About to purchase my first Mac. Please advise.

[sanking]

I will second the vote for VueScan.

It will work with just about any scanner you get, now or in the future, so there is no need to buy a separate copy for each different scanner. It is updated and improved just around once a month, and upgrades are free.

Mac or PC, just make sure you get 4 GB or RAM. Photoshop needs all the RAM it can get, and at present, that's all it can use.

If you go with Windows, try to stay away from Vista. It is more of memory hog than its predecessor, XP, which was more of a memory hog than Windows 2000, etc. Try to find an XP machine... if you can.

Many companies whose employees sit before PCs all day, have refused to upgrade to Vista, flat out... my employer included. And I'm a software engineer.

There are many reasons why fine arts and design professionals have stayed with Macs all these years. You might say that Macs are made by design professionals, for design professionals.

Good point about VueScan. Many LS-9000 users prefer this to any other software.

As for Macs versus PCs, I worked with both systems for years in my work so I have good knowledge of both platforms. In fact, I had to use PCs because of the networking environment at my university, and I still have a PC laptop. But if you give me the choice between a Mac platform and PC platform I will take MAC every day, even if I have to pay more for it. As Ken notes, there is a reason why fine arts and design professionals have stayed with Macs all these years, and it is not because they are stupid.

Sandy King

[Eric Brody]

I now use a PC for my CS3 work and am also seriously considering a Mac but have a really nice 24 inch Planar monitor so do not want an iMac and the MacPro is REALLY expensive when properly equipped. My concern is what to do if XP really does go away, as MS says it will, in June 2008. If it stays around, my next machine might be a PC, if Vista is the only option, then I may find it necessary to switch to the Mac.

I have a Nikon 9000 and have tested the Nikon scan software on both my own Macbook Pro with Tiger and on my daughter's Macbook with Leopard and it seems to work just fine.

I never did like Vuescan, though I own it. I have always found it to be too non-intuitive for me. I own and use Silverfast on my Microtek 1800f, and it works fine though it seems like overkill, though it is better than the Microtek scanwizard software.

If you're willing to use Nikonscan on your 9000, you'll have no problem with Leopard.

Good luck.

Eric

[Joanna Carter]

I now use a PC for my CS3 work and am also seriously considering a Mac but have a really nice 24 inch Planar monitor so do not want an iMac and the MacPro is REALLY expensive when properly equipped.

Eric, have you costed a Mac Pro with third party memory and disks instead of the Apple supplied option? It really cuts the costs and, provided the memory is "approved", you shouldn't have any problems. As for the monitor, I use a Samsung but you could presumably continue to use your Planar.

[Marko]

Eric, you can also connect your Planar to an iMac in addition to the built-in screen. The good thing about Macs is that you can calibrate and customize each display separately.

[Ken Lee]

Ken Rockwell has a nice two-page piece called Why Professionals Use Mac.

Here is a nice article on the PC World web site, entitled 18 Features Windows Should Have (but Doesn't). According to PC World: "Some of the coolest OS features are nowhere to be found in Windows XP or Vista. Here are 18 brilliant features that Microsoft should beg for, borrow, or steal--plus tips on how you can add many of them to your PC now."

It ends up that OS X already has most of those features.

[parasko]

Sounds like you're in for some real fun not to mention expense. From reading this thread it looks like you can't use Nikon 9000 software with Leopard, you'll have to buy Silverfast at a cost of about $700 if you want to keep using the 9000, which you say is very important. You also will need to get Adobe to step you through the switch of Photoshop from PC to Mac which Scott says is a pain in the butt, then you'll need an external RAID box set up to use RAID 1 mirroring single disk which you'll need to switch from its default RAID 0 (whatever that means) but you've been told it's easy to do (at least for someone who knows something about computers, which you say you don't).

LOL! The move to Mac is not looking as promising as I had anticipated! Macs are the 'standard' in the photography industry here in Australia so I thought it would be helpful for me to buy one as I was also going to use the system for potential paid work.

I have thought about buying a DELL desktop instead. I can definitely buy quite a powerful DELL unit for the same amount of money. Unfortunately though, I must buy a DELL monitor as part of their package and I don't know about the quality of their monitors.

Any ideas?

BTW, this thread has been very helpful to me so thanks to you all for your comments. Much appreciated!

[Scott Kathe]

You also will need to get Adobe to step you through the switch of Photoshop from PC to Mac which Scott says is a pain in the butt

I would say it was an inconvenience but not nearly as bad the 3 one hour conversations with Netgear tech service over 3 days to get our 3 PCs, 2 with wireless cards, up and running. I plugged my iMac in and the wireless took all of 2 minutes to set up. I like the iMac a lot and will go with another Mac when it is time to upgrade.

But it seems like the OP either has to wait for the software to be released or stick with a PC. It would be nice if we could spend a lot more time and effort on photography and less time worrying about platforms and software.

Scott

[Frank Petronio]

I advised you to stick to a PC, but I qualified it as a good quality PC. Compare the fit and finish between a Dell and Mac and you'll see you get what you pay for. And there is a reason why the more expensive brands of PCs cost more too.

You see plenty of people still using 5-year old Macs for productive work. You hardly ever see a 5-year old Dell except at the curb.

[Scott Kathe]

I have thought about buying a DELL desktop instead. I can definitely buy quite a powerful DELL unit for the same amount of money. Unfortunately though, I must buy a DELL monitor as part of their package and I don't know about the quality of their monitors.

Any ideas?

BTW, this thread has been very helpful to me so thanks to you all for your comments. Much appreciated!

My PC was made by Dell and I was pretty happy with it for quite a while. I don't know why you HAVE to buy a Dell monitor-you should be able to build a Dell computer to your specs without a monitor. I had a 17" flat screen (not flat panel) Dell monitor and was very happy with that too but it was 'old technology'.

Scott

[Maretzo]

Hi,

I would not recommend you shift to Mac, because it is a dead end. Nobody ever shifts back to PC....