this is my original question.... i have had my questions answered well but i would like more people who read my first question to give their opinions. I was surprised with the quick response and i am swaying towards a pc already because in fact that is what i wanted in the first place i just wanted to see wether anybody would advise me otherwise. If any more people out there think I should go for pc not mac in the field of digital image editing then post a response or mail me directly. I would be glad if more people who use macs and pcs proffesionally could mail me cause i will be shelling out a lot of money and i would like a professional opinion.

--------------------------

i have had my questions answered well but i would like more people who read my first question to give their opinions. I was surprised with the quick response and i am swaying towards a pc already because in fact that is what i wanted in the first place i just wanted to see wether anybody would advise me otherwise. If any more people out there think I should go for pc not mac in the field of digital image editing then post a response or mail me directly. I would be glad if more people who use macs and pcs proffesionally could mail me cause i will be shelling out a lot of money and i would like a professional opinion.

-- CHRIS TABISZ (SEIZURE@TALK21.COM), June 19, 2000

Answers

sorry about the repeat i pasted the wrong thing twice

-- CHRIS TABISZ (SEIZURE@TALK21.COM), June 19, 2000.

Chris, Go to http://www.adobe.com on the top nav bar click on support. Go down to user-to-user. This will get you to the adobe forums for their different software and here you will find the pros who will give you more opinions than you will care to read! There is a Photoshop forum for both MAC and PC. You will have to register one time in order to use the forums, but it will be well worth your time. I spend hours a week on it both at home and at work. On the MAC forum most users are going to recommend MAC. On the PC forum most users are going to tell you that it really doesn't matter, which is my feeling. I previously told you that I work across platforms and I do prefer the PC. The only thing I can do easier on the MAC is find the Big Electric Cat and make him burp, but most of you probably don't know about him! Go to the adobe forum and ask there--look from comments from Len Hewitt, Carole Steele, Bruce Quackenbush--These are people I respect highly and I value their opinions! There are others, but these come to mind right now. I will tell you that Carole is going to recommend that you build your own computer. I am seriously beginning to undertake this project, and, having learned much from the Adobe forums, I have a very good idea how to proceed. I look forward to seeing your posts on Adobe! Fred

Imaging Services

Marshall Space Flight Center

-- fred (fdeaton@hiwaay.net), June 19, 2000.

Chris, An addendum.

I did a web search on the Fuji Pictrostat and I could find no reference to it which relates to digital imaging in any way! Don't understand--please explain!

Fred

-- fred (fdeaton@hiwaay.net), June 19, 2000.

I have both a Mac with System 8.6 and a PC with Win 2000. I use the PC for various work-related stuff and like it a lot. However, whenever I want to fiddle with pictures, I switch to the Mac. I just find it much easier to deal with, although I admit I'm more familiar with it. I'm sure there must be good graphics shareware for the PC; I just haven't found it yet. For the Mac, I recommend GraphicConverter - it's great!

-- Paul (nospam@nospam.com), June 21, 2000.

Check out the site www.xlr8yourmac.com there is a test of the latest 1 ghz Athlon v G4 500 and the G4 came a very close second. All I know is that all my collegues who are in to photography and graphics in a serious way use the MAC.

-- ROBERT DUNFORD (robert.dunford@cableinet.co.uk), June 22, 2000.

Bwah, Ha, ha. Ho, he, he, Ho! Sorry... Phew, gotta catch my breath.

I'm going to sound like a PC fanatic, but I'm not. I cut my teeth on an Apple ][+ and still have a couple older Apples floating around the house.

Ok, now let's see if I got that right? A G4-500 vs. a P3-1K. Test conducted by a Mac upgrade site? With a PC with virtual memory turned on and a Mac with virtual memory turned off? The Mac has a 4X larger L2 cache ram? The PC costs almost exactly as large a percentage more than it outperfomed the Mac by?(about 18% more money & performance)

Now with all that in mind, this is supposed to point out the superiority of the Mac platform? Oh, come on. Disable the virtual memory, and install enough RAM in both machines and the PC will really dust the Mac for the cost. No contest! Then when you get bored, plop NT on the PC and see what happens?

Granted the clock speed is doubled on the PC, but that's merely a matter of internal architecture. When the Mac beats out a PC on a cost basis then you'll be talking... By the way, I'll bet you could buy that P3-1K for a whole lot less with a bit of shopping around. Kind of hard to do that with single supplier machines...

Just my $.02 folks. Skip the hate email and save a virtual $.33 worth of electrons. ;-)

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), June 22, 2000.

Every person I know (a large handful) doing professional graphics work or digital photography is mostly using a Mac. I'm not saying that the PC isn't possible, just the data from here.

I use the Mac for my work (mostly web development, but also other photo work). The reason I use it is not for the great performance of photoshop on the G4, but simply because it's possible for me to keep the computer up and running by myself. I've had no downtime and no data loss in years of serious work. My clients with PCs seem to have catastrophic meltdowns, driver problems, and other serious glitches that take them down for days. Again, that could happen to your Mac, and I suppose it's possible to keep a PC running without problems, but I haven't seen it much.

-- John Lehet (justme@well.com), June 22, 2000.

I agree with Mr. Payne to a point. The test between the G4-500 Mhz and the P3-1 Ghz was not exactly equal. I would have prefered that the virtual memory state of both machines were the same, either on or off. But I doubt if that would have made much difference because Photoshop does its own memory management so long as there was adequate swap space on the HDs (and given the size of the drives I will assume that to be true). True the Mac had a L2 cache that was 4x that of the P3, on the other hand the P3 cache ran at 1 Ghz while the Mac's was running at 250 Mhz a 4x advantage in the other direction. Also it should be noted that the P3 was using a much more potent graphics accelerator than the Mac.

As for cost advantage there are advantages and advantages. It is true that machines running Windows tend to have lower dollar cost than Macs of seemingly similar configurations. But the learning curve for such machines tend to be much steeper than Macs so you need to evaluate the value of your time and, frankly, your ability to learn how to use the system. Most studies in industry show that counting the learning curve that Macs "cost" 50% to 70% of what the Windows machines do.

Having said that I would say don't choose your machine on the basis of speed or capital cost. Take a look at all of the applications you will run or are likely to run. Are they all available on both platforms? If they are not your decision is made for you. If they are then consider whether you are a computer "geek" or not. WinTel machines require much more careful care and feeding than Macs. In addition to just the programs you use you will need at least a working knowledge of DOS or have access to someone who does for those "difficult" moments that all who use computers have. Also how much pleasure to you take in configuring your system or do you just want to plug an go, if the latter then a Mac is for you.

To give yau an example of what I mean. About a month ago the parish manager at the church I belong to had his Windows 98 machine crash and burn. He decided it was time for a new machine. He called his favored local WinTel consultant and decided to buy a new machine based on a Pentium III 500 Mhz processor, 256 Mb memory and a 20 Mb HD. At the same time I decided to replace my Power Mac 8500 with a new G4-500 (I am doing a lot of graphics for the parish). As fate would have it on a Thursday morning the consultant arrived at the church office at 8:00 AM with the new Pentium based PC and started the process of installing the software he was using (principally MS Office) and restoring the data he needed from backup tapes. At 10:30 the same morning FEDEX delivered my new G4. I had not only to install the software I was using (which goes far beyond Office) but had to install a SCSI card so I could access my scanners (film and flatbed) and CDRW drive and a Jaz drive so I could access my backup tapes. I also had to install a digital audio IO board so I could continue doing organ recordings digital from end ot end for the parish. To cut through a lot of fog I was up and running by noon. the parish managers machine was up and running at noon - on Friday. Compare my time of 1 and 1/2 hours with the consultants of 12 hours (billed at $90/hour).

Bottom line don't buy speed, buy ease. Buy what fits you, buy what you will be comfortable with. Both machines will do a great job, both machines have great merits but both machines are quite different in their personalities. For me its a Mac for you ???

-- Bill Cook (billc@wcook.com), June 23, 2000.

Well said Bill, I agree with you completely. I've been using Macs since the first model. I think people get so caught up in specs and numbers and forget the real importance-which is easier to use/learn to use. The state of pcs and macs these days, they're mostly compatible. There are a few problems here and there-file compatibility, disks, etc., for example-macs read pc disks(zip), but anytime I have to give a vendor who runs pc a disk, they always have problems reading them. There are some software packages available to solve this problem, but I haven't yet run into one who has this capability, unless they have both platforms. Also, something as simple as naming your files can cause problems. I have to shorten all my file names so that pc people can read them. Anyway, I'm getting away from the subject. Just take into consideration how much system information you're willing to learn, if you're sharing files with others (I would bet the majority of graphics professionals are on macs) and also as important-who do you have around you that can troubleshoot your system or do you care to do it yourself? Upgrading?-for the most part, a mac is a mac, is a mac. I've heard lots of incompatibility problems when adding things to pcs. Whether you get a mac or a pc, you'll have to do some to keep working. Just my little contribution to the question.

-- Ringo Santiago (ringos@asheragency.com), June 23, 2000.

Bill makes some very good points. I have two comments:

One: I wonder just how long it would have taken the same tech getting paid $90 an hour to set up a MAC under the same circumstances? ;-) You can't usually compare apples and oranges and I suspect the PC Tech probably had a lot more house cleaning to do with the old PC data if the user wasn't as well organized or much of a housekeeper as I suspect Bill is probably pretty good at periodically cleaning out the debris. Most advanced users are -it's a matter of keeping your sanity.

Two: A 4X's FASTER cache is in no way equivalent to 4X's larger cache. Cache is ultra high speed memory used as pre-fetch buffer in microprocessor systems so the most often needed data doesn't have to be accessed from 5-10X's or more slower system memory. Having more is often better than having faster alone. Off the top of my head, as a guess, I'd bet the PC would need 1/2 to 3/4 of what the Apple had to be equivalent even with the higher speed access. The other speed related point is the virtual memory, everyone knows that Windows is not the best memory manager in the world. In order to get real performance on a PC you need to install a LOT of ram and turn virtual memory off. The disk swapping is horrible.

All that said, I think others have made very fine points considering compatibility with other equipment that's used in the industry. I'd very carefully consider the issues of data exchange with other users, and equipment you may wish to use. Good luck whichever way you go. If it were me, and I didn't have a lot of vested experience with either platform, I'd find a GOOD friend who hs each and get them to walk me through doing a list of simple tasks you think you'll need to perform and see what you think about the way the machines work.

One last point. My PC runs 24/7/365 per. If I have 24 hours of downtime every three years or so, it's a lot! The most catastrophic failure to date was a power supply that died. I replaced it, rebooted and went on with my life! In fairness, I built this PC from the ground up and made sure it has an enormous heatsink with a lot of airflow through the case.

If you go with a MAC make sure it can support all the equipment you may wish to add to it. Buy a model that can be expanded. Too many people write into this forum and complain that they can't hook up a digicam or reader because they don't have the port or a slot to install another card. Make sure you can expand and Good Luck!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), June 23, 2000.

A brief conclusion -- Mac - elegance PC - lack of same

-- Thomas Muhlstein (tom.muhlstein@sympatico.ca), July 12, 2000.