Photoshop CS2 Mac vs. Windows?

L84CABO · November 19, 2006

Hi Folks

I'm a PC user and have zero experience with a Mac. Can someone tell me some of the key benefits of using CS2 on a Mac vs. Windows? At least I assume there must be benefits as I hear that most professional illustrators, graphic designers, etc. use Macs over PC's.

Any insights you could give are greatly appreciated!

DavidTO · November 19, 2006

Right now new Macs require that PS run under emulation, as the Intel compatible version is not out yet, so for now it could be said that Windows has the edge. CS3 should be out early this coming year, and will solve that problem.

Much of it is personal preference. The interface on the Mac is much more human and intuitive for graphics people, as a rule. I think this is a good example of poor GUI design in Windows. Not that the Mac is perfect, it's just better, IMO.

Add to that the improved stability with OSX over XP, the lack of viruses or malware for OSX (in the wild), and the fact that MS is trying to catch up with so many OSX features with Vista, which will be a beast of an upgrade for XP users. I don't envy them. (The OSX upgrade path had problems, too, and the gradual pace of the transition helped immensely.) I imagine that many XP users won't even upgrade to Vista. We'll see.

But as far as PS goes: it's the same program on both platforms, so there's no real difference as far as that goes, that I know of.

wxwax · November 20, 2006

Right, David's describing why some folks prefer Macs to Winders. Photoshop itself looks and feels almost identical on both platforms.

Sometime in March or early April, CS3 will come out. It will be opimized for the Intel Macs. I plan to buy a Mac desktop around then, and take advantage of what I think will be pretty darn good PS performance on a Mac.

System · November 21, 2006

That issues is only for the new intel based Macs, for those of us stuck in the dark ages running power macs CS2 runs native in OSX.

Richard · November 21, 2006

truth wrote:

That issues is only for the new intel based Macs, for those of us stuck in the dark ages running power macs CS2 runs native in OSX.

Right. That could become an issue for you guys when CS3 comes out if there is no Power PC chip version--or more likely, if the PPC version simply sucks compared to the Intel version. That happened to me long ago when I bought a 6800x based Mac just before Apple announced they were switching to the Power PC architecture. I was not very happy that new software offerings dried up in a hurry. It does give you an excuse to buy a shiny new machine, though.

AntoineD · November 21, 2006

rsinmadrid wrote:

It does give you an excuse to buy a shiny new machine, though.

…but the issue is it doesn't give you the money to do it

DavidTO · November 21, 2006

rsinmadrid wrote:

Right. That could become an issue for you guys when CS3 comes out if there is no Power PC chip version--or more likely, if the PPC version simply sucks compared to the Intel version.

It's going to be Universal. There'll be no suckage for PPC machines. Now, CS4, in another 2 year, that might be a different story....

DoctorIt · November 21, 2006

L84CABO wrote:

At least I assume there must be benefits as I hear that most professional illustrators, graphic designers, etc. use Macs over PC's.

David mentioned all the OS/software points... but this "myth" also has some legs based on the color handling issues of the past. I'm no expert on this, but know from my own calibration issues, that is was easier to do on my Mac at home.

marlinspike · November 21, 2006

DoctorIt wrote:

David mentioned all the OS/software points... but this "myth" also has some legs based on the color handling issues of the past. I'm no expert on this, but know from my own calibration issues, that is was easier to do on my Mac at home.

Don't macs have the issue of the various internet browsers don't all use the same way to look at colors?

DoctorIt · November 21, 2006

marlinspike wrote:

Don't macs have the issue of the various internet browsers don't all use the same way to look at colors?

Sure, that's a browser issue, because they can't interpret a colorspace. I don't know the details on this. But, no one processes in a browser.

I was referring to something more simple, like for example, Windows doesn't have a built-in calibration tool (software and eye-based). MacOS does, that was my point, that the OS at least cares/has provisions for good color. And to preempt you, sure, Win lets you load color profiles, but you need some sort of tool or source for them. There's no quick and dirty method Joe average can do by looking at some patterns and colors and moving a few sliders.

AntoineD · November 21, 2006

marlinspike wrote:

Don't macs have the issue of the various internet browsers don't all use the same way to look at colors?

Well, they don't, at least on my own mac

DavidTO · November 21, 2006

DoctorIt wrote:

Sure, that's a browser issue, because they can't interpret a colorspace. I don't know the details on this. But, no one processes in a browser.

The problem is that Safari is reading the colorspace. Read about it here. Firefox is a great workaround for that issue. Which, BTW, never bothers me. Andy yells at me all the time for it, but I don't have an issue with Safari's color.

DoctorIt · November 21, 2006

AntoineD wrote:

Well, they don't, at least on my own mac

Yes they do. You just haven't looked at all of them yet. I wish I could find the thread on it somewhere... I'm sure Andy and DavidTO remember the details. Don't make this a mac v. PC OS thing, its simply a fault in the browser colorspace handling. If I recall, one of them simply forces its own colorspace on all images... I think.

DavidTO · November 21, 2006

The most important way to mitigate the whole things is to set your display gamma to the PC standard, 2.2 instead of the Mac standard, 1.8. This offsets a lot of the problem that Baldy is talking about in the article linked in my last post.

claudermilk · November 21, 2006

To be blunt, there is no advantage of one over the other any more. Macs gained a lot of traction in the creative fields back when they did have a significant advantage and inertia & familiarity are the main reasons for staying with them.

It's more of personal preference in which OS you like better than anything else (seems even my cost argument is slowly finally going away).

ivar · November 21, 2006

I have fairly recently made the change from pc to mac (actually I have both, but I rarely use the pc anymore) and changing to CS2 mac from CS2 pc took about 10 seconds to get used to

AntoineD · November 21, 2006

DoctorIt wrote:

Yes they do. You just haven't looked at all of them yet. I wish I could find the thread on it somewhere... I'm sure Andy and DavidTO remember the details. Don't make this a mac v. PC OS thing,

I don't…

DoctorIt wrote:

its simply a fault in the browser colorspace handling. If I recall, one of them simply forces its own colorspace on all images... I think.

…but I never really saw an issue about it, between safari & Firefox.

Plus, said you (or someone), no one processes any image on a browser, and a well-processed picture for a web usage never shift much. At least, as far as I know

L84CABO · November 21, 2006

Thanks for all the great replies so far!

Note that I've been told that writing scripts in CS2 is much easier on a Mac compared to a PC. Anyone have any experience with this?

DavidTO · November 21, 2006

L84CABO wrote:

Thanks for all the great replies so far!

Note that I've been told that writing scripts in CS2 is much easier on a Mac compared to a PC. Anyone have any experience with this?

Not sure about that. It could be that AppleScript and Automator are part of the difference?

Richard · November 21, 2006

L84CABO wrote:

Thanks for all the great replies so far!

Note that I've been told that writing scripts in CS2 is much easier on a Mac compared to a PC. Anyone have any experience with this?

I would think it's a tossup. You can use VB and a number of other tools on Windows, Applescript on Mac and JavaScript on both. Personally, I have never needed to go beyond the macro capability of actions. I'm guessing that anyone who needs more than that would have no problem on either platform.

Photoshop CS2 Mac vs. Windows?

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