I want to buy & use Minolta Dimage Multi Scanner to scan 35mm slides and 6X9 negatives. I own a graphite iMac DV which is not compatible (no way to install scsi). Also own an OLD Apple (Power MacIntosh 7200/75) with Scsi, but very little memory (40mg RAM). If I upgrade the memory (and if I can), how much do I need? I have Photoshop 5.5 on my iMac, and can also install it in the older machine, I hope, with increased memory. What, precisely, do I need to do? I considered buying a new G4, but this is WAY too expensive for me at this time.

-- Christie Smith (cbs@mint.net), July 13, 2000

Answers

Christie, Current recommendation for running Photoshop 5.5 is 5 to 7 times RAM as the file size you are working on. If you normally work on 10 meg files then 5.5 works most efficiently with 50 to 70 megs of ram. If you are doing any sort of intensive graphics work then I would consider 256 megs of RAM to be the absolute minimum. I presently run three older 8500s each with about 192 megs of ram and a G3 with about the same. The G3 vastly outperforms the others. I am in the process of ordering 2 G4s with 1gig of ram in each. The one constant when working with Photoshop is you can never have too much RAM! I will often have Photoshop open with both Illustrator and Imageready--All Ram Hogs, but Photoshop especially. I wouldn't be surprised if G4 prices don't start dropping soon--I understand that Apple is supposed to be making a major announcement in the next few days, but I have not seen any leaks on it. One leak that has occured is that Adobe is Beta testing Photoshop 6.x, and there are going to be some major changes in the program. Stay close if you have any questions, or if I may be of help in any other way.

Fred

-- fred (fdeaton@hiwaay.net), July 13, 2000.