Best Platform for Photoshop – MAC or PC?

J
Posted By
johnastovall
Dec 11, 2004
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927
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7
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Closed
I’m considering getting a dedicated system for Photoshop (I currently run it on my general use PC ,win2k) and have been told I should consider the MAC rather than a wintel platform.

What have you all found?

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A
Azarok
Dec 11, 2004
I have used PhotoShop on both platforms and there’s no distinct advantage in either system. Without going into the whole "Mac vs. PC" debate, if you are already familiar with Windows then I see no reason to go out and buy a Mac.

If you were brand new to computers then we could way the options of either system. The other thing you should consider is Adobe has slowly been halting development of their software on the Apple platform. This is because Apple has taken to developing their own custom programs which directly compete with Adobe. No one knows if this will one day include PhotoShop, but the rumormill certainly has been busy.
J
jjs
Dec 11, 2004
I use both (dual processor Gateway WindoZe XP sp2) and an Apple G5 dual processor – both the most RAM each will take, and two drives (two spindles) each and the specific advantage to the Mac is the color management (and the georgeous, huge monitor – and moving up to the 30" will be heaven.) The downside (if it matters) is expense of the G5.
K
Kris
Dec 11, 2004
This question can really come down to which OS you like better. The new spotlight search in Tiger (the upcoming new OS from Mac) has search images by CMYK or RGB. That sounds really nice for you out there who often can’t remember where you put that file from last month. Also for other reasons tiger seems really nice:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/

Also it depends on what type of font-library you already have. If you’ve been using pc you can switch over to Mac and bring your fonts with you. If you’ve been using mac, you won’t necessarily be able to take your fonts to PC, easily.

But for me it would come down to money. I like building/upgrading my systems and cheap PC parts are very very easy to find. I would go with PC. If you like buying a system that’s already diesel and don’t feel like worrying about price than you go wait for a couple of months and go for the new G5 with DUAL 30" monitors like the one apple showed in their 2004 Paris expo, yes I said dual 30 inchers.

But who would actually need such a power house of a machine to be dedicated to Photoshop alone? …me that’s who.
WO
Wizard of Draws
Dec 11, 2004
On 12/11/04 11:37 AM, in article , "jjs"
wrote:

I use both (dual processor Gateway WindoZe XP sp2) and an Apple G5 dual processor – both the most RAM each will take, and two drives (two spindles) each and the specific advantage to the Mac is the color management (and the georgeous, huge monitor – and moving up to the 30" will be heaven.) The downside (if it matters) is expense of the G5.

I have the 23" and it’s very cool. I don’t think I’d want the 30" though. 23" seems to be just enough since I can have two windows/apps open side by side with room to spare.
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T
tacitr
Dec 11, 2004
The other thing you should consider is Adobe has slowly
been halting development of their software on the Apple platform.

This is absolutely, positively incorrect. I’d dearly love to know where you saw this piece of misinformation.

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John McWilliams
Dec 11, 2004
Kris wrote:

This question can really come down to which OS you like better. The new spotlight search in Tiger (the upcoming new OS from Mac) has search images by CMYK or RGB. That sounds really nice for you out there who often can’t remember where you put that file from last month. Also for other reasons tiger seems really nice:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/

Also it depends on what type of font-library you already have. If you’ve been using pc you can switch over to Mac and bring your fonts with you. If you’ve been using mac, you won’t necessarily be able to take your fonts to PC, easily.

But for me it would come down to money. I like building/upgrading my systems and cheap PC parts are very very easy to find. I would go with PC. If you like buying a system that’s already diesel and don’t feel like worrying about price than you go wait for a couple of months and go for the new G5 with DUAL 30" monitors like the one apple showed in their 2004 Paris expo, yes I said dual 30 inchers.

But who would actually need such a power house of a machine to be dedicated to Photoshop alone? …me that’s who.
While money is some object with me, it’s been Mac all along. Well worth the extra bucks for self-maintanence, and a reasonable understanding how to fix things if they go wrong. (That’s more applicable to older Mac systems and machines.)

To save money, go with two monitors, a CRT of say 19" and an LCD of equal size….the G-5 will drive them both natively.

And, as pointed out in the photo forum in which you posted, it is Mac, short for Macintosh, as MAC has another meaning entirely.

—

John McWilliams
C
cb
Dec 15, 2004
If it makes a difference in considering a Mac: Adobe will ship you a Mac version of PS for free (just shipping cost) if you change platforms. Of course you would have to destroy your PS for Windoze CD and remove PS software from your PC. (I’ve heard this policy varies country-to-country; contact Adobe Support for details.)

This is only applies to current version (PS 8.0). If you have an earlier version, you would just pay normal upgrade costs.

I would recommend going to Mac; the most recent version of OS-X, Apple’s UNIX based OS (Panther 10.3), has finally gotten the bugs worked out. It is stable and fast. And the interface is elegant. I run PSCS (8.0) on my G5. No problems at all. They play well together.

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