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Photographers on 5k iMacs?

C

colorspace

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 5, 2005
328
12
Just saw one for the first time today.... and I wish I knew out how to type that sound that Homer Simpson makes when he sees donuts :)

Been working on a lot of large (100MP or so) panoramic images and I can't wait to try one of these out. Have heard about some of the driver issues, but didn't seen any today, nor can I imagine that they would be much of an issue while working on old school 2D images.

Any photographers out there care to share their experiences?
 
colorspace said:
Just saw one for the first time today.... and I wish I knew out how to type that sound that Homer Simpson makes when he sees donuts :)

Been working on a lot of large (100MP or so) panoramic images and I can't wait to try one of these out. Have heard about some of the driver issues, but didn't seen any today, nor can I imagine that they would be much of an issue while working on old school 2D images.

Any photographers out there care to share their experiences?
Click to expand...
So far I've worked with photos in iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, and Pixelmator. The only program that I've found any issue with is Lightroom. It is a bit slow in the Develop module, and there is are problems with the crop tool. But everything works and photos look wonderful. The only problem is adjusting how you evaluate them. It's really different when you're looking at photos at full size and they're almost at 1:1.
 
Thanks!

So is the resolution good enough that you find yourself doing a lot less zoom in and out?


FredT2 said:
So far I've worked with photos in iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, and Pixelmator. The only program that I've found any issue with is Lightroom. It is a bit slow in the Develop module, and there is are problems with the crop tool. But everything works and photos look wonderful. The only problem is adjusting how you evaluate them. It's really different when you're looking at photos at full size and they're almost at 1:1.
Click to expand...
 
colorspace said:
Thanks!

So is the resolution good enough that you find yourself doing a lot less zoom in and out?
Click to expand...

I'd be more worried about the colour than the resolution on an iMac for serious photography. Check out NEC's 32" 4k display if you want a great panel for editing.
I have a Spectraview and an iMac and I know which panel is best for editing. Those new iMacs are still like a mirror.
 
Apple fanboy said:
I'd be more worried about the colour than the resolution on an iMac for serious photography. Check out NEC's 32" 4k display if you want a great panel for editing.
I have a Spectraview and an iMac and I know which panel is best for editing. Those new iMacs are still like a mirror.
Click to expand...

this is the same conclusion I am coming to as I use this 5K screen. i read another post where someone says the colours are warmer on the iMac and I would tend to agree.
 
Apple fanboy said:
I'd be more worried about the colour than the resolution on an iMac for serious photography. Check out NEC's 32" 4k display if you want a great panel for editing.
I have a Spectraview and an iMac and I know which panel is best for editing. Those new iMacs are still like a mirror.
Click to expand...
It all depends on your needs. I've used an NEC monitor for years, and side by side there's not that much difference. Sure, if you need absolute color accuracy a good NEC or Eizo are better, but you pay for that and may very well not that level of accuracy. I've seen a couple of reports of a slight green cast that can be corrected with calibration. I don't see that, but I may still calibrate it.

As for reflections, that depends on your work environment. If you have lights behind you, there may be some. The way mine is set up, I see no refections at all, zero.
 
FredT2 said:
It all depends on your needs. I've used an NEC monitor for years, and side by side there's not that much difference. Sure, if you need absolute color accuracy a good NEC or Eizo are better, but you pay for that and may very well not that level of accuracy. I've seen a couple of reports of a slight green cast that can be corrected with calibration. I don't see that, but I may still calibrate it.

As for reflections, that depends on your work environment. If you have lights behind you, there may be some. The way mine is set up, I see no refections at all, zero.
Click to expand...

I calibrate both my iMac and NEC Spectraview. The NEC gives a much better result.
 
If you're not printing a calibrated monitor is much less necessary. Most people viewing your images aren't going to be using calibrated displays. A lot of weddings that I've shot in recent years have just wanted all digital images.
 
kendrickhphoto said:
If you're not printing a calibrated monitor is much less necessary. Most people viewing your images aren't going to be using calibrated displays. A lot of weddings that I've shot in recent years have just wanted all digital images.
Click to expand...

The problem is if your monitor color drifts, you're investing many hours of photo editing based on wrong colors. It's true you never know what final customers will view your images on, but that's also true in video and TV production. Yet in those areas we are very careful to edit on calibrated monitors.
 
If you want a brutally honest assessment of the Retina iMac as a photography tool, check out macperformanceguide.com. He's a professional photographer that is mac oriented, and is very critical (in the sense of assessing) Apple. He returned his, but not without saying some positive things. He uses the NEC monitors and a Mac Pro tower as his primary work computer.

Link to his review.
 
For us regular mortal photographers on a budget.. I've seen the NEC monitors and they are great, but to be honest a couple of comments and questions:

1. The glare issue does not really bother me as I work in a room with controlled light.

2. I know color drift was an issue in the old days with CRTs -- I used to work with a bunch of guys that I joked had started to resemble cave crickets -- they would let their monitors warm up for 30 minutes before calibrating for the first time that day (one of many), use only specific temp bulbs in the dimly light office, etc -- is drift still really a significant problem on newer LCD/LED devices or is this a retro-concern?

3. When you say the iMac Cinema displays cannot be calibrated as well.. are we talking about calibration for an outside print shop or even for printing to your own devices?

----------

The writes ups I've seen parsing the NEC monitors in Adobe RGB color space usually do it based on driving them with a 10-bit video card, which apparently most (all?) Macs could not do (Didlloyd article:

10-bit color for OS X

The NEC PA302W and its siblings support 10-bit color (30 bit color), as do the video cards found in the Apple Mac Pro, but as of September 2013, Apple still does not supply 10-bit drivers. Shame on Apple for focusing on eye candy improvements with no meat and potatoes solid engineering— the photographic community has been waiting with four 3-4 years now.

When 10-bit color does arrive, the smoothness of tonal transitions and other subtle improvements should make the NEC displays even more lovely.


Is this still the case with iMacs, MPBs or even the new Mac Pro?
 
colorspace said:
For us regular mortal photographers on a budget.. I've seen the NEC monitors and they are great, but to be honest a couple of comments and questions:

1. The glare issue does not really bother me as I work in a room with controlled light.

2. I know color drift was an issue in the old days with CRTs -- I used to work with a bunch of guys that I joked had started to resemble cave crickets -- they would let their monitors warm up for 30 minutes before calibrating for the first time that day (one of many), use only specific temp bulbs in the dimly light office, etc -- is drift still really a significant problem on newer LCD/LED devices or is this a retro-concern?
Click to expand...
I can't comment about all types of monitors, but based upon my very limited experience I would guess it's not a big problem. I periodically recalibrate my NEC monitor, and I keep the old profiles. When I compare even my first profile with the most recent, I can't really see any difference.

3. When you say the iMac Cinema displays cannot be calibrated as well.. are we talking about calibration for an outside print shop or even for printing to your own devices?
Click to expand...
They can be calibrated, just not hardware calibration such as the NEC monitors.

The writes ups I've seen parsing the NEC monitors in Adobe RGB color space usually do it based on driving them with a 10-bit video card, which apparently most (all?) Macs could not do

Is this still the case with iMacs, MPBs or even the new Mac Pro?
Click to expand...
It's an OS thing. Apple hasn't (will they ever?) written 10-bit drivers. So no, even the Mac Pro works in 8-bit color.
 
So shy of the glossy screen (I can understand it's a turnoff for many), and since I pretty much work in sRGB space, and Mac OS X does not support 10-bit color... I'm not really seeing any reason why this would not make a really terrific machine for a large number of serious photographers -- but not really for those in the high end color accuracy spectrum.

Now all I have to do is sell some photos to justify buying one to my wife:)
 
Just playing with it again in the Richmond Apple store.. looking at more than 50% of a D800 RAW photo at almost full res is soo Sexy. Even with the Fl lights in here it still looks fantastic. I could see working on this -- AdobeRGB be damned :)
 
I'm only an amateur, but the riMac rocks photos. In answer to an earlier question, you DO spend less time zooming and peering in. LR is retina aware; it shows UI stuff at retina resolution the photos full on. But what surprised me is how I could cull and rate with smaller previews: more on screen, no zooming. Much faster.

Color with ANY Mac monitor is an issue, but as others noted it depends on what you do. Frankly I think the sharpness is more important; I'd get an external to use with the riMac that could be more precisely calibrated if necessary. You may have one already. The best of both worlds. Indeed, you might even be able to use a relatively lower priced smaller monitor with color calibration for just color tasks; depends on what you do.

And if you love graphics, especially type, well, oh my. Amazing.
 
robgendreau said:
Color with ANY Mac monitor is an issue, but as others noted it depends on what you do. Frankly I think the sharpness is more important; I'd get an external to use with the riMac that could be more precisely calibrated if necessary. You may have one already. The best of both worlds. Indeed, you might even be able to use a relatively lower priced smaller monitor with color calibration for just color tasks; depends on what you do.
Click to expand...
The well-off photographer will have the iMac plus a nice 4K monitor, such as the new NEC 32-inch, for color-critical work. :D
 
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