considering a mac notebook

[villenadecorte]

its that time... upgrading my computer. i need a notebook and have been considering the many macs.
questions guys and gals,
what photo-editing software do you run on your mac?
im coming off photoshop 7 i think, and have been wanting to stick with that going forward with a mac.

any input would be great.
thanks!
rebekah

[mwfanelli]

its that time... upgrading my computer. i need a notebook and have been considering the many macs.
questions guys and gals,
what photo-editing software do you run on your mac?
im coming off photoshop 7 i think, and have been wanting to stick with that going forward with a mac.

any input would be great.
thanks!
rebekah

PhotoShop is available for the Mac and runs the same way. New versions tend come out after Windows but the delay is minimal.

If you are a Mac user, you'll be fine. If you are a Windows user, you may be disappointed. I just came back this weekend from a science workshop that used the new Mac notebooks. These new machines were terribly slow, not even coming up to the standards of my bottom-of-the-line HP laptop with a Celeron processor. They worked OK, but you wait for applications to start up and then wait again to run the tasks.

The slowness of the new Macs has been reported at several Mac sites. I would wait until the second generation comes out and they hopefully fix the problems. You are paying a premium, get your money's worth!

In any case, you should have no real problems finding software for photography.

[villenadecorte]

Thanks for your feedback... the last mac I used was in 00... for website gallery publishing for a large national retailer... using a combination of softwares and it wasnt ever really slow. i have had heard that complaint though in regards to the new notebooks.
I am more curious as to which Photoshop or other softwares Mac users use.

So far I've just only begun my search and my criteria thus far is this:

large harddrive
secondary external drive for main storage (I'd like a large harddrive, but would ideally like to keep it separate from my computer)
dvd and cd r/rws combined
speed, obviously
wireless capabilities

majority of software already installed.

PhotoShop is available for the Mac and runs the same way. New versions tend come out after Windows but the delay is minimal.

If you are a Mac user, you'll be fine. If you are a Windows user, you may be disappointed. I just came back this weekend from a science workshop that used the new Mac notebooks. These new machines were terribly slow, not even coming up to the standards of my bottom-of-the-line HP laptop with a Celeron processor. They worked OK, but you wait for applications to start up and then wait again to run the tasks.

The slowness of the new Macs has been reported at several Mac sites. I would wait until the second generation comes out and they hopefully fix the problems. You are paying a premium, get your money's worth!

In any case, you should have no real problems finding software for photography.

[Sebastian]

The new MacBooks are bit for bit as fast as the current PC notebooks, they use the same processors. Adobe has not released an Intel version of its products yet, and does not intend to until the next versions come out. OS X on the MacBooks screams, is rock solid, secure, and much, much more user-friendly than XP.

I switched from Windows over a year ago, only been happier since.

[mwfanelli]

The new MacBooks are bit for bit as fast as the current PC notebooks, they use the same processors. Adobe has not released an Intel version of its products yet, and does not intend to until the next versions come out. OS X on the MacBooks screams, is rock solid, secure, and much, much more user-friendly than XP.

I switched from Windows over a year ago, only been happier since.

It's not the processors, its probably the overhead of the OS. The machines I used this weekend were brand new Intel Macs running the latest OS X. They were horribly slow, some people actually thought the machines had locked up because it took so long. This was across all applications, Apple issued as well as 3rd party. Those same apps run very well even on mediocre Windows machines. The Macophile from Vernier even expressed dissatisfaction with the latest Apple stuff.

Apple users used to laugh at the "bloat" of Windows. Well, OS X has huge amounts of bloat (I'm betting its the UI) that will have to be fixed for them to run fast in real life. Especially at the higher prices they are asking for these machines.

First adopters are actually the beta testers of olden days. Second generation of any technology is a much better choice.

[Sebastian]

Michael,

I have used three for over a year. Two members here just bought the new MacIntels and couldn't be happier. Performance is on par with their windows DESKTOPS. As for bloat, my OS X install come in just a tad over 1 gig. How big is the XP installation?

I'm not trying to be an a$$, but I use NOTHING but macs on a daily basis, for serious, paying work. They work, day in, day out, without a hitch. I understand where you come from, I used to think they were overpriced status symbols, and honestly, they WERE. OS 7-9 was an abysmal pile, but I was forced to use OS X (against my will) at work, and I was sold.

I respect you, but please, seeing some boxes at an expo says very little about the systems as a whole. I have a PowerBook, a Mini at work (a tower before that), my mother just got a Mini for her birthday, and none of us have any issues. I'm not exaggerating.

I seriously think that if you can, try to use one one non-stop for a month or so. If you don't like it, fine, but Unix with the best GUI on the market is very, very hard to dislike.

Take care.

[mwfanelli]

I respect you, but please, seeing some boxes at an expo says very little about the systems as a whole. I have a PowerBook, a Mini at work (a tower before that), my mother just got a Mini for her birthday, and none of us have any issues. I'm not exaggerating.

I seriously think that if you can, try to use one one non-stop for a month or so. If you don't like it, fine, but Unix with the best GUI on the market is very, very hard to dislike.

Take care.

Yet another of my rants! What a day this is.

Well, maybe I'm just leery of new products. But I didn't see them at an expo, we used them hands-on for about 7 hours in a science workshop doing real work. This is my first real encounter with OS X and obviously my first use of the Intel Macs. I say from this experience that it was dismal. FWIW, I truly dislike the Mac interface but that was not the issue.

I remember my first meeting with Macs way back in the day. I had never used them before and was excited by all the hype. That was a massive letdown as well. Constant crashing, primitive interface, very hard programming, laptops that literally burst into flames! It was 18 months of HOE. In fact, I built a system with an early version of Visual Basic on an used NT machine that duplicated a major company product, did it better, faster, and didn't crash, in just 3 weeks. The Mac version had taken over 2 years with 6-7 programmers working on it. I was told "Don't do that, it looks bad." Bottom line, I have never been a Mac fan.

My instinct, as well as many other people, would be to choose Linux before Mac. That is what makes Linux the #2 choice and Macs now #3 in marketshare. It is still UNIX (regardless of what LinuxFans say) and a whole lot cheaper and versatile than Apple. I have Ubuntu Linux on an old laptop that works well. I don't use it much as it doesn't do anything more than my Windows machines do now. Computers are machines to get work done, my Windows XP (and NT before that) have worked well for me, no problems, no headaches of any kind. Why switch?

If people like Macs, fine. Someone has to support that 3% marketshare :-) If I had the money, I might even buy an iPod! But I'll say it again, I would never recommend that anyone buy the first batches coming off the line.

[HBT]

from one who owns one....

It's fast....almost as fast as my 1.8GHZ Athlon 64 Desktop...system running Windows XP.

It's expensive....but well within the range of other laptops with the same build quality...IBM, Sony, my buddy here even wanted me to buy a Fujitsu rather than a mac, and that was actually a pretty nice system.

Yes, this is 1st gen hardware, but, from someone who owns one, it's the best purchase I've made, and it's my first mac product. Granted, I will never fully use only Mac OS, but for what it's worth, I smile everytime I play with it.

mwfanelli....sounds like you're not the type mac is aimed at...why the hostility? There's no point, especially when the original poster was looking for MAC guidance. If this was a post on whether or not to buy a mac, I think that would be appropriate, but the spirit of this discussion should have been

"what photo-editing software do you run on your mac?
im coming off photoshop 7 i think, and have been wanting to stick with that going forward with a mac."

It didn't seem like an open invitation to bash the mac hardware....which, if you use for everyday applications and iPhoto works great.

In any case, I simply use iPhoto for my photography...was using Photoshop Elements on my PC, and I'm still getting used to iPhoto's interface....it runs faster than photoshop elements and I haven't encountered any of the locking-up problems I've seen here and there in the forums. As for Photoshop, it's not optimized for the new hardware yet, and from what I have read it's not the best for professional work right now, but amateurs shouldn't have a problem with its speed. My main tasks with the machine are gaming and working with photos....the playability of World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament 2k4 are outstanding...not that that really applies here. Hope this helps in your decision-making process.....of course, if you have access, try it. My only real complaint about it is that it gets hot....but for that much power and an aluminum shell, one should expect it.

Good luck!

[mwfanelli]

from one who owns one....

It's fast....almost as fast as my 1.8GHZ Athlon 64 Desktop...system running Windows XP.

It's expensive....but well within the range of other laptops with the same build quality...IBM, Sony, my buddy here even wanted me to buy a Fujitsu rather than a mac, and that was actually a pretty nice system.

Yes, this is 1st gen hardware, but, from someone who owns one, it's the best purchase I've made, and it's my first mac product. Granted, I will never fully use only Mac OS, but for what it's worth, I smile everytime I play with it.

mwfanelli....sounds like you're not the type mac is aimed at...why the hostility? There's no point, especially when the original poster was looking for MAC guidance. If this was a post on whether or not to buy a mac, I think that would be appropriate, but the spirit of this discussion should have been

"what photo-editing software do you run on your mac?
im coming off photoshop 7 i think, and have been wanting to stick with that going forward with a mac."

It didn't seem like an open invitation to bash the mac hardware....which, if you use for everyday applications and iPhoto works great.

In any case, I simply use iPhoto for my photography...was using Photoshop Elements on my PC, and I'm still getting used to iPhoto's interface....it runs faster than photoshop elements and I haven't encountered any of the locking-up problems I've seen here and there in the forums. As for Photoshop, it's not optimized for the new hardware yet, and from what I have read it's not the best for professional work right now, but amateurs shouldn't have a problem with its speed. My main tasks with the machine are gaming and working with photos....the playability of World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament 2k4 are outstanding...not that that really applies here. Hope this helps in your decision-making process.....of course, if you have access, try it. My only real complaint about it is that it gets hot....but for that much power and an aluminum shell, one should expect it.

Good luck!

Read my original reply again. The poster said that PhotoShop on Windows was the current software, I pointed out that the same software runs on Mac.

I made one mention of MY experiences with Intel Macs that occurred less than a week ago. In MY experience that day, they were horrible. I think that is a fair warning for anyone who has not purchased new hardware yet. I know what I see and what I saw and worked with was stunningly bad. I am not alone. Read the Mac online rags, they are reporting slow performance all across the line. Going up to 2 G of memory helps put still doesn't match the PowerPC machines.

I also mentioned that being a first adopter is not a good idea. That opinion has been expressed by many people not only for computers and OSs but also for cameras. No big deal there.

I do not "hate" Macs. That's a difference between you and me. A computer is a tool, a sophisticated toaster or television set. "Hate" indicates some emotional state. That's silly. It either does the job or it doesn't. In my experince, Macs have not been able to do the jobs I need to do in spite of the fancy colorful plastic and gee-whiz UI effects. Your mileage may vary. Anyone who buys on hype deserves to be burned and spend their lives justifying problems. Problems, by the way, that will probably be addressed in future versions.
.

[Erik Stiegler]

Going up to 2 G of memory helps put still doesn't match the PowerPC machines.

I think it does. I've been using an Intel iMac with 2GB of RAM for about a month at work, and it runs fine. I don't think that's excessive, I have that much memory on my PC at home.

I think the early adopter speed issue is software, not hardware. Universal binary applications run very fast on my iMac. Applications that have to use the Rosetta emulation are much slower. It's not a matter of the first generation hardware being bad.

Going from Adobe Lightroom 1 (runs under Rosetta emulation) to 2 (Universal Binary) was a night and day difference. Lightroom 1, which ran fine on my G5 was sluggish on the iMac. Lightroom 2 flies on the iMac.

Your early adopter point is still valid, as it means if you buy an Intel Mac now, you will have to spring for the Photoshop CS 3 upgrade when it becomes available. But it's an issue of software not having caught up to hardware, not deficent hardware.

[Ronnoco]

For a totally different answer I have PCs and an Amiga, but a mac might be just the right answer.

A brand new piece of software called Aperture has come out for MAC only that revolutionizes working with RAW images from your digital camera. It is quickly becoming the new standard for working in this area.

Get some info. on it. I only remember quickly glancing at some articles but because I did not have a Mac, I did not look too closely.

Ronnoco

[Sebastian]

Aperture not only was an embarrassment to Apple, but few pros kept using it after its initial release. Some great ideas were marred by very poor RAW conversion and some glaring omissions in cataloging and metadata features. Hopefully future versions will improve upon it, but currently Adobe Lightroom Beta 2 is looking to be much more promising, as well as being able to run on much lower-spec hardware. Aperture's cost seems reasonable until you realize how it requires top of the line hardware and gigs of RAM to RUN, let alone run well.

[mjs1973]

I just read a brief review of Aperture in a photo mag. From what I remember, they seemed to like it, but like Sebastion said, you need a big system to get it to run well. They were using it on a $10,000+ machine with 4 processors, lots of RAM and dual 30" monitors. The kind of power we would all like to have, but I don't have 10 grand to drop on a computer.

[Lionheart]

hi Rebekah. Congrats on 1000+ posts. Thanks for posting this thread. I too have been contemplating a mac laptop. A colleague at a TMJ/Ortho seminar 2 weekends ago had a brand new Mac laptop (with the new intel processors) and I really liked how well integrated everything was in the OS. The OS was a little awkward to navigate for a few minutes, but I picked up the basics faster than when XP first released for the PC. A friend of mine works exclusively with Mac computers and let me try out photoshop on his G5, and I'm almost positive it ran faster than on my PC (which is no slouch-overclocked water cooled prescott P4 at 3.4 GHZ, 3 GB of DDR2 ram, 4 (four)x400 GB SATA drives, 2 DVD-RW optical drives, GEForce 6800 Ultra w/256 MB memory). I'm going to start with getting my wife a Mac laptop for her birthday later this month and if we really like it. then I'm getting myself a laptop and a mac desktop as well. The only thing I think I'll miss is playing StarWars Battlefront II networked with my 9 year old son . But as much photo editing as I do, i think the Mac is what I really want.

[Spec A!]

FYI- Intel Based Macs can now run XP if you so choose, and will be part of Apple's next version of OS X.

So for those attached to Windows, but want the machine, you can have your cake and eat it too now. ;) And you can just switch to windows to play Starwars BF II (although I sell it at work?!).

Anthony-
Manager @ The Woodlands TX Apple Store.

[Lionheart]

Hi Anthony:
Welcome and thanks for the FYI. I'm not sure I'd put XP on a Mac machine-kind of defeats the purpose of getting a Mac (which is for the superior operating system)-but can you have dual OS's on a the same Mac? That way I can boot into XP to play games. I guess I can wait till the version of OS X to run games, although don't the current set of graphics intensive games need to be recoded to run better under a Mac OS?

[mwfanelli]

FYI- Intel Based Macs can now run XP if you so choose, and will be part of Apple's next version of OS X.

So for those attached to Windows, but want the machine, you can have your cake and eat it too now. ;) And you can just switch to windows to play Starwars BF II (although I sell it at work?!).

Just curious... Someone pays more for an Intel-based Mac (half of the Wintel Conspiracy) then goes out and buys and installs Windows XP (the other half of the hated Wintel). I just don't see the real advantage with this. Intel wins, Microsoft wins, and you've paid much more.
It seems to me that Apple is taking a big chance, maybe shooting itself in the foot? With the market share down to 2.3% (CNBC this early this morning), Apple has to be careful. The jury will be out for a while.

[Spec A!]

Hi Anthony:
Welcome and thanks for the FYI. I'm not sure I'd put XP on a Mac machine-kind of defeats the purpose of getting a Mac (which is for the superior operating system)-but can you have dual OS's on a the same Mac? That way I can boot into XP to play games. I guess I can wait till the version of OS X to run games, although don't the current set of graphics intensive games need to be recoded to run better under a Mac OS?

Yes you can have dual OS's. In terms of games needing to be recoded- I wouldn't really know.

The cool thing about the dual boot is it's really advantageous for those that need a specific 3rd party app that's only for Windows (like say AutoCad), but mainly works in something like CS2, or whatever. The option to be able to run windows on it makes it that much more appealing to people that love the hardware and maybe even the OS and software, but just can't break away from windows.
Don't forget that when you buy a Mac you're not just getting a machine- you get an awesome OS that's way easier to navigate and looks superior, and you get a suite of incredible applications with it too. Anyone that's ever used iMovie, iPhoto, ect will know what a deal it is. And for the average computer user, Apple's now making it available to use what they are familiar with too (windows).

[mwfanelli]

Yes you can have dual OS's. In terms of games needing to be recoded- I wouldn't really know.

The cool thing about the dual boot is it's really advantageous for those that need a specific 3rd party app that's only for Windows (like say AutoCad), but mainly works in something like CS2, or whatever. The option to be able to run windows on it makes it that much more appealing to people that love the hardware and maybe even the OS and software, but just can't break away from windows.
Don't forget that when you buy a Mac you're not just getting a machine- you get an awesome OS that's way easier to navigate and looks superior, and you get a suite of incredible applications with it too. Anyone that's ever used iMovie, iPhoto, ect will know what a deal it is. And for the average computer user, Apple's now making it available to use what they are familiar with too (windows).

Perhaps. But the MacOS is not everyone's cup of tea. When they buy a Mac and get tired of switching back and forth...? When they discover that the MacOS is not superior to XP in real life? I don't know.

There is certainly the opposite danger of keeping Intel Mac MacOS only. When I worked for Digital Equipment Corporation in the old days, Ken Olsen refused to license the VMS OS to other companies such as Sun, even though there was a version that did run on Sun machines. The thinking was that people buy the vastly superior VMS, not the OK but nothing terrific VAX hardware (pre-Alpha). Yes, VMS was vastly superior to UNIX and other small machine OSs. I just don't believe that MacOS has that type of advantage over XP.

Time will tell.

[Spec A!]

Time will tell- exactly.

I look at it as this- it's all about options. Before if you loved the hardware, you were stuck with the OS for Macs. I happen to like it alot more than anything Windows based, and that's just my personal pref. To me, it just works better, and I understand it better. To each his own right?!
Now, you have to option to get the machine and boot your choice of OS on it. That's pretty freaking cool if you ask me. Regardless of which you think is or like better- you can do what you want! That's the point IMHO.