Anyone running CS6?

[Eli727]

Hey everyone-

Looking to upgrade my wife's computer who runs a business with me. I upgraded myself to the Macbook Air last March (basic 13.3", 4gig memory, 128ssd) with an External 23" Apple Cinema display hooked up to it in my office.

We run a printing company - our graphics person has a top of the line iMac - my wife has currently been helping more with prepress/typesetting work, nothing with heavy graphics though, and wants to get a MacBook Pro....

Wondering if she would be fine to run CS6 on a new Air. Really trying to avoid dropping the bucks for the Pro. (I had run CS5.5 trial on my Air and it seemed fine but I dont edit files or anything)

I have been so happy with my Air, love everything about it, but for some reason she is resistant to it.

What do yall think? She would be ok to do light graphics work/typesetting on an Air with an external monitor? (PS- All our files are on a server so hard drive space is not an issue)

 

[AlanShutko]

CS6 runs great on a 2012 MBA. For light graphics work and typesetting, she'd probably be fine with an older MBA as well. A big bonus of the MBA is that it comes standard with the SSD, which is a big win in stuff like program startup. (For instance, Photoshop CS6 Extended starts in 4 seconds for me.)

The big advantages of the MBP are a higher quality display, greater expandability (for instance, higher max RAM) and a bigger drive. With an external monitor, the internal display does not matter as much.

One thing I just remembered is the MBP has a discrete GPU instead of the integrated Intel HD 4000 in the MBA. Photoshop does make use of the GPU for some effects. You might have some benefit in speed using the discrete GPU instead of the integrated one in some ways, though I have not run into a need for it. The discrete one is apparently used much more in the video apps in CS6, but it sounds like your wife doesn't need those.

 

[Eli727]

CS6 runs great on a 2012 MBA. For light graphics work and typesetting, she'd probably be fine with an older MBA as well. A big bonus of the MBA is that it comes standard with the SSD, which is a big win in stuff like program startup. (For instance, Photoshop CS6 Extended starts in 4 seconds for me.)

The big advantages of the MBP are a higher quality display, greater expandability (for instance, higher max RAM) and a bigger drive. With an external monitor, the internal display does not matter as much.

One thing I just remembered is the MBP has a discrete GPU instead of the integrated Intel HD 4000 in the MBA. Photoshop does make use of the GPU for some effects. You might have some benefit in speed using the discrete GPU instead of the integrated one in some ways, though I have not run into a need for it. The discrete one is apparently used much more in the video apps in CS6, but it sounds like your wife doesn't need those.

Thanks for the response.

We actually never use Photoshop unless a customer sends us a file in that format- typically we mainly just run InDesign and Illustrator - dont know if that makes any difference to you for your recommendation.

So if we I went with the MBA for her- 4 gigs or 8 gigs of memory? I know people on here always say "Oh you got to have 8 gigs and the biggest harddrive or life wont go on" but in all seriousness- will 4 gigs be enough?

Thinking about just buying 2 more MBA 13.3, 4gigs, 128- one for her and one for another person here who needs an upgrade. Can do 2 MBA for the same price as the Pro she wants!

 

[AlanShutko]

FWIW, I didn't have problems with a 2009 MBA with InDesign and Illustrator. I don't have any problems with those apps now.

Illustrator CS6 only uses the GPU for gaussian blurs. It works fine on the integrated GPU. I don't believe that InDesign uses the GPU at all.

I have 8GB in mine, but that's because I wanted to make sure it would suit my needs for a couple years or more. You are probably in a better position than me to evaluate how much memory she uses today. You would probably be OK either way.