Mac Vs. PC for Photoshop

[kgraeme]

Some pro-Mac points:

Significantly better font management.
With many postscript and extended typefaces, Windows doesn't load the extended characters or glyph sets properly. So Futura may include explicit font faces for Regular, Oblique, Bold, Bold Oblique, Book, Book Oblique, Light, Light Oblique, Heavy, Heavy Oblique, Extended, and Extended Oblique. Windows only wants to see Regular, Bold, and Italic. Managing those fonts in Windows can be a nightmare.

Significantly better typography interface.
Want to type a registered copyright symbol? ® On the Mac it's just Option-R. On Windows, you can never hope to remember, so you have to go Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Character Map and then hunt around for it, copy and paste it in. In a production environment time is money.

Possibly better swap disk management for large Photoshop files
I recall working on 100+ MB posters in Photoshop on an old Mac with only 32MB ram. A few years later I was trying to help a colleage with a PC and Photoshop to be able to open and work with a similar size file on a PC with 128MB ram and he was having problems. The old Mac was running OS 8.1 as I recall, so not even OS X. I don't know how this might be different now with OS X.

There are other reasons as well, but it's time for me to punch out and go home. I will say though, that as a designer I hate OS X enough to prefer WinXP instead. (If I'm doing unix-geek stuff though, then OS X is nifty-keen.)

But if raw processing speed is all that matters, then the PC wins hands-down.

 

[Macro2]

I though Apple gave big discounts to schools?

That said, the only reason I'd get the MAC is that the graphic arts/publishing industry is still solidly MAC happy. So programs they use only run on a MAC. Most however are cross platform. Someone also made a good point about font managemwnt.

Frankly, the P4 will be faster and you can get two of them for the price of that MAC.

regards, Mac

PS, why are you getting a 17" monitor? a 21" CRT or better is the way to go for art work. CRTs still have much better color depth.
The more I look at your P4 choice the worse it appears.
nVidia card for graphics? No way Jose. Get a Matrox dualhead 450 or 550 or better yet a Canopus.
Forget ATI too...

 

[Gunnar]

On another note, did you note the price drops today? Might want to reprice those systems

 

[Alptraum]

I though Apple gave big discounts to schools?

Even if they don't directly most VARs have seriously steep discounts for schools. I managed IT for a school district in the past and remember getting $90k routers for $30k. Oh those were the days, heh. I never bought MACs there though. Just PCs. I was getting Compaqs at a pretty steep discount as well as most other stuff. Heck, if you play your cards right you can get stuff for free. I got about 1.5 million worth of free video conferencing crap from Nortel since we agreed to Beta some stuff for them. Basically if you are purchasing for some sort of educational institution you should not be paying street prices.

 

[ncl]

Here is a great article regarding PC vs MAC for use in Photoshop. Targeted mainly for the pro, but alot of good info.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/diginews/2003-01/2003_01_07_macpc.html

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Gunnar
I dont think you come here to get an unbiased view of the entire Mac vs. PC debate. Personally, I'd go for the Mac. While many people are counting the bang for the buck, I believe it getting what will increase your productivity, and will keep you from pulling your own hair out.

In addition, the color management on the Macintosh is LIGHT YEARS ahead of the PC, especially if you choose an Apple display, its only too bad they dont make the printers as well, or at least output a calibration code that can be sent to the printer. Secondly, Windows XP is such a PAIN IN THE ASS to use, and its appearance and arrangement is almost irritating to the point of lunacy. While people will argue you can modify the appearance and all, who is going to do the legwork to figure out how to do that? I like the OSX environment better, and maybe its just me, but I like my toolbars floating around, instead of being stuck inside of a windows window. Im not sure you can do this on the PC Photoshop, but you can move just your toolbars to the second screen.

In the end, it may be personal preference, but I think youll be a lot happier with the Mac, make sure you get an ATI card in it, Nvidia for most part blows.

Though it seems you may have made up your mind...

Did I mention Final Cut Pro Express? Yeah, youll like that......

Ahhh...some more of that Mac BS!!! Anybody running any photo program, DV editing program, Cadd, 3d rendering, etc,. in a PC must spend all their time fighting issues and crashes!!! You guys are all alike!!! I run all those programs and I get done what I want with no crashes....I run media studio pro, ulead video studio, photoshop (older versions), Sonic's MyDVD, pinnacle studio version 8 and I can do anything I want with no crashes...WOW that must be a miracle!!! (sarcasm for the idiots)

I run it all in Winxp and I have no issues!!!

 

[bigpow]

I had enough of this Mac BS too.

A co-worker bought a 3,000$ PowerMac last year along with 1,500$ Apple LCD.
I went by to his place and I was really surprised why they managed to sell so many of the *crap*!

My wife use PS7 with my PC, co-worker's with his PS6.
Don't know much about software optimization between PC PS ver.7 & Mac PS ver.6, but the PC is a lot faster!

The Apple Studio is yucky too... try playing DVD and you'll get ghosting effects!

Oooh.. did I mention the Apple Speaker set? The ones with the transparant small apple size speaker?
Buy the cheapest Altec Lansing, it sounds a lot better!

For swap file management, it's true that because it's using POSIX OS now (just think of it as a Linux with very nice GUI).

But if you spend the extra $$$ and get a PC, you could buy 3GB of DDR400 RAM, and that PC would definitely kicks ass!



Just my 0.02$
Again, I'm biased toward the PC just because I can't justify the money Vs. performance of a Mac system.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention this...
The only reason the dude bought a Mac, was because it looks cool!
He actually put the machine in the living room, as some sort of a Ming Vase display...

 

[Trader05]

wrong thread

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: bigpow
I had enough of this Mac BS too.

A co-worker bought a 3,000$ PowerMac last year along with 1,500$ Apple LCD.
I went by to his place and I was really surprised why they managed to sell so many of the *crap*!

My wife use PS7 with my PC, co-worker's with his PS6.
Don't know much about software optimization between PC PS ver.7 & Mac PS ver.6, but the PC is a lot faster!

The Apple Studio is yucky too... try playing DVD and you'll get ghosting effects!

Oooh.. did I mention the Apple Speaker set? The ones with the transparant small apple size speaker?
Buy the cheapest Altec Lansing, it sounds a lot better!

For swap file management, it's true that because it's using POSIX OS now (just think of it as a Linux with very nice GUI).

But if you spend the extra $$$ and get a PC, you could buy 3GB of DDR400 RAM, and that PC would definitely kicks ass!



Just my 0.02$
Again, I'm biased toward the PC just because I can't justify the money Vs. performance of a Mac system.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention this...
The only reason the dude bought a Mac, was because it looks cool!
He actually put the machine in the living room, as some sort of a Ming Vase display...

If he's running PS 6 then he's running it in OS 9 which, from what I've been told, is significantly slower than 10.2.


Lethal

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe

If he's running PS 6 then he's running it in OS 9 which, from what I've been told, is significantly slower than 10.2.

You were told wrong. I have both on my laptop here and OS 9 is significantly faster. More stable? No. Faster? Yes.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Ilmater
I hate to contradict these people, but there is one reason to buy a mac over a PC, and that's for the kids' futures' sakes. Many graphics arts places use Macs as their sole computing platform because of their history with them, and because they continue to make the Macs look... well... like they do, and that makes a lot of people that know nothing about computers and a lot about aesthetics happy. Regardless, 99% of children, now, are growing up using PCs, and they already feel fairly comfortable with them. However, they're not as comfortable with Macs. So, if they go into the only industry that really uses Macs, they might not be as prepared as others. Plus, taking a step back, MOST colleges still use Macs as their primary computer in graphics art labs.

However, I will say that I had a few friends that were graphics arts majors in college, and while they knew how to use the Macs in their GA labs, they owned PCs.

So, is it worth it for our children's futures? Maybe.

In the graphics industry the software is mostly written around a Mac environment and alot of print servers have NO software for a PC and you need a MAc to do any work. I've been looking into going direct to plate for a printing business and out of 10 different machines from Kodak, Fuji etc there is only 2 that work on a PC at all.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: WalkingDead
hell no! The Mac is not worth the money nor the trouble. Take my words for it. I work part time for a education institution that teaches graphic design everyday. We don't have any P4 machines but all our PIII (intel mobo) and AMD (Soyo, MSI, Asus mobo) on Win2K & XP are faster and more stable than our Mac G4s with OS X. The only reason why my school and many other education institutions are still buying Mac is because they're run by Mac fanantics. Those people love to compain about not enough funding for the programs then they turn arround and orders Mac that costs almost 3X as much as a similarly configed Dell.


I do recommand using ATI graphic card because of its much superior screen quality and for pre-made machines I would recommand Dell over Compaq.

That's bizarro. I have NT, OS X, Win 2000, and Win XP computers. My OS X machines have been the most stable. (I built a couple of the Win computers myself BTW.) Win XP is pretty damn stable though too.

However, if you're ONLY running Photoshop, it will be perfectly fine and overall faster on a WinXP box, assuming you pay for high quality components.

If he's running PS 6 then he's running it in OS 9 which, from what I've been told, is significantly slower than 10.2.

kgraeme is corrrect. PS 6 on OS 9 is faster than PS 7 on OS X. However, I hate OS 9 in general.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: kgraeme

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe

If he's running PS 6 then he's running it in OS 9 which, from what I've been told, is significantly slower than 10.2.

You were told wrong. I have both on my laptop here and OS 9 is significantly faster. More stable? No. Faster? Yes.

What kind of laptop do you have? Maybe 10 runs slower due to hardware limitations?

The people I've talked to were FCP users w/dual proc PMs and, of all things, they said render times got proggressively better from 9 to 10.1 to 10.2. I assumed that if you saw improvements in one program you might see them in others. Could be wrong though.


Lethal


EDIT: Okay, I'm wrong, but I'm too lazy to delete what I"ve already posted and Eug poste before I did.

 

[CraigRT]

PC is alot faster, and is alot cheaper..
should we even have to ask which to get?
new video card like most people have said.. like a 9700 or something.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe
The people I've talked to were FCP users w/dual proc PMs and, of all things, they said render times got proggressively better from 9 to 10.1 to 10.2. I assumed that if you saw improvements in one program you might see them in others.

FCP people say that dual processors makes a HUGE difference compared to a single CPU at the same speed when using FCP specifically. So I suspect that FCP's improvements in OS X might be more related to better utilization of dual processors in OS X compared to OS 9. I dunno if this is true, just a guess.

From what I understand though, Photoshop doesn't do much with SMP either in OS 9 or OS X. Not completely sure though.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: Yield
PC is alot faster, and is alot cheaper..
should we even have to ask which to get?
new video card like most people have said.. like a 9700 or something.

Why do people keep recommending a top of the line 3D card when what is needed is a top of the line 2D card w/excellent dual monitor and color management? Something like a Matrox G4/550 would work perfect and is 1/3 less.


Lethal

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: LethalWolfe
Why do people keep recommending a top of the line 3D card when what is needed is a top of the line 2D card w/excellent dual monitor and color management? Something like a Matrox G4/550 would work perfect and is 1/3 less.

Gamer mentality.

 

[Bimmer318i]

My Recommendation - PC, for above listed reasons, althought there are valid points for the Mac

Few things to look

Video Card - Like people that are thinking with their head rather than their fingers (gamers) Go with a card like the G4/550
Monitor - 21" or so CRT wouldn't be a bad choice either ( I run one, Sony Trinitron Tube) although in a school environment energy may be an issue, if an LCD, go with DVI connected monitors
Ram - Up it to 1 GB, Photoshop loves ram and it's not too pricey
Hard drive - as suggested by some others, look into 2 hard drives, one for scratch and one for main use
Mouse - Optical, maintenance and precision is generally better (mx300 by logitech seems to be one that comes to mind)

And i'm SURE there will be discounts for you purchasing for an educational institute

I'm actually just getting into photoshop myself and hoping to pick up a matrox card (or 9700 as i would want to keep my 3d speed )
Anyhow, good luck, someone correct me if i'm wrong on my recommendations

Abirinder...

 

[Gunnar]

WTF??!?!?!!

Mac BS? You arent me you freakin tool, I sat down with Windows XP and MacOSX, and I made the judgment call. I have never used Windows XP before, though I am quite familiar with Windows 2000, and you are not going to spew this sh!t that "XP is so great" and Im full of garbage. Maybe its your closed fvcking mind that needs readjustment. God, most people around here really are clueless about the mac and other platforms, MS has done a good job wiping most people slates clean.....

As to kids, they have no personal preference, all they know is what the media, and their teachers/parents have impressed upon them. Obviously the AT readers will teach their kids that Macs are the tools of Satan. I am sure if you are buying something for a school, Apple will cut you a tremendous deal. Contact their education store, or better yet get an account, the sales representative would love to put these things in children's hands.

Secondly, the network management of Windows is downright horrible. OKAY THIS IS MY OWN OPINION, but I have found it is lot easier to get the Macs working and talking with each other than the windows machines.

Thirdly, most kids, heck most people, will sit down and use a Mac more. The people at Apple did their work well, they know what appeals to people, and I guarantee the kids will at least try to learn it when they see it.

Finally, if money is the only objection, well then its a judgment call. If you arent confident that you can deploy a fleet of macs then dont do it. Also take into account that if these machines need to last, then the Pentium IV with its gazillion fans sucking in all sorts of dust need regular maintenance. Then again, the problem I used to have with the Macs was that people were always touching them, monitor and all, and that led to even more wear and tear.

As for photoshop, I think the students wouldnt mind waiting a second more.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Gunnar
WTF??!?!?!!

Mac BS? You arent me you freakin tool, I sat down with Windows XP and MacOSX, and I made the judgment call. I have never used Windows XP before, though I am quite familiar with Windows 2000, and you are not going to spew this sh!t that "XP is so great" and Im full of garbage. Maybe its your closed fvcking mind that needs readjustment. God, most people around here really are clueless about the mac and other platforms, MS has done a good job wiping most people slates clean.....

As to kids, they have no personal preference, all they know is what the media, and their teachers/parents have impressed upon them. Obviously the AT readers will teach their kids that Macs are the tools of Satan. I am sure if you are buying something for a school, Apple will cut you a tremendous deal. Contact their education store, or better yet get an account, the sales representative would love to put these things in children's hands.

Secondly, the network management of Windows is downright horrible. OKAY THIS IS MY OWN OPINION, but I have found it is lot easier to get the Macs working and talking with each other than the windows machines.

Thirdly, most kids, heck most people, will sit down and use a Mac more. The people at Apple did their work well, they know what appeals to people, and I guarantee the kids will at least try to learn it when they see it.

Finally, if money is the only objection, well then its a judgment call. If you arent confident that you can deploy a fleet of macs then dont do it. Also take into account that if these machines need to last, then the Pentium IV with its gazillion fans sucking in all sorts of dust need regular maintenance. Then again, the problem I used to have with the Macs was that people were always touching them, monitor and all, and that led to even more wear and tear.

As for photoshop, I think the students wouldnt mind waiting a second more.

LMFAO...your the tool spewing the same Mac BS (yes BS) like the idiots on the TV trying to mislead computers...Pull your head out and maybe you wouldn't have as many issues like us normal users!!! HaHA biatch.....


My 3 year old boy already knows how to move around the pc and thank god his private school runs pcs in their computer lab....I had to learn on the mac crap that I never ended up using in the real world...

And oh yes!!! In college where I was getting my degree in Architecture I wanted to take CADD classes but the frekkin moron professors wanted to students to run a mac system. The students who took it were so far behind and when they got out in the real world guess what!!! they don't use Mac at any of the architecture firms I have seen for autocadd....

So settle down jackass!!!! Just because you may be too stupid to run pc based programs don't tell ppl it will save them "from pulling out their hair". It isn't that difficult to a person with average intelligence....



Want to know why I got personal pee on!!! Cause you called me a freakin tool and all that from a 189 post member!!!!

 

[Hulk]

Originally posted by: Ilmater

Originally posted by: Hulk
Once you start the program, Photoshop for the Mac and PC are almost identical. But, as a teacher, the ON TASK TIME will be greater with a faster computer. Shouldn't we do ALL WE CAN to maximize our children's learning?

OK, fair enough. You win. Buy a PC. I just didn't know how much difference there was between the Mac version and the PC version. We can only hope that people will stop buying Macs altogether so that we can lower the learning curve.

I was only kidding, partly. Your comment does have merit.

 

[magomago]

Yeah, I was thiking the same thing about the g550....

But if he can spent that extra 300-400 why not a radeon97000 with dual moniter support




I would pick MAC just b/c it seems more junk is avalible to it in the multimedia suites...assuming price is no object

but if price was limited I'd pick pc

 

[OS]

I held a job two summers ago doing straight photoshop work. Inside of photoshop, it's pretty much the same in terms of interface and usability. This was between my win2k/dually box and the G4/OS9 I was using back then.

I'll say though that if you pick PCs, 2.8 GHz might be overkill, 2.4/533 would be almost as fast and it'd save you around 150 a box.

 

[Huma]

You say photoshop, but for what media? If you're doing print work (professional), then a mac can make a lot of sense due to color matching blah blah etc. If you're working for web, a PC is just as good in that particular area, and in some ways a little better.

As for the OS argument, I think the productivity argument for macs is BS. Whichever OS you are most comfortable with will give you the highest productivity. I can work much faster on my pc than my mac. Photoshop on PC also has some keyboard shortcuts that aren't available on the mac. A good friend of mine who is a designer was a mac loyalist until he had to do some work for one of the biggest game publishers in the world. They supplied him with a PC, so he had to cope. Once he got past the learning curve, he was blown away by how much faster he could work on the PC (it was a very nice PC too). He is very shortcut inclined, and was very technically oriented in PS. He's now asked me to build him a PC since he's learned he can work on one as well as play all the games he loves. His work was game interface and web based, so the mac benefits of PS were out (color matching etc).

But, the argument isn't that PCs are better. It's that the mac isn't necessarily the end all of photoshop. He found photoshop on a PC faster for his uses. But it comes down to whatever you are comfortable with. We have some designers at work having a lot of trouble and losing productivity from an OS 9 to OS X switch. Lack of ease with the interface can be more of a problem than benchmarks ever will. I don't buy stability arguments, since my Win2k boxes are "work all week" solid. OS X is quite solid, os 9 was pretty ass.

Hardware wise:
Video: Matrox G550. I work daily in photoshop for a living and the G550 is all you need. A radeon 9700 would be a huge waste of money unless you want to play games after your're done in photoshop.
Ram : 1gb+. If you plan on doing real photoshop work, get a real amount of ram. 1gb-2gb. whatever fits your budget.
Monitor: Dump the LCD and pick up a good aperature grille 19"-21". I'm a sony fan myself even though I own a samsung. Don't cheap out on this. LCDs aren't as accurate colorwise and cost a lot more as well. You'll want as much screen real estate as possible when working at 400%-800% zoom and have palletes in your way.
Harddrives: 2 of them. 2x60, or 2x80gb. whatever suits you. But two is nice. I like seagates myself. no need for raid though.

I prefer win2k to WinXP as my workstation OS. Simpler, and more stable. When I'm working, XP doesn't offer me anything I want other than an ugly interface.

pricewise, a PC can be much cheaper. Even if you get a mac, I'd get a CRT with it. Doing video or graphics work on a LCD is crap, though I'd prefer it for coding.

 

[CallTheFBI]

If you are going to be doing graphic design why are you buying systems that have gaming video cards? You need an industrial video card that is designed for graphic design that has lots of memory support.