thinking of I MAC

[brantfordbandit]

i'm thinking of switching from my pc laptop to an I Mac, are they ok for editing or a waste of money.

[iAMB]

They are fantastic, i was thinking of an imac at first, but will soon be getting the Mac Pro with LED Display

[René Damkot]

Gosh, broad question...
What's your current laptop, what OS, what software do you use (would you need to transfer licenses? do you want to use both PC and Mac?), iMac insead of what other desktop?

[Eaton Photos]

Some more details, of what you are doing, would be helpful, in receiving more accurate input.

I myself, switched over from a Win XP tower, to a 24" C2D iMac, last fall, and have had a very good experience, with the iMac. Prior, to the iMac, I bought a 15" Macbook Pro, as my portable editing machine, and have been extremely pleased with it too. OS X, works very well for my work-flow. I thought, I would have problems, with the glossy display of my iMac, but as long, it is not reverse a bright window, or something of such brightness, then the LCD doesn't glare very much.

I boosted the ram, from stock to max of 4GB. Ram was bought through Crucial.com. I added an External Raid 1 solution, via Macsales. So, I pretty much keep my Internal free of space, and work off the Raid, via a FW800 cable. I've run PSCS3, Photo Mechanic, FireFox, iTunes, Google Earth, Word/ Excel, & a few other programs, all at the same time, with minimal drag on the processor. Now, when I'm doing large batch conversions from Raw to Tiff/Jpeg, I close some programs, so I can still surf on FireFox.

Hope this basic input helps.

[MaxxuM]

Also, Apple is planning some upgrades to the iMac line as well as price drops this fall. The Apple rumor mill is speculating an iXX (i7, i5 or i3) for the iMac line - which sounds logical because they are already at peak dual-core performance (3Ghz). There really isn't much more you can do to them IMO. Apple has also demonstrated that they can get unique or early tech so I would not be surprised to see an i5 in iMac's future a month or two before it comes out for PCs. Another hint is that OS 10.6 will be tuned for more than 2 processors (current OS is optimized for only 2 cores) giving rise to the idea that Apple is going to join the rest of the computer world in supporting more CPU cores.

Of course, these are all just rumors and there may only be some price drops, but I would still wait for fall. I'm getting a iMac 24" for my daughter who looks at me sadly as I work on my Mac Pro/MBP and wanted one for her July b-day.

[wlescall]

i'm thinking of switching from my pc laptop to an I Mac, are they ok for editing or a waste of money.

basroil will say they are a waste of money and get an i7(might as well get that out of the way) ;). I used a previous generation iMac 2.8 GHz to edit my 50D files without any problems (now have a Mac Pro).

Macrumors.com (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iMac) puts the iMac as mid-cycle for buying, but does reiterate what MaxxuM said about new iMacs and price cuts in the fall.

[zincozinco]

imacs are great, we use them for photos as well as for offset printing, we used to run with the "Dual" G5 towers back in the day but they over heated and was more time in the "garage" to get fixed than working on them. Npt sure how the new mac pros are but the fans are still to loud for my liking..... the Imac is a "smooth operator"

[wlescall]

Npt sure how the new mac pros are but the fans are still to loud for my liking..... the Imac is a "smooth operator"

The fans on the Mac Pro are quiet - very quiet.

[OdiN1701]

Do you need a laptop?

What about keeping your current laptop to use during travel, and then getting a new desktop system? You can get a much more powerful PC desktop for the money a Mac laptop would demand.

I guess it depends on what you really need the laptop for. I can't see myself doing any heavy editing with a laptop - and one that would be powerful enough wouldn't fit my portability needs. But that's me.

[stathunter]

I have had an iMac for over a year now - love it - no regrets -

[Pseudonym]

Very little to warrant going to a mac pro these days unless you REALLY need the cpus, that most apps wont multithread properly across anyway, or PCI slots for video IO cards.

Imacs are great machines, however I use a MacBook Pro with a external screen.

[Casey Singleton]

I thought about the iMac, but opted for the new macbook pro. It's super fast and editing photos is amazing. I would say any Mac purchase is a good one.

[Titus213]

More info needed - have you used a Mac? Different OS for sure. An iMac will most likely be my next machine but we already have a MacBook and I like it. Software is not transferable without some issues, depending on what you use.

I wouldn't consider them a waste of money but you really should move forward cautiously.

[Moppie]

i'm thinking of switching from my pc laptop to an I Mac, are they ok for editing or a waste of money.

It depends on what your editing, and in what kind of volume.

Are they ok? Maybe.
Are the ideal? Deffinitly not.

They are very well made, very reliable and look cool. They have lots of nice features and a full range of firewire and USB ports.

However, in terms of performance they are several generations behind, being based on a mobile dual core processor.
In desktops the processor has been succeded by two generations of quad cores, giving 2-5 times the performance.
Not an issue if your shooting with a 20D, could be an issue if your shooting regularly with a 50D, and it will be an issue if your shooting with a 5D MKII and don't like waiting for things to happen.
If your into creating large panoramics, or use large numbers of layers you could also have problems.

Because they are a unibody they have a nice small footprint on your desk, but do not have a user upgradable HDD, and only have 1 internal HDD.
You are going to have to rely on external drives for extra storage and back ups (there goes the small foot print on your desk), and none of these will have the transfer speeds of an internal disk.


Of course if your just a causal shooter they are quite useable.

Note however, that for the same money you could get a nice mid range quad core built with multiple internal drives and built in card reader that will be just as quite, just as easy to use and a whole lot more powerful and practicle as a photography work station.

[Pseudonym]

You can obviously get a Mac Pro if you want Xeon 5500 procs (nehalem) and space for internal drives etc.

However I'd wait as the Imac is due an upgrade to the i7 chip

I'm a mac fan bwoy, however I feel if you want a machine to tinker with get a home brew / no name brand PC, however if you want a no nonsense tool get a Mac (or HP box with Linux).

[squaresnappr]

i'm thinking of switching from my pc laptop to an I Mac, are they ok for editing or a waste of money.

I don't know the reason why you want to switch but if you don't have problems with pc's and want performance than stay with a pc. If you can wait, then I suggest you can take the advice the others are saying and wait till the new Imacs are coming.

Btw, the mac pro's are in mid cycle as well and are very costly for just editing. Imacs look really nice and maybe they will change the design as well. My wife has an Imac 20 inch(white edition Core 2 duo) and does quite well for editing.

IMHO, Macs are expensive compared to their counterparts, so if you want price/performance, then IMO you may want to stick with PC. Is it a waste of money? Its a personal opinion.

[basroil]

As titus said, you need to make sure to include the cost of replacing software if you decide to switch. Adobe products can be switched over with minimal cost (just shipping& handling), but almost everything else requires you to repurchase programs (and some are simply not available for OSX). The average photographer (with a career in photography) probably has about $800 or more in programs (or could have as little as $0, though that is much less common). Photoshop is about 400, then you have accounting software, productivity software, etc. So the cost to switch can be significant or insignificant depending on what you have installed (that you would want to carry over). I typically advise against people changing systems because of this; it's like going from Canon to Nikon, if you don't really have lenses, it may be fine, but if you're stocked with L's, it can be very, very expensive. Luckily, you'll almost always be able to use your lights with either system ;) (lights are like photoshop worst comes to worst you get a different sync adapter for a few bucks)

And as said before, iMacs can edit images to your liking; but can be considered "a waste of money" based on specifications (hardware parts) alone. You should check out competitors as well as Apple before making your final choices. And more or less ignore the OS it runs, all current OSes are stable and fairly fast (10.6 Snow Leopard and Windows 7 will likely both be faster than current ones, and Windows 7 is most certainly faster than Vista); after all, the only user interfaces you'll ever see are those from third party software vendors like Adobe (and that UI is the same across all platforms) anyway.


As for multiple threads, the most cores (or virtual cores) you can get for your budget is always a good idea. Photoshop, LR2, and several other programs can make use of more threads than any single processor or two way system can have, and you will see significant improvements, during batch processing and some filters that is. If you process a single large image and never batch edit though, any core 2 system should work just fine with editing in Open GL mode. If you do batch process images, performance is more or less linear with number of threads (chip architecture, TDW, and clock speed do play an important role, but more threads will generally be faster). Hence why many suggest the Mac Pro over the iMac, where you get about 3-5x the performance for only 2x the price.


EDIT: In clarification of the OS issue, it is quite simple: Current OS'es are all fairly stable and should have no issues unless you tinker with them. In addition, if this is a work computer, you will be within your work program environment, which has it's own UI regardless of the OS. A short time ago, someone mentioned that if the OS you are using changes your workflow, there is something wrong with your workflow , and I believe this is very true (ignoring third party programs that are available for only one OS, those tend to change everything). However, if this is a personal computer that happens to be used for work, then the OS may be important for personal things, and testing out the computers in a local store will be a good idea. Some people love Vista, some love OSX, some love gnome, some love kde, and some love command line only ;) Just have to see what you like best (though command line only may make editing hard)

[René Damkot]

As titus said, you need to make sure to include the cost of replacing software if you decide to switch. Adobe products can be switched over with minimal cost

Another thing to keep in mind is that if you want to use Photoshop on *both* PC and Mac, you will need *two* licenses... You can switch from PC to Mac, but that means that you can no longer use that license for PS on PC.

[MaxxuM]

As titus said, you need to make sure to include the cost of replacing software if you decide to switch. Adobe products can be switched over with minimal cost (just shipping& handling), but almost everything else requires you to repurchase programs (and some are simply not available for OSX). The average photographer (with a career in photography) probably has about $800 or more in programs (or could have as little as $0, though that is much less common). Photoshop is about 400, then you have accounting software, productivity software, etc. So the cost to switch can be significant or insignificant depending on what you have installed (that you would want to carry over). I typically advise against people changing systems because of this; it's like going from Canon to Nikon, if you don't really have lenses, it may be fine, but if you're stocked with L's, it can be very, very expensive. Luckily, you'll almost always be able to use your lights with either system ;) (lights are like photoshop worst comes to worst you get a different sync adapter for a few bucks)

And as said before, iMacs can edit images to your liking; but can be considered "a waste of money" based on specifications (hardware parts) alone. You should check out competitors as well as Apple before making your final choices. And more or less ignore the OS it runs, all current OSes are stable and fairly fast (10.6 Snow Leopard and Windows 7 will likely both be faster than current ones, and Windows 7 is most certainly faster than Vista); after all, the only user interfaces you'll ever see are those from third party software vendors like Adobe (and that UI is the same across all platforms) anyway.


As for multiple threads, the most cores (or virtual cores) you can get for your budget is always a good idea. Photoshop, LR2, and several other programs can make use of more threads than any single processor or two way system can have, and you will see significant improvements, during batch processing and some filters that is. If you process a single large image and never batch edit though, any core 2 system should work just fine with editing in Open GL mode. If you do batch process images, performance is more or less linear with number of threads (chip architecture, TDW, and clock speed do play an important role, but more threads will generally be faster). Hence why many suggest the Mac Pro over the iMac, where you get about 3-5x the performance for only 2x the price.

I think the OS should be the first thing about a computer someone should consider. You could have the most powerful computer in the world and still hate it due to the OS. The OS is the interface between you and your computer - if you are not comfortable with that interface then how could you enjoy using it?

No, a user should actually go use a computer and give each OS a chance. Whichever they find more intuitive, friendly and stable should be the one they actually get.

[Titus213]

You could always buy a copy of Windows and run it on the iMac with your Win licensed software.:lol:

[squaresnappr]

I almost forgot. If you end up wanting an Imac, get the 24 inch, its a better screen. Hopefully, Apple will change this in the future.

[basroil]

I almost forgot. If you end up wanting an Imac, get the 24 inch, its a better screen. Hopefully, Apple will change this in the future.

Very good point here, 24" iMac is an IPS screen (though not as good as the 24" cinema display), while the other is only a TN screen. However, it is fairly unlikely that Apple will change this, since 20" IPS panels are not produced in large quantities and last I knew Apple did not have the facilities or licenses to produce such a glass. Perhaps they will drop 20" in favor of 22" or a single 24" line, and then IPS is possible.

Definitely 24" over 20" iMacs, and if the choice is not a 24" iMac, an IPS or VA (8bit type, not 6bit ones) screen should be on your list. Apple's cinema display (about $900) and EIZO 24" screens (about $1450 for a decent one) are 8bit IPS (EIZO's is technically 8bit but can display 10bits of color using a pallet of 8bits) and Dell's 2408WFP ($450 now, after rebate ends though back to $600, it is not LED backlit, but has higher contrast to compensate and is true 8bit) are all good choices to start looking through (HP also has a 24" screen, two in fact, one priced near the dell, one priced with the EIZOs). TN-FRC screens can be used as well and often don't show problems, but if you require soft proofing and very accurate calibrations, TN screens just have limitations you can't avoid.