Mac or Windows for Photo editing?

There should be no difference between the two. Obviously many if my buddies are using Mac but a powerful Mac Pro costs too much

Mark K wrote in post #18260526
There should be no difference between the two. Obviously many if my buddies are using Mac but a powerful Mac Pro costs too much

Mac has almost no viruses. I switched about 5 years ago but windows has come a long way. Easier to use like a Mac.

I use a mac, its what I am used to and how I work most effectively, you say you are comfortable with a windows PC so I say get a good PC. I would get a business grade one with others have said a good Ips display, you can and should calibrate the screen either the Spyder or iOne do a good job. Look if you can get an i7 processor if getting a laptop, you could drop to an i5 on a desk top. It is worth looking at how locked in you are with options to upgrade the ram and hard drive, you may get a good bit longer from a machine with an upgrade down the line. Depending on your home situation i.e. are you a student or have to move a lot its well worth looking at a desktop you get a lot more power for your money. A large screen can be added to a laptop for home use though so it is worth when you look to check it can out put a 4k 50/60hz signal, probably a display port (mini), 30hz can make it more fatiguing after a long session working*. I would go for a proper SSD over a hybrid or old type drive it does make it snappier and a portable HD if USB3 is quite fast enough, unless you can get a dual HD set up on a laptop, no issue on a desktop though.

* I am rather prone to migraines so this could be why.

There is one important thing with Mac OSX 10.9 and higher. If used with Eizo monitors and ColorNavigator the RGB values 0,0,0 - 20,20,20 is not going to show up correctly. The RGB values will be completely black with no detail. I think Windows is free from this problem. Something with black point compensation. There is a possible way around this problem but that incorporates a different profile which gives higher deltaE and poorer color accuracy.

Thats why I am staying in Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Mark K wrote in post #18260526
There should be no difference between the two. Obviously many if my buddies are using Mac but a powerful Mac Pro costs too much

No reason to get a mac Pro. The iMacs are extremely powerful, relative to photo editing chores, and some of the iMac models are surprisingly inexpensive, for what you get.

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Tom Reichner wrote in post #18264420
No reason to get a mac Pro. The iMacs are extremely powerful, relative to photo editing chores, and some of the iMac models are surprisingly inexpensive, for what you get.

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Actually that is totally untrue, they are in fact rather expensive for what you get. You get a LOT more for your money, even when buying machines from the main brands like Dell or HP compared to an iMac. The base model iMac gets you only an i5 processor, and it is a low power mobile unit, since there is very little cooling available. Performance wise that brings a big hit, as does only having 8GB of RAM. Even if you go the top of the iMac range i7 processor, it is still a mobile chip, with performance closer to a normal desktop i5 processor. Also with the iMac all in one system you are very limited with expansion, since there is no room to add any additional internal storage. The minute you add external storage all of the iMacs size advantages disappear.

My windows system ended up costing me the same as a base level iMac. I have a monitor with the same display panel as the iMac, so no difference there. What I do get though is a desktop i7 6800 processor, 16GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. The GTX 960 GPU is probably a better card for use with the Adobe suite of software to the AMD card included in the iMac, the CUDA support will definitely help with working on video in Premiere. As well as an SD card reader on the monitor I get a full set of card interfaces integrated into the base unit, and that includes CF cards, which is what I use all the time.

Before anyone mentions the fact you get that "wonderful" apple keyboard, I would need to dump that straight away, it is possibly the worst keyboard I have used since the ZX 80 and Spectrum squidgy buttons. Actually I had a Spectrum +, and that had a better keyboard than the current Mac one, even if you still needed to do those silly key combinations when typing Basic commands, or turning it upside down and having keys fall out. Adding a numeric keypad, or making the one with the keypad a wireless option would also be nice.

All of this is before you get to the point of wanting to upgrade some of your system later. That is virtually impossible with the Mac, actually since they now seem to solder in the RAM and most of the other stuff in the Mac Mini that is getting to be a Apple thing not just an iMac thing. The PC makes upgrading hardware quite simple.

Actually from a user perspective using the two systems for photo and video editing, using the same software on each, it really doesn't matter which one you use, Win 10 is just as easy and stable to use as OSX. Most of the time you have very little need to "see" the OS with either system.

So looking at UK prices I would need to spend about £1500 more on an iMac to get to the same approximate system specification as I needed to spend to get my Dell system. Since I only spent about £1600 on the Dell that is about a 94% increase in cost. So no not cheap by any means. If you do want a powerful desktop based workstation system, again you are rather out of luck, since the workstations are now about four years old, it must cost Apple a fortune to get cpu's that old. Again they come in a very odd footprint, and don't really offer anything in the way of upgrade potential. I don't see you adding another HDD even in that silly tubular system tower.

Alan

But then you're stuck with Windows operating system. The system I hated for 20 years before switching 12 years ago. I wouldn't swap my top of the range iMac for a Windows system for any price. Sorry Alan but it works well for me and doesn't need to be loaded up with anti-virus software. RAM is upgradable; it takes mere seconds to pop new cheap RAM into the iMac. I've also replaced the HDD in a 6yo iMac with a modern, very fast Crucial SSD and it flies! And really, photo editing doesn't require a gaming-spec graphics card. You can have your Windows machines. They are not for everybody.

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Actually, it is not untrue. You can get an iMac with a 27" 5K monitor for just a couple thousand bucks.......seems like a heck of a lot for the money, to me.

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The iMac's have a normal desk top CPU, they do however have a desktop GPU as to representing good value for money that I would say at the moment no. I built a hack for a lot less than the current at the time iMac would have cost but I did forgo a 5k screen for a 4k one but got a more powerful GPU even if I went the Windows route I would have come in a lot less. Some of the Dell machines seem really good if you want a made for you as do a lot of the high end HP Z8xx series. My big issue with the iMac is that it is a dead end machine, the machine dies you throw away a very good screen out with it, I can't see how this obsolescence allows the to say they are green? As a second monitor Im using the same screen I have used for years an HP I got a good few years ago (ZR24) used another IPS so a decent screen can be used for years. If I was used to the Windows system there is no way I would swap at the moment, I am even considering switching for the next machine its easier to build a powerful machine.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18264941
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Actually, it is not untrue. You can get an iMac with a 27" 5K monitor for just a couple thousand bucks.......seems like a heck of a lot for the money, to me.

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But for the same money as the bottom of the range i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD specification iMac, which for me here in the UK is £1600 ($1996.80 at B+H's current displayed exchange rate 1:1.248) including all the discounts I can get (Military Veteran scheme). For the same money I can get a Dell system with the exact same monitor panel, those 5K display panels all come from LG I believe. But the system comes with the i7 processor, twice as much RAM at 16GB, and additional M2 256 GB SSD as well as the 1TB HDD. If I do add the couple of hundred pound SSD upgrade to get the 256GB SSD then I lose on the internal 1TB HDD, which will now have to be in an external enclosure, and you also instantly lose out on it being an all in one device. Since I will be doing some video work in Adobe Premier the Nvidia GTX 960 GPU is also advantageous over the AMD R9 based unit in the Mac since it supports CUDA.

For the same money as the basic iMac spec I have a system that pretty much matches or exceeds the specification of the top of the range iMac. I'm running the same software on both systems too, so in use there is really no practical difference between them. Adobe CC and Chrome are fully cross platform.

So I have two choices, down spec the PC build to match the basic iMac, and save probably some £300-£400 in the process, or realise that I'm spending the same £1600 and getting the same specification as the approx £3000/$3750 iMac. The differences are that significant.

Alan

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So in that case it is true that you get a heck of a lot for your money with the iMac, AND you get a heck of a lot for the money with the other thing you're talking about.

Either way you get a LOT for the money. Higher-end computers are really cheap these days, compared to so many of the other things we buy.

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To put it in very simplistic terms an iMac is an over-sized, over-priced laptop.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #18265237
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So in that case it is true that you get a heck of a lot for your money with the iMac, AND you get a heck of a lot for the money with the other thing you're talking about.

Either way you get a LOT for the money. Higher-end computers are really cheap these days, compared to so many of the other things we buy.

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No actually I'm saying that for what you get the Mac is at least 50% overly expensive! They simply are not good value for money. Once upon a time Apple used a different hardware system to that used in windows systems, and since they were always sold in much lower quantities there was some justification in the higher pricing. Now Apple use the same commodity hardware as everybody else, yet they continue to charge premium prices for it. There is absolutely no reason that any Apple computer should now cost significantly more than any other top of the range system, yet the difference seems to start out at around 50%, and as you move up the apple range the cost increases just keep getting bigger, and can end up being well over 100%. Double the price for the exact same identical hardware.

Some will say that by using a Mac it will simply always work, and although not always the case, it does have some validity. But then if the manufacturers like Dell and HP were to lock down their Windows based systems to the same degree that Apple do, they would be in pretty much the same situation. It is simply that the Windows based systems have so many different bits of disparate hardware to support.

Alan

BigAl007 wrote in post #18265428
No actually I'm saying that for what you get the Mac is at least 50% overly expensive! They simply are not good value for money. Once upon a time Apple used a different hardware system to that used in windows systems, and since they were always sold in much lower quantities there was some justification in the higher pricing. Now Apple use the same commodity hardware as everybody else, yet they continue to charge premium prices for it. There is absolutely no reason that any Apple computer should now cost significantly more than any other top of the range system, yet the difference seems to start out at around 50%, and as you move up the apple range the cost increases just keep getting bigger, and can end up being well over 100%. Double the price for the exact same identical hardware.

Some will say that by using a Mac it will simply always work, and although not always the case, it does have some validity. But then if the manufacturers like Dell and HP were to lock down their Windows based systems to the same degree that Apple do, they would be in pretty much the same situation. It is simply that the Windows based systems have so many different bits of disparate hardware to support.

Alan

I agree with most of what you are saying and I do not own any Apple products. But part of the higher cost of Mac's is tied up in the OS and included software. Mac OS will have a much higher cost per unit than Windows because it has a much smaller user base. Apple has to offset the cost of software development through it's retail sales of complete systems. Microsoft can spread that cost over a much larger user base and through volume sales with companies like Dell. For instance, Windows Server 2016 has a much smaller user base and Microsoft charges a much higher price for it compared to Win 10, around 5x the cost in Canada.

BigAl007 wrote in post #18264804
Actually that is totally untrue, they are in fact rather expensive for what you get. You get a LOT more for your money, even when buying machines from the main brands like Dell or HP compared to an iMac. The base model iMac gets you only an i5 processor, and it is a low power mobile unit, since there is very little cooling available. Performance wise that brings a big hit, as does only having 8GB of RAM. Even if you go the top of the iMac range i7 processor, it is still a mobile chip, with performance closer to a normal desktop i5 processor. Also with the iMac all in one system you are very limited with expansion, since there is no room to add any additional internal storage. The minute you add external storage all of the iMacs size advantages disappear.

There are several factually incorrect statements in your post. iMacs use desktop cpus, not laptop. The mid-range iMac i5 uses a low power Intel Skylake 6600. It's display is a 5k 27" retina that is functionally equivalent to a Dell UP2715K, which runs about $1800. This iMac retails for $2000.

There are a lot of reasons not to buy an Apple computer (which is why I use a hackintosh), but cost for what you get (i.e., equivalent hardware) isn't one of them. You can buy PC's for less money that are more powerful, but if you buy one made with the same components they cost about the same.