Help me configure a Mac [Archive] - Large Format Photography Forum

Deliberate1

3-Jan-2008, 09:27

Friends, I would appreciate your thoughts on a new Mac that would handle large files processed in CS3. For years I have used a Dell box and CS2 for my medium format images scanned on Nikon 9000. Generally, I will scan at native resolution in 16 bit which makes a file of approximately 450megs. Would then make copy reduced to print size at 300 dpi (usually 23"x23"), cutting the file size in about half. Even with 3 megs of ram, the CS2 work is a bit slow, particularly with layers.
I recently purchased a Scitex scanner for my medium format images and newly acquired LF gear. Even if I scan the LF at 2000dpi it will make a 16 bit file large enough to gag the Dell. And since the Eversmart/Final Touch programs are Mac based, I will need a new Mac box. I would plan to put CS3 on it as well. So suggestions to configure a Mac that can handle what I assume would be working files of 1 gig or so? Finally, any of you out there using the newest Mac screens. They look beautiful, but I wonder about serious image editing on a glossy screen. Many thanks. David

Walter Calahan

3-Jan-2008, 09:47

Get a Quad-Mac Pro, with as much memory as you can afford. But don't buy the RAM memory from Apple. They'll rip you big time. Try OtherWorldComputing for extra RAM. http://www.otherworldcomputing.com/

Photoshop is written to take advantage of parallel processors, as well as loving as much RAM as it can soak up. CS3 should fly like a rocket on a new quad machine.

Other than that, there's not much to configure. Plug and play.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&mco=7B72365D&node=home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro

Walter Calahan

3-Jan-2008, 09:51

Oh, and about them glossy screens.

Are you young or old?

All my college students love the glossing screen. Me, being the old as dirt professor, hates glossy. Why? It reflects everything in the room, so unless you work in a cave, with a black curtain behind you, get the matte screen.

That said, the blacks on a glossy screen are beautiful and deep.

But I usually print on watercolor matte style paper, so blacks are never that rich in the final print compared to a glossy screen.

Deliberate1

3-Jan-2008, 11:02

Walter, thanks for your kind suggestions. My son (a computer guy at RIT) and I checked out the Mac Quads and configured a dream machine at $15k. Talk is cheap....I will put together something slightly less exotic. You are right about the cost of RAM upgrades from Apple - what a joke.
Your comments about the screen reflect my concerns, if you will. Eye candy for certain. I saw it at a Best Buy. Know what you mean about those blacks - but you can see the rest of world as well.
My age - I am an 18 years old stuck in a 51 year old body. Does that make me "young or old"?
David

Walter, by the way, elegant work you have. When I grow up I want to take pictures like that.

David Spivak-Focus Magazine

3-Jan-2008, 11:24

I've actually recently used Cruicial for my memory upgrades. http://www.crucial.com/. I've used other memory online stores and there are always problems here and there... with Crucial, everything is fast, efficient, convenient and I don't have to worry about them sending me the wrong kind of memory or a cheap immitation for my computer.

paulr

3-Jan-2008, 11:27

I work on an apple monitor all day doing print design/production, but don't much care for them for photography. If you have a big budget, the eizo monitors can't be beat. On a low budget, a used high end CRT might be best ... something with powerful calibration controls and a natural, smooth rendition of pixels. Sony Artisan and Lacie electron blue monitors are excellent if you get a good hardware calibration system along with them. They can be found in decent condition on craigslist and ebay all the time.

There might be some decent choices in LCDs that cost less that the eizos ... i'll let others with experience chime in.

J_Tardiff

3-Jan-2008, 11:47

Gordon Moat

3-Jan-2008, 12:17

You can check Ramseeker (http://www.ramseeker.com) for current prices on RAM through many different dealers. This can also you to find the best current prices. They have ways to check RAM prices for Apple or Windows based systems.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

Dave Moeller

8-Jan-2008, 07:31

And whatever you do--- don't buy anything before the 15th of January. The Mac Pros have not been updated in a long time (nearly 18 months) and are "due" for an upgrade.

The Mac World expo (mid-Jan) often brings new hardware, so I would definitely hold tight and see what is up.

Enjoy your Mac -- I switched a few years ago and haven't regretted it for a second.

JT

You needn't wait until the 15th. For reasons I can't explain, Apple's announcing the new Mac Pros right now. (Two quad core processors driving eight 30" Cinema displays, anyone?)

Rider

8-Jan-2008, 07:55

Any Macbook Pro announcements in sight?

I was thinking of a 15" book for the road.

AJSJones

8-Jan-2008, 09:20

Don't forget to get as fast a scratch hard disk as you can - even with a lot of RAM, working with files that size, with layers and history states, disk i/o will play quite a large role...

Here's (http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/01/08/mac.pro.jan.2008/)the Apple announcement

Jeffrey Sipress

8-Jan-2008, 10:06

David, you're killing yourself with those tremendous file sizes. I shoot and scan MF & LF and make prints up to 30". 450MB from a MF? Yikes, that's just overkill. I scan my 6x7's on the Minolta MultiPro and am fully satisfied with 200MB for color and 100MB for BW, both 16 bit. Sure, scanners can make them, but remember the phrase that always rings true, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should".

Oh, and buy the MacPro. You'll never look back at Windoze again.

Jim Bradley

8-Jan-2008, 13:01

I've been waiting for the new Mac Pro for a couple of months now.
Next question is if going "deep" on a system is one 30" monitor or two 23" monitors (price is about the same) or a mix of a color accurate monitor and a lower cost general lcd?
Thanks
JGB

Eric Brody

8-Jan-2008, 13:17

That's right, the new Mac Pro's are currently on the Apple website. My concern is operating my scanners, a Microtek 1800f with Silverfast and a Nikon 9000 with Nikon scan, and my printers, an Epson 3800 for photos and an Epson 1280 for documents with Leopard. I have read scattered reports of problems though have not researched it carefully. It would be a shame to get a shiny new $3,000 computer and have it not do what my three year old Dell does effortlessly.

Eric

drew.saunders

8-Jan-2008, 17:38

Any Macbook Pro announcements in sight?

I was thinking of a 15" book for the road.

Nope, but they're also due. MacRumors runs a great buying guide that shows how long it's been since a particular line has been updated, and the average time between updates, so you can decide if it's worth waiting a bit (like for the MBP) or not.

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

Drew

Rider

9-Jan-2008, 05:50

Before the latest upgrade, Apple used to have a page on their website where they recommended specific configurations for different applications (movies, graphics, sound, mathematics etc.).

Photography used to be at the bottom of that page, and generally required the least horsepower. If I recall, they recommended 4 Gig across the board, and at least 2 internall hard disks to make file I/O faster.

Rider

9-Jan-2008, 05:54

Joanna Carter

9-Jan-2008, 07:57

J_Tardiff

9-Jan-2008, 09:21

So now the only problem is that nobody, as yet, is offering DDR 800 memory, so it looks like I am going to have to order my Mac Pro with the included 2Gb and wait for OWT, etc to catch up :confused: ... unless anyone here knows different?

Joanna,

In my experience Crucial usually has compatible memory for new Apple Machines *very* soon after release. Their prices and quality are excellent.

JT

drew.saunders

9-Jan-2008, 14:28

My concern is operating my scanners, a Microtek 1800f with Silverfast and a Nikon 9000 with Nikon scan, and my printers, an Epson 3800 for photos and an Epson 1280 for documents with Leopard.
Eric

At least for the Nikon 9000, the answer is no for now. See Nikon's official spiel at:
http://support.nikontech.com/cgi-bin/nikonusa.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=14421

They're claiming it'll be out within 90 days of Leopard's release, I expect to see it on day 89 or so.

Drew

Doug Dolde

9-Jan-2008, 18:48

Memory:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/Mac-Pro-Memory

Stephen Best

10-Jan-2008, 05:56

Here's Apple's old recommendation for Photography. Based on this, you might want to save some money and get a single processor quad-core.

Recommended Mac Pro Photographer’s Workstation
Two 3.0GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors
4GB 667MHz DDR2 ECC FB-DIMM memory
ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card
One 250GB and two 500GB SATA 3Gb/s hard drives
16x SuperDrive

I just ordered a 2.8Ghz 8-core with 500GB ... should be here next week. I doubt this is any faster for Photoshop than the new 4-core, but the resale value of the 8-core will be higher. Add a couple of 74GB WD Raptors (one as boot disk, the other for Photoshop scratch) and 8GB of RAM (when available) and this should do me for a few years.

J_Tardiff

10-Jan-2008, 06:17

I just ordered a 2.8Ghz 8-core with 500GB ... should be here next week. I doubt this is any faster for Photoshop than the new 4-core, but the resale value of the 8-core will be higher. Add a couple of 74GB WD Raptors (one as boot disk, the other for Photoshop scratch) and 8GB of RAM (when available) and this should do me for a few years.

I use Raptors for boot and scratch as well -- it's a great arrangement. Too bad my Quad G5 is still doing the job for me ;) , it would be nice to move all of my machines to the Intel chips.

Then again, my fingers are crossed for a small and light notebook -- tons of business travel coming up and my MBP is overkill for these short trips.

JT

Rider

10-Jan-2008, 06:20

Do Raptors fit easily into the Mac's slots (no wiring and all)?

I use Raptors for boot and scratch as well -- it's a great arrangement. Too bad my Quad G5 is still doing the job for me ;) , it would be nice to move all of my machines to the Intel chips.

Then again, my fingers are crossed for a small and light notebook -- tons of business travel coming up and my MBP is overkill for these short trips.

JT

Stephen Best

10-Jan-2008, 06:26

Do Raptors fit easily into the Mac's slots (no wiring and all)?

They slot straight into my current Dual G5 so I'm presuming no problems with the new machines.

Rider

10-Jan-2008, 08:31

Interesting. Does it really give you a worthwhile boost versus, say, two 500 GB drives stitched in a RAID configuration?

They slot straight into my current Dual G5 so I'm presuming no problems with the new machines.

Stephen Best

10-Jan-2008, 14:12

Interesting. Does it really give you a worthwhile boost versus, say, two 500 GB drives stitched in a RAID configuration?

I haven't really tested the performance difference but the Raptors are Enterprise class disks and likely to be more reliable. It's not a good idea to put files you're going to hit a lot on larger disks (RAID or otherwise) due to the locality of reference. I store image files separately on an external RAID 0 box attached by Firewire 800. I could move this to RAID 4/5 but you still need a backup in case of fire, theft etc.

I don't pretend this is the fastest configuration and somebody tricking out the machine for video would likely have a different approach, or look at the hardware RAID and Serial Attached SCSI options. Because the new machines have 4 drive bays it's an easy and economical solution and you can add external drives for storage as required.

Rider

10-Jan-2008, 14:17

Thanks for that explanation Stephen. What does "locality of reference" refer to?

I haven't really tested the performance difference but the Raptors are Enterprise class disks and likely to be more reliable. It's not a good idea to put files you're going to hit a lot on larger disks (RAID or otherwise) due to the locality of reference. I store image files separately on an external RAID 0 box attached by Firewire 800. I could move this to RAID 4/5 but you still need a backup in case of fire, theft etc.

I don't pretend this is the fastest configuration and somebody tricking out the machine for video would likely have a different approach, or look at the hardware RAID and Serial Attached SCSI options. Because the new machines have 4 drive bays it's an easy and economical solution and you can add external drives for storage as required.

Stephen Best

10-Jan-2008, 14:35

Thanks for that explanation Stephen. What does "locality of reference" refer to?

It means the heads are near the data you're about to read (or write) which reduces (or eliminates) seek times. Moving between files or having contention for concurrent I/O due to two (or more) processes accessing the disk at the same time is a real performance drain. RAID helps more with transfer speed which is why I use it for large file storage (though you can get some advantage for seeks with RAID 1).

Joanna Carter

10-Jan-2008, 16:00

Well, I finally took the plunge and ordered my Mac Pro this afternoon. Except it isn't the latest version. I managed to get the following spec :

2 x 2.6GHz twin cpu
8GB memory
250GB HDD
nVidia 7300GT video

... all for about the same price as the "standard" new model.

I will then add a couple of 750GB disks bought from my regular trade supplier and use the software RAID included in OS X, with the 250GB as a scratch disk.

Oh, and I am looking to get a Samsung 24" widescreen monitor, just to complete the kit.

My reasoning? The memory prices for 800MHz memory are just a tad rich at the moment. And I really don't think my use of Photoshop will really push it too far.

Jack Flesher

10-Jan-2008, 20:26

I just ordered mine: I went with the 3.2's and basic 2G RAM and 500G drive, to which I'll add 8G aftermarket Apple-Qualified RAM purchased 3rd party ($400 for 4x2G paired sticks). For drives, I also went aftermarket, and got a 500G Seagate w/32MB buffer for scratch (had a little better I/O performance than the WD). Yes it's way overkill size for scratch, and I'm not even sure my machine will be hitting the scratch all that often with 10G RAM, but I'll partition off say 150G for scratch, then use the rest for data and back-up, maybe image the main OS drive to it. Next is one 500G WD for current or working images (WD a little better sustained read than the Seagate), and then the 4th slot will get an older 500G SATA I had laying around for Time Machine --- until I figure out how well TM works and what size disk I need for the depth of back-up I want, I'm not blowing money on a special drive for it. I then have two mirrored 1T WD green's in external E-Sata/FW800/400/USB2 boxes for image storage. I did not add the RAID card at this time because I don't like the increased vulnerability of RAID 0 in exchange for the performance gains, and I can use mirroring software to accomplish RAID 1.

Oh, I wanted the upgraded video card, but that involved a 4 WEEK delivery delay, so I went with the standard card for now. We'll see how it works and upgrade later if necessary. The machine should be in my hands next week.

Cheers,

Hening Bettermann

16-Apr-2008, 16:43

Stephen Best

16-Apr-2008, 17:43

Hi!

I, too, need a stationary Mac to handle scans from 6x9 (420 MB), and I, too, could take some advice.
In accordance with Rider's post, I think I can get away with a quad core. However:
1-Need it be a 3.2 GHz processor? My MacBook Pro has 667 MHz, and 2.8 GHz would be quadrupling the processor speed, after all.
2-There is a choice of 2 graphic cards, ATI Radeon and NVIDIA G-Force, the latter having 512 MB of video RAM vs. 256 on the ATI. Is it worth the price difference of 110 EUR? Will I see any difference, or feel any difference in speed?
3- How much RAM would be good without being waisted?

Good light - Hening.

I bought a Mac Pro 2.8GHz 8-core but in retrospect the 4-core would have done me just as well. The faster machines are slightly faster but not enough to justify the premium. The base ATI HD 2600 XT card is fine. 8GB should be plenty for 400MB files but more RAM never hurts. I'd also budget on adding 2 or 3 drives and striping them for Photoshop scratch and file storage (say 30GB on each allocated on the outer rim un-journalled for scratch and the remainder for files). File storage should be mirrored if you don't have continual backup.

So in order of decreasing Photoshop performance/dollar: RAM, disk, CPU, video.

paulr

16-Apr-2008, 18:36

macgurus.com has the best advice i've seen on configuring a fast photoshop machine (at different price points).

and ... i just learned a cool trick in cs3 for figuring out your scratch disk usage. open the "info" palette, and in the palette options turn on "efficiency" and "scratch size." watch these values when you work on your biggest files. if efficiency stays above 95% or so, you're barely using the scratch disk, so a faster one won't make any difference. If the number dips much below that, maximize your ram (i'm not sure what the maximum is that cs3 takes advantage of, but you can find out at the adobe site and at macgurus). if the number still dips low, then you can improve performance with a faster scratch.

the scratch size number just tells how much space on the scratch you're using. it will let you know if your scratch disk is big enough (it probably is).

gflanslo

16-Apr-2008, 22:57

I second or third or fourth the disk I/O bottleneck. If the quad core processors can't get the data to process what is the purpose. If you are running on Linux make sure to update your kernel to handle multiple CUPs...otherwise you should be covered. Sorry for the nerdy-ness.