I have a 3 year old MBP 2.4ghz C2D with 4 gigs of RAM and use LR 3 with CS5. No problems.

But um, I have to ask.. why do you use all those programs ? Bridge and ACR are totally redundant, as LR uses ACR, and surpasses Bridge as a browser and database manager. If you keep your files in folders in some orderly fashion, LR will see them as such and you can browse in a file tree if that's how you like to do it, vs keywords etc etc.. I utilize both means.

Oh, and Portrait Professional? You've got CS4... Granted, you actually have to do the work but still...

Only one other suggestion, if you do any printing. Save money and get the regular glossy screen, and purchase an external monitor instead. It's near impossible to properly calibrate a MBP screen. Just aren't enough controls to do it. I do prefer matte screens as well, but if you're doing any professional work, you still have to make sure that what you're seeing on screen is going to match the photo labs printers, and that usually requires regular calibrating.

Doug

03-07-2011, 12:38 PM

I just made the switch myself and I use CS5 and LR3. I had a little hiccup with LR and Photoshop, but that seemed to be due to my drive locations not being directed correctly. Everything seems to run smoothly, so once I get used to the differences, I think I will be happy.

I have the iMac with a glossy screen. I calibrated with the Spyder3Pro, and need to get test prints just to be sure its working properly.

Good luck.

03-07-2011, 03:45 PM

Originally Posted by Midnight Rider

Hello everyone,
I have only used windows machines in the past and I am about to be getting my Mac. I would like some suggestions to see it there is anything that I would benefit to change.
I use the following software on a regular basis
Photoshop CS4 ( I will be upgrading to CS5 with my new machine)
Lightroom 3
Photomatix
portrait Pro
adobe bridge
Adobe camera raw.

I am thinking about getting the
15" MBP with the 2.2 GHz quad core i7
500 GB 7200 HDD
Intel HD Graphics 3000
AMD Radeon HD 6750M with 1GB GDDR5
high res anti glare screen
4GB RAM

Are there any suggestions?

My two cents as a pro who just got the same platform.

It's fast.

I did the following test. Batch process 100 1DsMKIII raws to 16 bit tifs.

My windows desktop, i7 quad 3.2, 24gb ram, 2 tb raid 1 hard drive space, 2 -1tb work drives, 240gb ssd system drive. Since hte macbook has no ssd I set the raws and the process saving location to one of the 1tb hdd's.

Desktop took 374 seconds.

Macbook took 520 seconds.

I think a 7200 rpm drive and 4 more gigs of ram would help the macbook.


BTW, Adobe will allow a cross platform upgrade to CS5 for the normal $199 upgrade price. In fact I got a 10% discount for buying online from adobe.

All you need is a legit SN from either cs3 or cs4 to activate your upgrade. Not a bad deal!

03-07-2011, 04:25 PM

Originally Posted by PhotosbyJeni

I just made the switch myself and I use CS5 and LR3. I had a little hiccup with LR and Photoshop, but that seemed to be due to my drive locations not being directed correctly. Everything seems to run smoothly, so once I get used to the differences, I think I will be happy.

I have the iMac with a glossy screen. I calibrated with the Spyder3Pro, and need to get test prints just to be sure its working properly.

Good luck.

I've heard that iMacs are a bit difficult to calibrate because the monitor is ultra bright. How did you get on with it, fairly well or no ? Were you able to turn the luminance down enough? Btw, if you want free evaluation prints, check out bayphoto.com They give you 5 free prints. So you can test your high and low key shots, saturation of colors and B&W, which is nice. I know that they use an X-Rite Eye One Display 2 calibrator, and they recommend 6500K (and of course 2.2 gamma-unless everything you do is Pro Photo space) though I've always thought that the industry standard for print was 5000k.

I set my target for 6500k and 90 luminance, to be on the safe side. Actually, I have profiles for 5000k and 6500k with 80, 90 and 100 lum respectively.

Doug

03-07-2011, 04:41 PM

Originally Posted by Doug b

I've heard that iMacs are a bit difficult to calibrate because the monitor is ultra bright. How did you get on with it, fairly well or no ? Were you able to turn the luminance down enough? Btw, if you want free evaluation prints, check out bayphoto.com They give you 5 free prints. So you can test your high and low key shots, saturation of colors and B&W, which is nice. I know that they use an X-Rite Eye One Display 2 calibrator, and they recommend 6500K (and of course 2.2 gamma-unless everything you do is Pro Photo space) though I've always thought that the industry standard for print was 5000k.

I set my target for 6500k and 90 luminance, to be on the safe side. Actually, I have profiles for 5000k and 6500k with 80, 90 and 100 lum respectively.

Doug

The calibration seemed to go okay, and I'm happy with what I see on screen. I just need to get some more test prints to see if they convert to print well. I use sRGB space and I think the white balance is set to 5500. I will probably get my prints from the lab I use now, so that I don't have any surprises later on.

Jeni

03-07-2011, 09:13 PM

I am very close to buying the MBP and can't decide on the glare v. non-glare screen. I just purchased an iMAC in January and love the clarity of the screen but the glare is bothersome at times.

Are there any photographers who can advise which screen is best?

I'm also new to these kind of discussion boards so if I'm in the wrong space I apologize.

03-07-2011, 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by jrector

I'm a part-time photog myself and made the switch three weeks ago. First thing I did (On the day it arrived) was upgrade the ram to 8gb and the HD to 750gb. Adobe gave me a one-time "cross platform swap" on my Photoshop CS5 license. The Lightroom 3 license is good on either platform. On company (OnOne Software) upgraded me to the full package of 7 plugins even though I only owned 3 of them when I had issues getting activated on the Mac. All my NIK plugins worked and activated without issue.

I don't use Photomatix or Portrait Pro but I do have one application (Lumapix Fotofusion) for album design that there's not a Mac version for. I simply purchased VMware Fusion and installed Win 7 Home Premium and gave it 2gb ram. Runs great. Even better than it did on my 4gb windows machine.

Adobe told em the same thing via email. They said that I coudl change platforms once.
Photomatix is a HDR program. everyone tells me that CS5 has a lot better HDR comtrol and tone mapping.
Although I do not use it often I paid 100 bucks for the software and would like to keep it if I could. Also it is amazing at batch merging ans tone mapping.
I saw an OnOne presentation at a Joe McNally presentation, very cool software.

03-07-2011, 09:59 PM

Originally Posted by Doug b

That MBP is MORE than enough to handle anything. I have a 3 year old MBP 2.4ghz C2D with 4 gigs of RAM and use LR 3 with CS5. No problems.

But um, I have to ask.. why do you use all those programs ? Bridge and ACR are totally redundant, as LR uses ACR, and surpasses Bridge as a browser and database manager. If you keep your files in folders in some orderly fashion, LR will see them as such and you can browse in a file tree if that's how you like to do it, vs keywords etc etc.. I utilize both means.

Oh, and Portrait Professional? You've got CS4... Granted, you actually have to do the work but still...

Only one other suggestion, if you do any printing. Save money and get the regular glossy screen, and purchase an external monitor instead. It's near impossible to properly calibrate a MBP screen. Just aren't enough controls to do it. I do prefer matte screens as well, but if you're doing any professional work, you still have to make sure that what you're seeing on screen is going to match the photo labs printers, and that usually requires regular calibrating.

Doug

Good to know about your MBP with the C2D. The new Quads should be a good upgrade from that.

Bridge is an organizer and ACR is a raw processor.
LR3 is redundant with both of these since it was built off of them but IMO they still hold advantages over LR3.
ACR is a lot faster and proficient at batch work IMO. It may be that I was using it before LR came out and I am use to it for the big jobs.
LR3 is a very powerful organizer and all of my photos are originzed by event, date, tags and ect but to be honest all Lightroom is, is Bridge and ACR with a slick interface.
I like different parts of each software so I guess that is why I use them all together and no one has taken me over.


Also you are right there is nothing that Portrait pro can do that CS4 can not. It is just that Portrait Pro is a lot faster at it. The only downside is that I can not save my work with all the layers for later. If you ever want to revisit an image I have to start back with the original RAW file.

After much debate I have decided to go with the high res matte screen. The reason behind it is because even though the matte finish may be harder to calibrate the glares are really annoying. I would also love to get something that looks like my Samgung monitor. It is a high res matte screen. I may be setting the bar a little high by hoping that the MBP screen compares to it but I hope it is close.

03-07-2011, 10:00 PM

Originally Posted by PhotosbyJeni

I just made the switch myself and I use CS5 and LR3. I had a little hiccup with LR and Photoshop, but that seemed to be due to my drive locations not being directed correctly. Everything seems to run smoothly, so once I get used to the differences, I think I will be happy.

I have the iMac with a glossy screen. I calibrated with the Spyder3Pro, and need to get test prints just to be sure its working properly.

Good luck.

Thanks

03-07-2011, 10:02 PM

Originally Posted by infocusinc

My two cents as a pro who just got the same platform.

It's fast.

I did the following test. Batch process 100 1DsMKIII raws to 16 bit tifs.

My windows desktop, i7 quad 3.2, 24gb ram, 2 tb raid 1 hard drive space, 2 -1tb work drives, 240gb ssd system drive. Since hte macbook has no ssd I set the raws and the process saving location to one of the 1tb hdd's.

Desktop took 374 seconds.

Macbook took 520 seconds.

I think a 7200 rpm drive and 4 more gigs of ram would help the macbook.


BTW, Adobe will allow a cross platform upgrade to CS5 for the normal $199 upgrade price. In fact I got a 10% discount for buying online from adobe.

All you need is a legit SN from either cs3 or cs4 to activate your upgrade. Not a bad deal!

Wow, that is kinda impressive since the desktop is so powerful .

03-07-2011, 10:06 PM

Originally Posted by kmcw53

I am very close to buying the MBP and can't decide on the glare v. non-glare screen. I just purchased an iMAC in January and love the clarity of the screen but the glare is bothersome at times.

Are there any photographers who can advise which screen is best?

I'm also new to these kind of discussion boards so if I'm in the wrong space I apologize.

I think that it is more of a personal preference.
I have been asking this same question on a few photography boards that I am a member on and it is really 50/50.
For me, at the end of the day my eyes hurt less from the matte style screens and I like the more accurate color rendering ( this may change if I can not properly calibrate the MBP)
The Gloss screens seem to 9 IMO) add a lot more POP to the colors on the screen but I want to see mine in print.