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New Mac Convert; couple of basic questions...
CTUphoto
Registered Users Posts: 131 Major grins
I recently ditched my ~2 year old Windows PC that was taking like 15 minutes just to boot up for a 24-inch iMac -- this just days before Apple released the 27's to my dismay. All longing for a 27 aside, I couldn't be happier with my 24. Seriously....15 min boots to like 15 seconds....what's not to love!?! I also dig the look, feel, and "integratedness" of everything that is Apple.
So, I have a couple of basic questions to start (and maybe some follow-ups based on responses):
1 - I'm not kidding when I say it took my Windows PC 15 mins to boot up. I know to a degree, this was because of caches, etc, that had bogged my system down. How do I keep my iMac from getting "clogged up"? Is that as much of a concern with Macs? Is there software I should be using now to keep it running smooth?
2 - My 24 is a 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/4GB or RAM. Straight out of the box like that, is it going to be enough to run Photoshop and Aperture/LR? I bought this system as a replacement for my family's PC, but in the January timeframe I may grab an additional system for myself (oohhhh....the mighty-27!). Just curious if anyone else on a similarly equipped 24 is running PS/LR/Aperture with any sluggishness issues? If the 24 suffices, who knows?....maybe some sweet new glass instead (oohhhh....to finally own something brighter than 2.8!).
Anyway, would appreciate any thoughts on the above. Thanks!!
~jb
So, I have a couple of basic questions to start (and maybe some follow-ups based on responses):
1 - I'm not kidding when I say it took my Windows PC 15 mins to boot up. I know to a degree, this was because of caches, etc, that had bogged my system down. How do I keep my iMac from getting "clogged up"? Is that as much of a concern with Macs? Is there software I should be using now to keep it running smooth?
2 - My 24 is a 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/4GB or RAM. Straight out of the box like that, is it going to be enough to run Photoshop and Aperture/LR? I bought this system as a replacement for my family's PC, but in the January timeframe I may grab an additional system for myself (oohhhh....the mighty-27!). Just curious if anyone else on a similarly equipped 24 is running PS/LR/Aperture with any sluggishness issues? If the 24 suffices, who knows?....maybe some sweet new glass instead (oohhhh....to finally own something brighter than 2.8!).
Anyway, would appreciate any thoughts on the above. Thanks!!
~jb
Justin Benson
CTU Photography
CTU Photography
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15 minutes is absurd. Either your machine was defective or (more likely) infected with malware or bloatware that started at boot time. Macs are less prone to infection partly because of better design and partly because they are targeted less often by the bad guys. But they are not invulnerable, so just take simple precautions when Web surfing and never, never install a downloaded program from an untrusted source.
Your new machine should give you great performance with PS/LR. Enjoy.
15 minutes just sounds wrong, PC or Mac.
If you get interested, there are various Mac utilities that can clear caches, defragment disks, dump certain categories of files, reset various settings, but 95% of Mac users don't even know they exist (and are happy). The smart ones within the 5% of Mac users who do know about these utilities do not use them for maintenance, they use them only for troubleshooting. On the whole, you won't be needing to maintain it or re-image it once in a while.
In earlier versions of Mac OS X, there were certain practices that would help maintain the machine. Apple has progressively converted more and more of those into automatic routines. That's why it is almost no longer necessary to do things like defragment disks and run the launchd jobs, than it was 5 years ago. Still, OS X is not perfect, so don't let any Mac user claim that nothing will ever go wrong... If you notice anything funny, though, just ask here or on Apple's own discussion forums.
My two main Macs are 2 and 3 years old, and they boot up in about a minute each after I loaded them down with startup items and stuff.
Justin,
Check with your local Apple store or whomever you bough the computer from. Normally if you buy just a few days before a new model is announced, Apple will give you the new model.
As was stated, not really. There's no constant defragging, running of spyware utilities, etc.
As was also said, that does NOT mean Macs are invulnerable. However, with that said, I've run multiple Mac for many, many years and never experienced a virus, trojan or system compromise. Just be smart about it, and don't assume "it can't happen to me."
Yeah, that will run Photoshop / Lightroom fine. Apple is rumored to be nearing completion of the next version of Aperture, so personally, I'm going to wait and see what's up with that before deciding between Lightroom and Aperture. Lightroom currently is in the lead from a features standpoint, but we'll see if Apple leapfrogs them.
You will find more LR folks on here though, so that's something to keep in mind if you're looking for help.
Nikon D300, 18-135/3.5-5.6, 70-300/4.5-5.6, SB800
At the moment I'm an Aperture user and so far, so good. But it is harder to find help with it. It seems that the rest of the world are LR users.
27" ??? Yeah - I understand lust.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
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Picadilly, NB, Canada
Also, I think Photoshop and Lightroom work best with between 6-8GB of RAM, but if you aren't complaining, don't spend the money yet.
Thanks for all the words of advice, all. I truly appreciate it. My old PC definitely had something funky going on. I kept my AV up to date, and even tried a couple of different "clean-up" utilities, but nothing seemed to help. Anyway, those days are behind me. Sounds like I won't have to worry about as much of that kind of thing with the Mac.
I really appreciate all the feedback on Aperture too! That was actually another question I'd been researching on the forums was a general consensus on it. Seems like it's got a niche following. I'll keep my eyes out for any updates in the future as I still have some time before January when I'll be getting CS4, and either Aperture or LR.
Thanks again everyone for your awesome feedback!
~jb
CTU Photography
There certainly is a bigger pool of people who speak/train/promote Lightroom. I think in large part because Adobe has encouraged a larger ecosystem of people who make their living training on Adobe products (Photoshop in particular, which is horrifically obtuse for photo editing, to tell the truth).
Anyway, for general Q&A, I'd say a good place to get specific information about Aperture if you have questions is on Apple's Aperture forum:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1092
(As with most forums, nearly every question has been asked many times before, so sometimes a read of common FAQs is good first). For a book, you need look no further than the book Aperture 2 by Harrison, Luna, and Long.
Note that Aperture is very processor intensive and also makes high demand on the video card fro adequate performance, so a 27" iMac model containing the faster video card (and quad processor) would be an ideal choice IMHO.
My experience managing (currently) 46,000 images in Lightroom on a Mac (desktop), with 99.9% of photo manipulation also undertaken in LR, and after earlier switching from Aperture, is that processor speed and video card specification are not as significant issues for LR on a Mac. Adobe is also claiming that aspects of throughput performance with LR3 (currently in beta) is even further enhanced over LR2
On the other hand, it is widely rumoured that Aperture 2.0 was largely rewritten to deal with performance issues in 1.x, which is where my experience lies. Rumours are also gathering that Aperture 3.0 (maybe to be labelled Aperture X) is imminent, possibly to be released, or at least announced, as soon as later in November.
Yesterday spent several hours with my daughter in law trying to fix my other son's windows xp pc. All credit to xp, it kept trying to perform but was impossibly slow.
In the end we reformatted the hard disk and reinstalled xp and now it works well.
Strikes me that part of using any pc should be to use external drives to store or backup the important data, preferably in a "raw" form. Then reinstalling is much less of a hassle. Part of the problem with a pc is that you are never sure of the provenance of the software. Is is entirely illegal, partly legal, or (highly unlikely) totally legal. Even thinking about a reinstall is enough for you to waste several hours trying to find a workaround.
With Apple this seems much less of a hassle. For one thing there is less chance of a virus and bloatware. For another, you actually get proper copies of authentic original software so reinstalling is a breeze. Again, in the Apple world there seems to be much less of a market for dubious software - the basics are either bundled or it is affordable to buy a legit version. So reinstalling your apps should be ok too.
On Aperture, I personally see no reason to wait for a new version. It runs beautifully on my current 17in MacBook Pro (with 2 graphic processors) and I don't miss any features. The next version will doubtless be an improvement but probably does not run as well on my hardware. I'll take a close look before upgrading.
Actually, no. This is an example of the old "correlation does not equal causation" principle. The market for dubious software is smaller for several reasons, but not because of the bundled or affordable options.
First is simply that the market for Mac software in general is so much smaller. The supply of PC software is exponentially larger than that of Mac. The number of users are exponentially larger. This means there is more opportunity to pirate.
Second, Mac users have proven (by buying Macs) that they're willing to spend money - even to pay a premium - for what they want. This kind of user generally is less likely to steal software.
That leads to the third reason - "the PC repair guy." Everyone has a geek son/friend/cousin/neighbor/sons-friend that they call to help fix their PC when something goes wrong. This is the kind of guy who hangs out in IRC rooms and searches google for l33t warez.
So - though this whole thing is far more info that you wanted! - your conclusion is correct but not for the reasons you'd expect. Mac software (on the whole for quality apps) isn't cheaper or any more bundled than PC software. It's more about the kinds of people who use them.
I am Mac biased, but I still don't think this is accurate. More and more of the software I use is not received as discs, but downloaded from some site on the Internet. This is because some of the very best Mac software happens to be shareware/freeware utilities that truly save time and trouble even though they are too small to show up on the radar of the mass media. Granted, I usually only buy something after I've seen others review it and verify its value and safety, but I still sent credit card info to who knows who and downloaded it from some invisible distant source.
The bundled apps are nice first steps, but anybody serious has to go out and buy the above utilities or real apps like, say, Microsoft and Adobe apps, which are also expensive, bloated, and available on Windows, so not as much of a difference between platforms there.
If software for the Mac is of higher quality, it would be because of a smaller, tighter user community that would quickly spread word if an app is evil. Some also say that Mac users have higher standards for what is considered an acceptable user interface or level of features, meaning some of the really atrocious Visual Basic-looking apps one finds on Windows would never make it very far on the Mac. Although I have seen some pretty-looking but impossible to understand Cocoa apps, they tend to only be in obscure corners of the Mac shareware download sites. In fact if you want to see the full range and breadth of Mac software, don't go by what you see bundled or in some major retail catalog, instead plumb the depths of macupdate.com and versiontracker.com where all Mac freeware and shareware can be found. There are lots of apps in there with low 1- or 2-star reviews. On the other hand, those sites are also where you find some of the best and most useful cheap Mac apps like SuperDuper, Transmit, iStat Menus, Carbon Copy Cloner, ClamXav, DiskWarrior, Growl, Onyx, TinkerTool, etc.
Thanks for passing on the reference on Aperture. Unless I'm reading it wrong, my current graphics card falls outside the "minimum requirements" listed. I wouldn't have thought that possible given that my iMac was just shy of top-of-the-line when I bought it, and it handles everything else I've thrown at it with such ease.
I'm still considering Aperture, and I'm hoping that the newest version will be out before I make my upgrades in the Jan/Feb timeframe.
Thx.
~jb
CTU Photography
Thanks for the resource. I've been "plumbing its depths" all morning.
~jb
CTU Photography