Mac or Windows for Photo editing?

Hi guys!

I have been using Windows all my life and am very comfortable with it. I have recently started learning photography and am going for it professionally and for that I need to change my laptop which has a crappie screen. Most of my photographer friends are using Mac with Ratina screen and they all are pushing me towards Mac. I seriously am not very keen in learning a new OS and therefore want to stick with Windows. I will be using PS CC, LR CC and Premiere for Video editing.

My biggest concern is the screen quality where I dont want to compromise even if it means shifting to Mac. Now please suggest what should I do? Is there no good enough laptop with Windows that can give equal screen quality as Mac?

Other than screen, is Mac really that better that I should shift in terms of performance and user friendliness?

Please help.

I previously used Windows based systems for photo editing.
A few years ago I picked up a MacBook and made the switch. I like the quality & stability of the hardware, and Mac OS seems to be less susceptible to malware and viruses.

On the subject of displays - In my opinion the 'retina' display while really nice to look at isn't the best for photo editing. I use a IPS LED display (calibrated) attached to my MacBook Pro for editing.

go4saket wrote in post #18242067
Hi guys!

I have been using Windows all my life and am very comfortable with it. I have recently started learning photography and am going for it professionally and for that I need to change my laptop which has a crappie screen. Most of my photographer friends are using Mac with Ratina screen and they all are pushing me towards Mac. I seriously am not very keen in learning a new OS and therefore want to stick with Windows. I will be using PS CC, LR CC and Premiere for Video editing.

My biggest concern is the screen quality where I dont want to compromise even if it means shifting to Mac. Now please suggest what should I do? Is there no good enough laptop with Windows that can give equal screen quality as Mac?

Other than screen, is Mac really that better that I should shift in terms of performance and user friendliness?

Please help.

Editing photos on a Mac is just the same as editing photos on a PC. If you are more comfortable using Windows then stay with a PC.

I 100% agree. There really isn't any great advantages to moving to Mac. I own both.

There are several high end Windows laptop machines out there with 17" 4K displays doing 98%+ AdobeRGB colour. and they cost about the same as a fully specced MBP. Apart from the IMO advantage of the extra mouse button, and using Ctrl instead of Cmd there is NO difference between using LR/PS/Premier under Win 10 and OSX. One thing I have noticed is that Win 10's screen magnification system for 4/5K displays is much better than what is available in OSX. A friend went out and bought one of the 2560×1440 27" iMacs, but his eyesight is so bad that he has to run it at lower than native resolutions to be able to see anything on the screen. It looks absolutely awful like that though, fortunatly for him he can't see ithe would have been better off with a £100 24" 1920×1080 monitor, at least he wouldn't be out all that money. I can just set my 5K Dell monitor to 250% instead of the 175% I use, or the 200% MS Recommend, which would match it to a 2560 display, and he would be able to see everything, while the monitor itself was still running at 5K and looking great. The font smoothing alone is worth it. So yes plenty of choices for Windows.

Alan

Use whichever you prefer.

Higher end spec wise, Apple is usually bested by the displays and some of the options in some of the higher end Windows systems. Pricing will be comparable to Apple at that level if you're looking at laptops.

For desktops, I'd go Windows, but I'm not much for the iMac design/philosophy of an all-in-one and there are better monitor options out there anyway.

go4saket wrote in post #18242067
I have been using Windows all my life and am very comfortable with it.

That statement right there makes me feel as though you should stick to Windows.

Personally, I love Apple, and don't think I would ever go back to Windows - but that is because I was never comfortable with Windows.

In years and years of using Windows computers, I was continually confused and couldn't figure out how to get the damn computer to work and got viruses all the time and my windows computers were always "down" and I would have to pay a company to wipe the thing clean and then reinstall everything.

Once I got an iMac all of those problems went away and I never had any of them again.

But I am me and you are you, and if you can actually function productively in the Windows environment, then you have a good thing going and you should stick to what works so well for you.

The iMac is so good for me because I demand a large monitor, yet am constantly packing my computer in the car and taking it with me to various places throughout the week. A laptop does me no good because I can't imagine trying to enjoy or work on photos on a tiny little screen (and to me 15 or 18 inches is tiny). And a traditional desktop does me no good because it's too much trouble to regularly take it out and about with me to various meetings, friend's homes, church, work, photo trips, etc.

So all-in-ones may be great for your particular needs, or they may not be. But I think that these days you can get really great screens in Windows-based all-in-ones.

The 5k resolution combined with a really big monitor helps a lot with photo editing, because I am continually zooming in really far to work on extremely fine detail. If you zoom in really far on a small screen, you then don't have any context for the area you are working on, which can be troublesome when you are trying to maintain a cohesive aesthetic throughout the entire image, while performing major work on one tiny little spot at a time.

.

Neither OS has any advantage for photo work.

go4saket wrote in post #18242067
I have been using Windows all my life and am very comfortable with it. I have recently started learning photography and am going for it professionally and for that I need to change my laptop which has a crappie screen. Most of my photographer friends are using Mac with Ratina screen and they all are pushing me towards Mac. I seriously am not very keen in learning a new OS and therefore want to stick with Windows. I will be using PS CC, LR CC and Premiere for Video editing.

All of those programs work the same on either system, if you already have the licenses for the Windows versions and are comfortable with the OS, there is no reason to switch.

If you look to business-class laptops, those may offer 4K IPS displays with calibration, but consumer and "gaming" laptops typically will not. That is, if you really want a laptop... it's a better idea just to get a basic PC, perhaps in ITX form-factor to cut down on size if it's an issue, and then you'll be able to use a proper display of your choosing, and of course it's much less expensive - even if laptops are slowly coming out of the "2x the price for half the performance" phase as hardware becomes more efficient, now they're just "2x the price for same performance"

User friendliness just means it'll take less time to have to re-learn everything. Generally, Macs are more expensive performance-per-dollar, although this isn't always the case. Back when I bought mine in late 2010 it was a pretty good deal as 1440p IPS displays were still in the $1000 range at the time, but with the mac you also got a decent computer in for a little bit extra. Same happened with the 5K iMac at release, if you really want 5K and a new system to go with it, then it's still an inexpensive way to get it. Just remember that unlike the original iMacs, the retina ones can't be used as stand-alone displays.

The issue is that the iMac's display is just too glossy for my taste, and now that I have a proper editing display as my primary monitor, I don't feel like going the same route again. With Apple lacking a proper desktop system, and the Mac Pro being phased out, I don't feel like I'd get anything out of going Mac again. Power-users are slowly starting to leave Macs because of this, but for basic photo editing, I think any Mac is fine unless you're going to be doing some crazy gigapixel compositing work.

BigAl007 wrote in post #18242303
Apart from the IMO advantage of the extra mouse button

The thread question's a bit like asking is Canon or Nikon better for photo shooting. But I just want to point out that unless windows mouses have three buttons these days, the statement above is not correct. Apple mouses, while not having actual buttons as such, can be left or right clicked in the same way windows mouses can. You just have to set them to do that in preferences.

Thanks a lot for the suggestions guys but what I missed in my post was that I have to buy a 15" laptop and not a desktop for the time being...

I did some research and some websites suggested Asus ZenBook for Windows... Is this the one that I should opt for or some thing else?

I would have to agree with most in here as well. Stick with what you know, the advantages are minimal with either system in our world. I use a Mac at work and PC at home. Though I have been out of customizing and specing out new computers but if you a have a good understanding of desktops, laptops are no different. Just spec it out as you would a desktop.

I briefly looked at the ZenBook you mentioned just now and it looks to be a nice system. I have no experience with it, I really have no say so in recommending it.

Good luck!

After you upgrade, you can take that old laptop and install Linux on it, giving you a machine you can use to surf the Internet with zero percent chance of getting a Windows virus.

Kolor-Pikker wrote in post #18242935
The issue is that the iMac's display is just too glossy for my taste, and now that I have a proper editing display as my primary monitor, I don't feel like going the same route again. With Apple lacking a proper desktop system, and the Mac Pro being phased out, I don't feel like I'd get anything out of going Mac again. Power-users are slowly starting to leave Macs because of this, but for basic photo editing, I think any Mac is fine unless you're going to be doing some crazy gigapixel compositing work.

Of course none of this is official ... Just opinion.

Is it possible to calibrate and profiling a Mac monitor?

I think a Mac Mini with a good quality external monitor is the best way if going with Apple.

A calibrated monitor is way more important than what kind of operative system you are on.

I switched from Windows to Mac a couple of years a go because I like the user interface a lot. Other than that I cant find any difference when working with Adobe software.