Mac vs. PC for image editing

[Overdrive]

Pardon my ignorance, but I have not kept up with the latest/greatest when it comes to computers and software. Surfing for answers makes my head spin due to all the trademarked names talked about that I have no idea what they are best at or capable of, or even if they would apply to my needs.

I have two main questions. 1) Mac or PC? 2) Which software?

Here's what I want to be able to do. I'm sure this can this be done on a laptop, but correct me if not.

--Scan medium format film, and then tweak the white balance, color balance, etc, and stitch 3 or 4 together for a panoramic image...then output this to a large professional printer (outsourced printing).

--Shoot DSLR images in RAW format and do the necessary processing, again stitching into a panoramic and outputting to a large print

--general image editing such as replacing a washed-out sky with blue sky and puffy clouds , or removing that pesky tourist that wandered into the shot


Question 1) I'm in the market for a laptop. I've never used a Mac, but the sales crew at Best Buy mentioned I should be using a Mac for my goals since "it just works better for that; that's what it was designed for." With the newest processors that are out for PC's--Intel Core i5 & i7, and 4GB Ram, and Intel Graphics Accelerator, will a Mac still be superior? I'm a little turned off by the much higher price of the Macbooks, but maybe it would be justified.

Question 2) Software. Everytime I read about image editing, it's Photoshop, photoshop, photoshop. Which is fine, I'm willing to buy it and learn it. But they have Lightroom, CS4, Elements, and maybe 10 others? I don't know which I should get. The Best Buy salesman remarked "if you have a Mac, you can probably get by with just using the standared Mac software", no Photoshop needed. True?

Penny for your thoughts. Thanks!

 

[Tucson T4R]

I'll let the Mac guys chime in with their input.

I use PC with Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom. I love the wide range of post processing controls you have working with RAW image files. I also use Photomatix when I want to play with HDR imaging.

This combo is working well for me although I am still on a pretty good learning curve that seems to never end. :Wow1:

Edit: If you have any students in your family Adobe offer significant student price discounts across their software line.

 

[Overdrive]

Thanks Brad.

I forgot to mention HDR imaging. That would be important to me.

So is Lightroom an add on to Photoshop (PS)? I was thinking it was a "light" version of PS. I guess I need a quick rundown of what the different PS pieces are. Any links?

 

[john101477]

Many will tell you that Mac is the way to go because of the virus issue. I happen to be one that disagrees but it really is a personal choice. I run a PC with win 7, dualquad core, and i run kaspersky for my security. Here are the nuts and bolts of it all. PC= upgradable in the future for a reasonable price, Mac= you have to go through mac and pay their price. unless you are buying a mac pro, most higher end PC's are faster and still cheaper by a long ways. When I bought mine best buy tried the same thing on me. I saved a few bucks and have a PC that will out perform a mac pro. I also have an external hard drive for backup as well as 3 internal hard drives for images and music.
software can be tricky, I started with PS elements and graduated to PS CS4, Lightroom is a whole other animal. great for going through many images and adding the same effect to a whole set, it can really get you done faster than even CS4. I shoot raw and edit and process multi files in raw. lightroom is still faster, just Cs4 has a LOT more tools.
Elements is a great starter program with many of the same tools and will get you prep'd for a possible upgrade down the road. the learning curve of CS4 is huge if your jumping strait to it.
Some people like aperture and a list of other software but I never did, just my opinion. It does some things well but there is a reason that 90% of ALL pro photogs use adobe software Vs. aperture or anything else.

 

[john101477]

Thanks Brad.

I forgot to mention HDR imaging. That would be important to me.

So is Lightroom an add on to Photoshop (PS)? I was thinking it was a "light" version of PS. I guess I need a quick rundown of what the different PS pieces are. Any links?

Lightroom stand alone program. Tuscan has the right idea IMO I do not do much in the HDR range, maybe 3-4 images a month. everything else gets put through CS4. if your into portraits- portrait professional is pretty cool as well

 

[Lost Canadian]

If you're going with a laptop the two biggest things you'll want to look for is one with a good monitior that can display most if not all of the the color gamut, and lots of RAM. A Macbook pro or one of Sony, Dell, or Lenovo's higher end models should get you there.

As for software Apple has Aperture for post work and while the approach Apple took is very nice in version's 1&2, both were slow, and no amount of hardware seemed to fix the issues. I don't know about Aperture 3 though, perhaps someone here who's tried it can comment. Then you have Lightroom, it's fast, works well for 85% of the things most people like to do, the only draw back is the interface is a little clunky and library features are a little lacking, but it does work. I wouldn't even worry about CS4 unless you're looking to do some seriously heavy pixel manipulation.

If you're doing film scans I would stay away from Aperture. I've scanned 120 film from my Holga and the files were in the 500+MB range. I'm pretty sure that is more than enough to cripple Aperture, at least V.1 and V.2.

 

[Tucson T4R]

Thanks Brad.

I forgot to mention HDR imaging. That would be important to me.

So is Lightroom an add on to Photoshop (PS)? I was thinking it was a "light" version of PS. I guess I need a quick rundown of what the different PS pieces are. Any links?

Lightroom and CS4 compliment each other but they are separate programs. I use Light room to process all my RAW image files and only go into CS4 if I need to get into masking or merging images. 90% of post processing time is spent in Lightroom.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

I also recently picked up a copy of Noiseware to help clean up some high ISO noisy images. So far I have been very impressed with the results.

I bought the Noiseware program after reading review in an HDR tutorial at http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/

 

[Tucson T4R]

If you decide you are interested in a Lenovo PC, I work for IBM and have a friends and family discount you can use. PM me for the details if you get interested in the Lenovo line of Laptops. I and my kids all are using Lenovo Laptops or Idea Pads and we all have been very happy with them.

It's not a major discount, maybe 10%-15% but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. :sombrero:

 

[Ryanmb21]

PC= upgradable in the future for a reasonable price, Mac= you have to go through mac and pay their price.

This is untrue, I just doubled my RAM from 2GB to 4GB for $100, it took 10 mins. Harddrive is the same process, can buy from many vendors.

I work with PC at work and I bought a macbook for my home computing. It's main task is to manage my growing library of images (~16,000). To do this I use the Aperture 3 ($200 which was just released) it is awesome for handling RAW images. I don't do HDR, but you can download a plugin for aperture 3. I think you download a plugin for panoramic as well (check this). I'm happy with Aperture 3, sure full fledged photoshop can do more but it is ~$600!

As for general mac/pc, aside from Mac's version of Microsoft Excel, which is called Numbers, I like Apple's version of every single other application better. My $1200 Macbook (non-pro) version outshines my company issued Thinkpad which I think was ~$1400 after they installed all the software necessary (virus/MS office/acrobat) to get it up and running.

Another note, relevant to keeping/managing photo's is backing them up. Mac's come with time machine, it backs up your computer and any attached external drives automatically onto another external HD. It's so simple, genius.

 

[smokymt]

Mac versus PC in my opinion is truly a preference. When it comes to price, especially in the laptops, the price is very similar for similarly equipped computers. Typically the Macs are already 'upgraded' in their stock form with fast processors, high end graphics cards, etc, etc. Whereas most PC's typically have more base processors, graphics cards, etc in the stock format, thus keeping the stock price low. That being said, if you upgrade a PC with the similar components to the Mac, then the price ends up about the same. I personally prefer to use Macs primarily for the interface and the intuitiveness of the entire OS. When compared head to head with a PC, I do feel that Macs are a little faster, but either one is plenty adequate is they have the proper hardware.

As for software, Photoshop is the way to go. iPhoto which comes standard on a Mac, can do all the things you are looking for except for piecing together multiple photos. Photoshop CS4 can definitely do all those things and more, and it is what I currently use. I also use it for graphic design and web design. Photoshop Lightroom is specifically design for professional photographers. I personally have never used it, but I have to imagine you could still do all the tasks that you mentioned. You can probably what some of the tutorials on adobe.com and find out. By the way, it is significantly less expensive than Photoshop CS4.

 

[Ryanmb21]

As for software Apple has Aperture for post work and while the approach Apple took is very nice in version's 1&2, both were slow, and no amount of hardware seemed to fix the issues. I don't know about Aperture 3 though, perhaps someone here who's tried it can comment. ...

I will admit by uses are pretty light, I shoot RAW and my results are usually pretty poor so a pretty small % are worthy of post processing. Aperture 3 was fast enough for me with 2GB of RAM. I had decided to upgrade to 4GB before I tried Aperture 3 because I was shocked the price was so low(`$100).

I would recommend you go to the apple store with a full memory card. They'll let you import and mess around with Aperture 3 (it's on the display machines) to see if you like it.

 

[Ryanmb21]

I forgot to add. You'll look a lot cooler at Starbucks with a Macbook. That fact is not disputable.

 

[haven]

Living in a household with both PCs and Macs, I can testify that the
Windows machines crash more often than our Macs do. For optimal
performance, I have to reload Windows and its PC applications every
6 months or so. I have never needed to reload Mac OS/X.

I have never experienced a virus problem on my Macs, despite the fact
that they don't run any anti-virus software. If I were to run my PCs
unprotected, they would be hopelessly infected within a week (curse
those email attachments!).

I do like the range of PC hardware options, particularly the netbooks.
Once netbook-style computers based on ARM processors and Google's
Android software (a version of Linux) appear, I'll probably switch to
one of them for my mobile computer.

 

[tibaal89]

This isn't at all relevant, but I thought it a hoot... I visited the Apple website to read about Aperture and saw this image

which was taken from essentially an identical spot as one I took of my FJ in Banff! :ylsmoke:

 

[john101477]

I have to say, I do not use a laptop. I only use a desktop so maybe when it comes to that mac may have it but I do know that i would never have a mac lap and a PC desk. My PC runs flawless with Win7, never a crash, with close to 80,000 images on 3 harddrives, CS4, 300 songs, and a few short films plus I back up to an external HD. Apple and Apple products are generally more expensive and that includes upgrades of simular components. If I was to complain about anything in my setup it would be my internet lol. 5gb cap per month? come on I use that in 15 days...
Anyways hope you get what works for you