Aspiring Photographer/ Digital Artist seeking advice

[Calihafan]

I haven't posted in a while, but with the advent of tiger and the saving of a little more money I am close to buying a Mac. Now, I have changed my original idea of getting a 12-inch PowerBook, because, while it is small, fast, and sleek, I prefer something bigger and have come to realize a desktop suits me better then a laptop anyway.

Now I like to work in Photoshop a lot. Its my hobby and I'm pretty serious about it. I don't want to buy a G5 tower because they are very expensive, though I get an academic discount on everything I buy. I'm leaning towards a 20-inch iMac. Now, I know if I fill it up with a full GB of RAM (as I planned to do with the PowerBook), then it will be faster then the PowerBook. After all, it does have a bigger hard drive, the same graphics card (for now, rumor sites seem to indicate an imminent upgrade), and most importantly a faster G5 chip. Someone correct me if I'm wrong in assuming the iMac is faster, because it seems that it would be faster.

So my question is this - if I were to buy the 20-inch iMac and outfit it with the GB of RAM, would it be fast enough to run Photoshop efficiently? And if so, what site can I get memory from, cheap? MemoryToGo is not an option because it reveals credit card information on non-encrypted pages. Kinda unsafe.

Please share your thoughts.

Oh and the Tiger release at Tyson's Corner was great!

 

[djbahdow01]

I haven't posted in a while, but with the advent of tiger and the saving of a little more money I am close to buying a Mac. Now, I have changed my original idea of getting a 12-inch PowerBook, because, while it is small, fast, and sleek, I prefer something bigger and have come to realize a desktop suits me better then a laptop anyway.

Now I like to work in Photoshop a lot. Its my hobby and I'm pretty serious about it. I don't want to buy a G5 tower because they are very expensive, though I get an academic discount on everything I buy. I'm leaning towards a 20-inch iMac. Now, I know if I fill it up with a full GB of RAM (as I planned to do with the PowerBook), then it will be faster then the PowerBook. After all, it does have a bigger hard drive, the same graphics card (for now, rumor sites seem to indicate an imminent upgrade), and most importantly a faster G5 chip. Someone correct me if I'm wrong in assuming the iMac is faster, because it seems that it would be faster.

So my question is this - if I were to buy the 20-inch iMac and outfit it with the GB of RAM, would it be fast enough to run Photoshop efficiently? And if so, what site can I get memory from, cheap? MemoryToGo is not an option because it reveals credit card information on non-encrypted pages. Kinda unsafe.

Please share your thoughts.

Oh and the Tiger release at Tyson's Corner was great!

The iMac, should work fine with Photoshop. Here at school our Mac lab is outfitted with the 20" iMac w/1.5GB ram. Ans it works flawlessly. Granted its not as quick as my Mac(check sig) but it is perfectly fine. For ram, check out ramseeker.com also if you would like to spend a little more check out crucial.com as i have had no problem with them.

 

[XNine]

You need to weigh a few things in here. Will you need a lot of storage space? Answer is: Probably yes, because photoshop files tend to be quite large. An internal expansion slot for another HD is not a bad idea, because firewire drives are so expensive.
Do you need to move this around? If yes, then a powerbook is the only way to go. IF no, then I suggest getting a POWERMAC.

1 GB of ram is more than enough for Photoshop. I ran photoshop on 512MB of RAM for almost 3 years (PS 7 and CS) on a 933 MHz processor with my Mac. Buy the end of the year I plan to have a new 17" powerbook, which I advise you save your money and get as well (if you need mobility). Superdrive, plus ultra-sexy screen, plus ultra-sexy laptop altogether.

 

[Artful Dodger]

The iMac should be fine for you and it's a great deal since you get the EDU price (I do also) and even if you start to do some light freelance in the future it will be plenty for you. The ram you may want to add a gig stick to give you a touch over a gig and it's really not that much more than 2 sticks of 512.
Either way you will be happy it's just a matter when you want to purchase a new Mac

 

[PCM]

Hey man, just finished a digital print...3x5 feet at 300dpi in photoshop with 30 layers...all done on my powerbook g4 1.33. Imac (or powerbook) will be fine.

HOwever, that didn't stop me from ordering a dual 2.5 g5 tonight...got a price that was just way to good to resist. Applying a heavy filter on the powerbook definitely includes some waiting time.

 

[Calihafan]

Onizuka -
My original idea was to get a PowerBook, because my friend and I are intensely interested in Photoshop, and he has a G5 tower at his house and I could cart my Mac over to work with him on some projects. But now I'm not so sure... its not really necessary. I don't have enough money for a 17-inch PowerBook (though God do I want one), and an iMac is a nice compromise. Also, the 20-inch iMac comes with 160 GB, and a revision is just around the corner, I hear, so it might be even more. Also, the discounted 2.0 ghz G5 tower costs 1800, while the 20-inch iMac I hope will cost like 1600-1700. Also, I don't have a display, and the iMac solves that problem.

I'm doing mainly hobbying, though it sounds lame. I like to work with the program and it may end up being my profession but for now I just like to use it. It certainly beats using it on a Windows 98 computer in the art room in my school (I'm in 8th grade) loaded with spyware. It sucks.

If I ever need the extra oomph of the PowerMac, I can trade up when I have a little more money - money is the big factor here. I had my eyes on the 12-inch PowerBook until I realized that for the price I could get an iMac which would run faster.

PCM - From where did you get this great price? Congrats on your new Powermac, sounds great.

Thanks everyone for your advice.

Calihafan

 

[Calihafan]

You know I'm looking at the PowerMac models and they look pretty shweet. I'm going to have to wait until they revise the iMacs to make my decision.

Thanks again.

Calihafan