Free Mac Graphic design

Well I currently have a 256 MB RAM Dell with Adobe Photoshop CS2. I am trying to get a 2.2 Ghz MacBook Pro with 2 Gig of RAM. One of the biggest reasons I am doing this is for graphic design, but I heard that the Intel chipset GREATLY slows down CS2 or older versions of photoshop. I'm sure 2 Gig going through Rosetta is still faster than 256 MB of a dedicated system. I can't afford CS3, so I am currently giving GIMP 2 a test drive on my windows machine, and I'm wondering if I find it as useful as CS2 will it run at native speed or be slowed by Rosetta as well? I have gotten paid for my graphic design, and I would like to know that by paying $1,999 for a top-of-the-line laptop I'm getting nothing short of blazingly fast. So, question 1: Is GIMP good yes/no? and 2: Will it run quickly on an Intel based Santa Rosa Mac?

you could run windows on the mac natively and then use CS2 on that.

yeah good point but I want to avoid windows all together. I just used gimp for 5 minutes and I can tell, it's not for me. I'd rather run a same speed or slower than my current CS2 that learn all new interface. I'll just work towards some means of getting a CS3 keygen.

I don't have any problems running AI or PS on my 1gig macbook simultaneously. And this is doing school assignments that are pretty large graphics projects.

well if you don't already own a mac with cs2 you are going to have buy it again any way so you can run it on the mac, in that case you might as well get cs3 rather than looking or a used copy of cs2

PowerBookG4 said:

well if you don't already own a mac with cs2 you are going to have buy it again any way so you can run it on the mac, in that case you might as well get cs3 rather than looking or a used copy of cs2

Click to expand...

Right on the button.

Also 'keygens', not a good topic here, man.

oh I'll avoid that on this forum again. I understand it's a legal forum.

no matter how slow CS2 will run on the new mac you are getting, you will still see the difference from your original dell

yeah I see that being very possible as well. If it is as fast as it is I'd be happy, because I'm willing to bet it at least not freeze so much, which once again is worth it in graphic design alone.

Gimp is native to mac so it will run fast like any normal application. It can't do everything that photoshop can do but and it does do that photoshop can do it does it differently (I hope that made sense). But from my experience you can do pretty much everything in gimp that you can in photoshop, there is usually just a different way of going about it.

CS2 is fine to use, but will bog down if you have a lot of applications open and you're low on memory.

But CS3 would be a better bet if you're buying new.