iMac (& Software) Question

[kennylovrin]

I recently got the 27" inch, changed my mind in the last minute as I had initially decided on the 21".

It wasn't the screen size that did it mainly though as I was used to the older 24" which is quite floes in resolution as the 21.5" is.

The deciding factors for me was:

* Better graphics card (Aperture is hardware accelerated making use of the GPU)
* Possible to upgrade memory without ripping the whole machine apart (and also takes more total RAM)
* The fusion drive in the 27" is SSD + 7200rpm drive (21" is SSD + 5400rpm mech drive)
* Bigger screen (although, not the main factor)

However, I also record music, and you should know that currently there is a problem with imac running the Haswell processor configured with fusion drive and the audio interface. It produces pops and clicks, both with the internal and external interfaces, but worse with external. Rumor has it apple is working on a fix, but there has been no official statement since the machines were released...

The fix for now is to bypass the fusion drive software, either by booting off an external drive, or as i did, split the fusion drive into it's two parts, the SSD and the mechanical drive.

For me it is somewhat of a non-issue as I actually prefer to control my storage manually, and the fusion drive was just the easiest way to get a SSD main drive. But, I am not currently really running the configuration I have in fact paid for.

With regards to Lightroom and Aperture, everyone has their taste. I started with Aperture and have seriously tried to move to Lightroom twice because it has somewhat better noise handling. But all in all I can't stand Lightroom, I would even go as far as saying I think it is pure **** compared to Aperture, when you look at the whole experience.

When you look at details, something are better in one than the other. Lightroom might get updated more frequently than Aperture, but the library features of Aperture still blows Lightroom away without contest.

That is my personal opinion. 🙂

 

[Frank Petronio]

A Mac Mini with a separate monitor will give you more bang for the buck while also providing options if one of the components fails....

I'm on the Bridge/Photoshop CC team... I don't like image databases and rather manage files myself, plus Photoshop gives maximum control. I let LR sit on the hard drive after giving it a shot for 18 months, happy to retire it.

 

[icebear]

+1 for the Mac Mini. Got one for my wife, she's handling DVD's, ripping for various formats depending on where she's gonna view the movie, ipad or ipod. I upgraded RAM myself which is super easy on the mac mini. Getting max RAM directly form apple will cost you dearly. Just order minimum RAM (2gb) and get some 2x4gb or 2x 8gb from e.g. OWC.
The mac mini (with fusion drive) is sucking in and converting a full DVD in about 20 minutes, the old Windows machine took 1 1/2 hrs...
And you always stay flexible in regards of the display. Max out the machine first and go for an easy on the wallet display and later on get a big ass monitor of your choice.

 

[kennylovrin]

The mac mini is a good point made by multiple people. Personally I could also go that route given it had an SSD drive, but I just prefer the cleaner look of an iMac.

Also, the screen in the iMacs are very good, so getting a mac mini and an equivalent screen might not be much cheaper in that sense I would guess.

 

[Rob-F]

I'm very happy with my 21.5" iMac and Aperture. I got the iMac after getting tired of PCs (I've had three of them). I would not go back to a PC except for the office, where I still use one. I prefer Aperture to both Lightroom and PS Elements, though I still use the latter for perspective correction. I just find Aperture highly intuitive. I never used a 27" screen, so I can't really compare; but I do find the 21.5" plenty adequate and comfortable to use.

 

[2WK]

Regarding the Mac Mini, I was thinking of going this route until a mac guru friend told me the integrated graphics card just can't compare to an iMac.

 

[filmtwit]

Also

Mac Mini - 2 processors
iMac - 4 processors

Regarding the Mac Mini, I was thinking of going this route until a mac guru friend told me the integrated graphics card just can't compare to an iMac.

 

[Frank Petronio]

Regarding the Mac Mini, I was thinking of going this route until a mac guru friend told me the integrated graphics card just can't compare to an iMac.

Oh, good to know. Somehow my older obsolete Mini seems to work with multiple monitors and 500mb scans.

 

[Godfrey]

I have a current series Mac mini (i7-Quadcore, 2.6Ghz with boost), 16G RAM, 960Gbyte SSD for boot and apps, 1T rotating disk for data (both internal), connected to a Thunderbolt Display 27". I also have (for work) an iMac 27" with similar configuration (i5 instead of i7, 8 instead of 16G, no SSD).

I have both Lightroom 5.3 and Aperture 3.5 installed on both of them. The display quality when using Lightroom or Aperture is identical. You cannot not tell them apart if you tried. I also do full rez medium format scans, etc, can configure two displays simultaneously, etc etc. Works very nicely.

The mini system is great. I like having the system unit separate from the display as displays tend to last through two-three system unit turnovers easily ... If I felt I really needed a Mac Pro because I went into video editing, I could clone the mini's startup volume over to a Mac Pro, plug it into the display, and be up and running instantly with the same keyboard, mouse, and trackpad.

I know I can use an iMac 27" with Thundebolt as a dumb display and achieve the same thing, but why pay extra for that?

G

 

[--]

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.

Six months ago I bought a 27" iMac. It is the best thing I have ever done for my photography. LR runs smoothly. Heck, it can even run Sigma Photo Pro 😀

Xpanded

 

[2WK]

Oh, good to know. Somehow my older obsolete Mini seems to work with multiple monitors and 500mb scans.

Well, my 20" iMac from 2007 seems to handle an additional monitor and a 500mb scan is no big deal. Ideal? Not so much. 😀

Btw I really like you photos Frank!

 

[Frank Petronio]

Well, my 20" iMac from 2007 seems to handle an additional monitor and a 500mb scan is no big deal. Ideal? Not so much. 😀

Btw I really like you photos Frank!

Thanks!

But to your point, the video "upgrades" usually have nothing beneficial to Photoshop users as long as they're able to drive your monitors at their optimal resolution. And even the most anemic MacBook Air has enough video horsepower to do that. If you were a gamer or video person perhaps the enhanced video would be useful, but otherwise it's a bit of a marketing check box rather than a benefit worth paying extra for.

More processing speed and chip upgrades are always better and the iMac will always be a step ahead of the Mini but at more than double the price. I'm using a Mini i7 with 16 mb RAM from early 2012 and it is quite powerful yet also not very expensive. If you use a better quality non-Apple monitor then you can build a very useful and fast system for half to 2/3 the price of a similar iMac. And should a monitor fail or you want to swap out something, you're not loosing the entire machine.

Apple doesn't market the Mini very strongly so as not to damage iMac sales.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Oh, good to know. Somehow my older obsolete Mini seems to work with multiple monitors and 500mb scans.

It doesn't really, Frank. That's just an illusion brought on by your lack of sufficient alcohol.

:angel: 😉

 

[c.poulton]

Many thanks for all your comments and helpful advice. I have now on order an iMac 27" 16GB i7 3.5GHz with a 3TB fusion drive.

I'm probably going to buy Aperture as well as I've read some very good reviews so far. Hopefully this rig will keep me going for the next 5+ years as typically that's how long I usually wait between replacing computer hardware.

Now I am just "waiting on the mail...." 🙂

The 'fun bit' will now be trying to get my Plustek 7500i & Canon 8800F to work under the Mac OS - I don't know if I have the patience or the energy to try and get Silverfast to recognise or indeed be available for the Mac OS! I am going to give Vuescan a go first as everyone seems to rave about it.....

 

[Godfrey]

Many thanks for all your comments and helpful advice. I have now on order an iMac 27" 16GB i7 3.5GHz with a 3TB fusion drive.

I'm probably going to buy Aperture as well as I've read some very good reviews so far. Hopefully this rig will keep me going for the next 5+ years as typically that's how long I usually wait between replacing computer hardware.

Now I am just "waiting on the mail...." 🙂

The 'fun bit' will now be trying to get my Plustek 7500i & Canon 8800F to work under the Mac OS - I don't know if I have the patience or the energy to try and get Silverfast to recognise or indeed be available for the Mac OS! I am going to give Vuescan a go first as everyone seems to rave about it.....

Looks like Silverfast is available for both scanners on OS X. I don't use Silverfast and found their website a bit confusing, but I'm sure the information is there.

Vuescan supports using them both ... here's what Vuescan has to say about using them.

Canon 8800F:

You can use this scanner on Mac OS X and Linux without installing any other software.

Plustek 7500i:

You need to install a Plustek scanner driver to use this scanner on Windows and Mac OS X. You might also need to use the x32 version of VueScan with this scanner.

This scanner is supported on Mac OS X Lion and later if you first install the Plustek scanner drivers.

Should be easy. VueScan has a somewhat quirky interface, but once you learn how to get around it, it's very facile and has excellent scan algorithms. For those new to using it, these two books by Sascha Steinhoff and jump start your learning process quickly:

The VueScan Bible: Everything You Need to Know for Perfect Scanning
Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives

I bought them as Kindle editions for $10 each and keep them available on my iPad for reference.

G

 

[seakayaker1]

I use a IMac 24 and would not hesitate to upgrade to the 27 when the time comes. I have used Aperture in the past and it will meet your requirements that you described in your post. It is an excellent tool.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[willie_901]

If you install Silverfast first, they install the OS X drivers for you. Then Vuescan will run. I have not been able to get Vuescan to work with the Plustek 7600 without installing Silverfast first. On the other hand there's probably someone clever enough to install the Plustek drivers by themselves. As soon as Vuescan is installed I immediately delete Silverfast.

If you already use OS X and have working drivers, they may work as well if you just copy them into the appropriate folder.

Congratulations on your new purchase.

 

[cosmonaut]

I just upgraded to the 27" about two weeks ago and I come from years of a PC. I LOVE it. If you can do it I say go for it. I use LR5 and CS6 from creative cloud. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
My iMac is blinding fast. I had Aperture installed on mine when I ordered it but haven't really used it much.

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.

 

[f16sunshine]

As for scanning... I still keep an old Macbook pro running 10.5.8 so I can use Nikon Scan4.
I scan to an external and then import to Aperture on my Mavericks machine.

You may want consider similar if you are well accustomed to your scanners and drivers.
Save the files as tiffs and import them in to Aperture.

I'm sure there are plenty of us around here that have older dedicated scanning machines next to our scanners.

Cheers and Congrats.


edit.. PS Epson scan has updated for Mavericks and works great with the V700

 

[c.poulton]

Just an update:

I've finally got hold of a 27" i7 iMac, with 3TB fusion drive. The screen is absolutely gorgeous and a world away from my old laptop screen. I can now actually 'see' my images! (I'm kind of shocked though by how some of them are too 'soft' and out of focus which I never even realised before. Time to purchase a tripod perhaps?😉)

I also upgraded my software to Vuescan and Apple Aperture. Let me just say that I now realise just what I have been missing all these years struggling with Silverfast and ACDSee Pro.

Both of the new replacement programs are a great improvement, however Vuescan is a absolute revelation to me and I wish that I had tried it out much sooner than I had (...and of course I should have listened to you guys extolling its virtues long ago!)

I'm one very happy camper now who doesn't dread doing some scanning and post processing as I used to....

Many thanks for all your kind and helpful advice... 🙂