Is an Imac a good choice for graphic design?

I need to upgrade. I'm working with a G-4 733 power mac. It came with 10.1 installed but i've upgraded to 10.4 and it isn't working as well anymore, most especially, printing files for color matches. I've tried, over and over, to calibrate my monitor and it's just not working. Don't think this machine likes 10.4 much. So, i'm thinking about getting a new mac, and the imac with a 20" or 24" screen looks like the best deal, but are they good enough to do graphic design work on? Anybody?

thanks

Yes, they are.

Absolutely!

Get the 24" if you can swing it. You can never have enough screen real estate.

Yea they're a good choice. My friend has an 20in iMac, and he said he loves it.

Any computer with over 2GB memory,and a dual core processor is good enough for graphic design.

Yep,

I have the 2.4 20'' and it's fabulous, CS3 is fast as hot nails melting through butter. You'll love it. If you can't swing for the 24'' (like me) then try to get color calibrator.

You'll love it!

rziesk said:

I need to upgrade. I'm working with a G-4 733 power mac. It came with 10.1 installed but i've upgraded to 10.4 and it isn't working as well anymore, most especially, printing files for color matches. I've tried, over and over, to calibrate my monitor and it's just not working. Don't think this machine likes 10.4 much. So, i'm thinking about getting a new mac, and the imac with a 20" or 24" screen looks like the best deal, but are they good enough to do graphic design work on? Anybody?

thanks

Click to expand...

LCD's still aren't considered on par with CRT's as far as getting a realistic color setup goes. There was an article a magazine posted about how the last gen c2d MBP was nearly impossible to correctly calibrate, especially because of the gamma problem.

Regardless, I still edit my pictures on a MBP, so depending on how picky you are, you might want to look at some other options. I'm not sure how the iMacs work, but if you can hook up an external monitor, you might want to get a cheap crt, or first of all, check reviews on how well they take to calibration.

Like I said though, it comes down to how picky you are. I think that's the only issue. Pretty much any computer bought today (unless it's a real POS) will run Adobe with no problem and handle most any GD work thrown at it.

Yes.. but arent CRTS starting to become exctint and we are now living in the world of LCDS?

M view is that the Mac Pros are the best for graphic design as they will allow for different graphics cards and expansion. You can also add dual monitors and other upgrades. They also take a lot more RAM than the iMacs and so are much more future proof.

Having said that, they are expensive, so unless you really need to do a lot of Photoshop work or video, then an iMac will definitely do the job.

My 2 cents.

Then just find an old Mac crt and you will have the best of the best.
I had one but gave it to my neighbor a few years ago, was the best monitor I had ever had.

Found one on Craigslist and one on ebay.

No doubt.

Larrykin said:

M view is that the Mac Pros are the best for graphic design as they will allow for different graphics cards and expansion. You can also add dual monitors and other upgrades. They also take a lot more RAM than the iMacs and so are much more future proof.

Having said that, they are expensive, so unless you really need to do a lot of Photoshop work or video, then an iMac will definitely do the job.

My 2 cents.

Click to expand...

But for the most part, unless you're trying to run CAD type programs, most graphic design is done in 2D and doesn't require a video card. And 2gb is good for design, 4gb really won't make much of a difference besides shaving seconds off of automations and such.

Sure it's doable, I use a Mac Book Pro for my professional design work.

I don't know about CAD, but 3D rendering a video all redraw faster with more powerful graphics cards. But perhaps that is an expensive luxury.

But I'd say that 2GB is the absolute minimum for graphic design. OS X itself grunts along with anything under 512mb dedicated solely to the system. That leaves 1.5 GB for Photoshop (which will happily swallow up the rest if it can) InDesign, Illustrator and so on.

And if you plan to have them all open at once to drag and drop between Adobe applications, then 2GB is pushing it. I recently added 3GB to my Powerbook (up from 2GB) and my working day improved noticably. But the 3GB limit in my model is still a pain.

If I was regularly dealing with large photoshop files in a commercial production environment, then a Mac Pro with 4GB would still be my first choice, allowing for upgrades to 6 and 8gb RAM in the next two-three years.

Of course my accountant has first say on these things.

I'm running CS3 on a 24 inch 2.33 iMac and have had no problems. It's 2 gigs and ideally, I'd love three, but can't do it right now. I have InDesign, Photoshop, Entourage and Firefox open at almost all times and it still flies. Colors are vibrant and unless you're going to be doing CAD work, there's no need for a MacPro. I'm using 120 mb files in photoshop and applying filters and transformations to them with no problem whatsoever... I would also highly suggest looking at the refurbed models on Apples website. You can pick up the last generation iMac 24 inch for $1499. Definitely worth it!

I just picked up my Apple iMac MA876LLA 20". It includes the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors running up to 2.8 GHz with 4MB of shared L2 cache and up to 4GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory
It also offers up to 1TB of internal storage to accommodate a user's growing library of digital photos, movies and music.
I got it at a deal price of $1180, here is the link I used, maybe it can help
http://www.dealstudio.com/viewtopic.php?t=32265