iMac (& Software) Question

[c.poulton]

A little bit of advice is needed from you guys that are actually using the said hardware and software.....

I'm looking to upgrade my almost 5 year old HP laptop and have narrowed my choices down to the following:

- Apple iMac 21.5" or 27"
- Apple Aperture, ACDsee Pro 3 Mac, or Adobe Lightroom

Currently I use ACDsee Pro 7 and use it almost exclusively for minor levels adjustments, cropping, rotation & dust busting for scanned negs; a mix of 35mm, 645 & 6x6, pretty much all black and white.

Whilst my old laptop still works, it is very slow and really beginning to effect by productivity working within limited time constraints.

The two part question is:

A) is it worth spending my money on a larger display, 27", at the expense of the fastest processor, faster HD that I could afford to upgrade to with the 21.5" iMac,
B) which software would people recommend? I'm tempted by Aperture at the moment.

 

[Ansel]

a) Best bang for buck is to get the cheapest mac (21") with upgraded fusion drive and RAM.

b) Aperture rocks.

 

[Takkun]

I'm running an older quad-core i5, 21.5" that I picked up refurbished for practically nothing. It's plenty fast, and big, for my uses. Blew my old MBP out of the water. I also have a very old (circa 2000) Cinema Display that I plug in via about 3 different adapters when necessary, so that's an option to think about--I've even hooked it up to my 17" TV on the fly.

As for software- I was an early adopter of Lightroom because it was a lightweight piece of software early on, and ran just fine on my old 2x800MHz G4 (and still does). Picked up Aperture when I went to Intel, and have used the latest versions of both professionally (Aperture 3 for my own work, LR at the PR department I used to shoot for). I personally lean toward Aperture, because it has its own internal system of organizing photos (folders, projects, albums, etc), whereas LR uses the file hierarchy of Finder. I can keep all my files stored in the Aperture Library, much like iPhoto, or have them stored offline and referenced, and where they are stored has no effect on where they are in the software.
There's also the ability to make proof prints and books right in Aperture, if you like their options, or transfer files between iPhoto easily (since I keep snapshots there).
Before Aperture 3 I would have said Lightroom had the advantage because of the opportunity to use brushes and masks, but now they're mostly on par.

A graduate professor I have swears by Bridge and Photoshop, but he's working mostly with LF scans that the other software has a hard time handling.

 

[robert blu]

I think a larger monitor makes easy to navigate through your images and pallettes. I use a 7 years old i.mac 24 and find this size very useful. I adopted LR years ago when arrive on the market, I remember there was an exact reason to choose it against Aperture in that moment, but now I think they are both really good. Maybe you can download a free trial and see yourself which works better for you.
robert

 

[Darthfeeble]

I have the 27" and the wife the21.5. We take the wife's on our trips in the motorhome and I feel claustrophobic on it. Had I not gotten the 27, the 21 would have been just fine. All that said, if I had it to do over I would have stuck with my Dell and W7 and spent money on a monitor. The Dell is pretty recent however. Years ago Macs were vastly superior in graphics issues, now a days I don't think so. There is also the issue of upgrades across platforms, I know Adobe wouldn't do it when I got the iMac so I was forced to use PS Elements. Fortunately, it does all I want and if you download a trial of CS6, and then delete it, you can keep bridge separately. They install as two separate programs and Bridge won't quite functioning at the end of the trial period.

 

[Bill Clark]

I need to upgrade. But I'm cheap with a desire to max out the life of what I currently use. And I believe the capture stage is most important when making photographs. I must confess I'm 65 and I'm getting into retirement mode!

I think flash drive would be better than a scratch drive for a few reasons.

My Mac stuff is from 2006, OS Tiger 10.4.

I use CS4 with On One with my CS4.

When I upgrade this looks interesting:

http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite8/

My current hardware works just fine with the cr2 RAW files that's made with my Canon stuff works with my CS4.

The only challenges I'm having are with some web sites. However, the sites I frequent still work with what I use.

Hope this helps you.

 

[krötenblender]

I have an iMac 27'' and I would always go for the bigger display. When you work much with photos and software like Aperture or Lightroom, display can never be too big...

iMacs are not easy to upgrade, but external HDs are cheap, so that should not be a problem. Currently I have a 3 TB HD in my iMac and 8 TB over USB, which is plenty for many RAW collections. Another recommendation: Put as much RAM into the machine as possible. The effect is probably much more noticeable as a faster CPU.

The Software: I have Aperture and Lightroom and prefer Lightroom by far. But this seems to depend very much on personal preferences, and how you like the workflow. Others will tell you evenly qualified that they prefer Aperture. I think, you should test both. I remember that early versions of Aperture could be tested for some time before you had to download the full version. I think, since the AppStore, this is not possible anymore. With Lightroom you can still download a test version. So I recommend to do that and check, if its Workflow and feeling work for you.

Image quality wise... I don't know, I think it depends on the camera and such, people argue for both. Just test them. It is pretty hard and lossy, if you take one for some time and then change. Going away from Lightroom should be easier, since it's database format is known and some open source programs can import Lightroom hierarchies, I don't know, if this is possible for Aperture.

 

[filmtwit]

The current 21" you can't upgrade the memory. So if you buy one, buy it with as much memory as you can now.
Teh current 27" you can upgrade the memory later.

Lightroom vs Aperture: Used both, dropped Aperture 2 years ago as it was a huge memory pig and lightroom had more functions to it. Viva le Adobe

 

[f16sunshine]

Go for the 27".

Even The "slowest" processor is going to blow your mind after using the old HP. Unless you are doing some intensive work the i5 processor should be great. For editing photos RAM will be much more important.
Spend any extra money on an SSD and upgrading your RAM to 16gb or more.

I'm running a 1tb SSD with 16GB of RAM on a retina MBP. It's a rocket. If I did not need portability I would have a 27" iMac. Instead I use the 27" display with my Laptop when I'm at home.

FWIW
I just bought a 2008 24" iMac for my folks. After upgrading to Mavericks it's running as a new machine would.
I mention this for a reason. The iMac you buy today will likely be running great in 7-8 years.
Buy the machine you want to look at for the next half decade plus.

Thumbs up for Aperture3. It's a very intuitive editor and quite powerful as well. It's also only $90.

Cheers!

 

[fdarnell]

If you're getting a new one, get the 27 inch, since you can upgrade the RAM when the prices drop. The 21.5 has no user accessible slots. If you're going the refurb route (from Apple), there is only a $300 difference on the cheapest 27 vs the 21.5. That being said, I had a 27 inch and a 21.5 inch of the new models (sealed glass). The both screens are awesome especially with the AR coating. The 27 is lot to move around and I even hooked the 21.5 up to 2 Thunderbolt 27 inch displays at the same time, which was just too much info for me.

Alas, for me, the sealed screen was too much, since I always end up wanting to upgrade, so I've ended up with a 21.5 inch Core i5 Mid 2011. You can upgrade whatever you need (with care), and the DVD writer is helpful. Still has the Thunderbolt port and one pretty nice feature for photography - the SD card slot is on the side, not the back. I don't like turning the unit around all the time. Kind of a pain.

Aperture is great, do all the updates to Mavericks etc to get the latest Digital Camera RAW for camera compatibility and you will be good to go.

Most people fall in love with their iMacs and never part with them. My wife has a 2008 Core 2 Duo that's still nice to run and my little one has a 15 inch G4.

Edit: one last comment - I did extensive test with external drives on Thunderbolt vs USB 3 for a single drive (non-raid) set up and found there was not much difference in performance - it was drive limited. However, USB2 got USB3 is major. Since the Mid 2011 is USB2 and Thunderbolt, it's still going to be as fast as possible with external drive on the Thunderbolt port.

 

[35photo]

27" without a question..

 

[Fraser]

27" with lightroom, I have a 21" Imac and the thing I love about it is it runs as fast as it did when it was new 3 years ago. Its my 40th birthday soon and fingers crossed I should be a getting a macbook pro and that will replace my sony laptop (which I use for work) which currently I'm running photomechanic, CS4 and Fotostaion so when this new mac comes along I'm going to give the new Lightroom 5 a try instead of the three separate programs its only £100 so its worth a try.

 

[Ansel]

For those saying 27" I would point out that a 21" with fusion drive and max RAM will cost lest and performa lot faster. Yes the 27" has a bigger screeen but it comes at a hefty price and is going to be sluggish compared to a cheaper, maxed out 21". If you try both you will see.

RAM and HD speed are todays bottlenecks, not processor speed.

 

[GaryLH]

I run an older iMac w/ i5 dual core but it is a 3.6ghz. 8gb of ram. I also have a second 22 inch display. I like two displays better then one large one like the 27 iMac.

Having more cores is not always going to be as big of an improvement as U may think. Your sw has to be specifically designed to handle multiple cores. For example most but not all video editing sw has been redesigned to handle multiple cores.

Your biggest bang for the buck is going to be:
- putting as much RAM in your machine as u can afford. The more cores, the more RAM u may need.. My old rule of thumb was min was 4gb for a dual core. I am not sure what a good min. Is for a quad core, but I would think a lot depends on the type of work u plan to do.
-- video sw eats the most followed by an app like photoshop.
- a ssd HD or a fusion HD will provide the fastest initial boot and app performance

I am also one that prefers Aperture over other sw. I have adobe LR and ps as well, but I really only use them for certain things that Aperture does not provide.

If u are serious about your photo library, I would at min. Have an external HD as a backup source. I actually have two external HD. One for the photo lib and the other for the backup.

Good luck w/ your decision
Gary

Ps. I forgot to mention the new iMacs on paper run rings around my older one, but I am perfectly happy w/ it still. My biggest files come from the foveon raw files that are converted to tiff16. These are around 80mb files that I import into Aperture. Oh.. I forgot the multi stitch panoramic files done in Photoshop from these 80mb files. These can be anywhere from 140 to 400mb (I tend to do a 3 to 7 shot stitch and crop in ps).

 

[robert blu]

I agree with everyone who says to put in your machine so much RAM as possible: when I bough my i.mac (7 years ago) most people around me ask why 3G RAM which seemd in that time something enormous. But I'm still using it, with LR4 or CS3 processing my files from scans which are 100/110 MB ! Of course I do not process many files in the same time and do not go more than 3 or 4 levels. But as said i.mac can work for many yeasr and what seems to much to day in term of RAM could be normal in 4/5 years. Just my opinion!
robert

 

[2WK]

Right now I'm on dual 21" cinema displays, but I used the 27" at work for years.

I'm in the market as well. I would definitely jump on a new 27" for sure. But, I'm kinda waiting for this possible retina iMac to play out in 2014. I have bought a few macs in the past and the next week the great innovation comes out....but that is always the case with technology haha.

I went from aperture to Lightroom. I really like Lightroom now although it is running slow on my aging machine. I do all my finishing in Photoshop cc when necessary.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Have you considered an i7 Macbook plus an external screen? My wife and I both use i7s, hers connected to a 24" Acer and mine sharing a 24" Asus with my Core Duo MacBook.

We each had a 24" G5 iMac for several years but the added convenience of being able to use any external screen (or none) suits us both much better.

 

[NaChase]

I have the 27" iMac and I have to say it's amazing. I use Aperture exclusively for editing, and I have to say that you feel spoiled editing your photos on such a big bright screen.

 

[willie_901]

In agreement with many others,
1 27"
2 lots of memory
3 hybrid drive option
4 Lightroom

This will result in a very quick, flexible platform for photography.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

Some advice i was once given when in the market for a big screen plasma tv:
"The screen will begin to shrink days after you buy it." That was true for my 58" tv and just as true with the 27" iMac I bought in August.

I had been using an ancient 23" apple display for a long, long, time. The one with the clear bezel! Waiting for an update on the 30" which never came. I had an opportunity to update from my Mac Pro and thought the 27" would still represent an significant upgrade in screen real estate.

When I got it home, I kept remarking on how long it now took to get my cursor from one side to the other..... The screen felt huge. Within a week, it felt too small, and I was wondering why I was still having to shuffle around so many windows.

You adjust very quickly to what's in front of you.

Get the larger screen. It definitely makes you more productive even if your processor speed isn't from the latest chip. Unless all you're doing is isolated to a single processor-oriented task all day, you'll appreciate the screen more than a few megahertz.

I have no feeling on the software issue.

I do have the latest i7 chip with a big SSD drive. I like the SSD for reboots and opening apps but otherwise don't notice it. And I have an odd, unexpected problem in that small jpgs take quite a while to preview for some reason. Not sure if that's related to the SSD, though.