Confusing.

Ok, well my mom is a painter, but shes interested in doing photography also, not just for purely taking photos, but also to aid her in storing references that she can use later on in her art. Now, I have a powerbook g4, which is fine (orgasmic) for me, but I don't know what route to go for her. Would a mac mini or imac be better suited for mostly graphics-related work? I do some hobbiest photography and my powerbook suits that perfectly, but we aren't in the market to spend that much (my next computer will be whatever they release that replaces the powermac).

I'm pretty sure we'd also get aperture with the new mac.

Could some photographers give me some suggestions as to which mac we should go with? What specifications? The higher end Mac Mini? The lower end iMac? Maybe even the higher end iMac?

Also, we're in the market for a near-professional level camera with support for excellent quality RAW images. Or at least, as near to professional grade we can get without having to rob a bank.

i would say you should get an imac or higher, but thats just my opinion

well, you money situation seems a bit odd to me, you say you don't want to spend much, but you want aperature? What about photoshop? Do you have a display for the mini? The imac to me seems the best solution with the information given...

I can get aperture educational for 100 dollars. I also have a nice big 19 inch display. And my mom can get photoshop through her job for cheap too so.

i think the top mac mini could handle all that then, although take not eits nice to have every thing in one package with the imac.

You might want to read the tech specs for Aperture.. I don't think you can use it with the Mac Mini:

http://www.apple.com/aperture/specs.html

You might want to look into Adobe's Lightroom beta which so far I really like and you can run it on most all recent Macs at this point.

You will probably want to allow for some room to grow.. so I would say an iMac is probably as low as you'll want to go at this point.