Photoshop on a MacBook

[Andrew D.]

So for all you people that are into Photoshop I was wondering who runs it on a regular MacBook? How does it perform and is the glossy screen a problem while doing some tasks. I know I can probably sit and work on Photoshop for hours on end. Thanks in advance!

 

[72930]

Its all right, not brilliant 🙂 You need a lot of RAM though...

 

[PDE]

Its all right, not brilliant 🙂 You need a lot of RAM though...

Once the universal version is out, it will be brilliant. The current version is ok....

 

[Blue Velvet]

Once the universal version is out, it will be brilliant. The current version is ok....

It's been out for a few weeks now. Some people on this forum are already using CS3. 😉

 

[Lovesong]

There is no reason to believe that PS will perform better on a MBP than a MB. This topic has really been beaten to a pulp over the past week or so. No, a dedicated GPU will not perform better in 2-D applications such as photoshop. Yes, you will need at least a gig of RAM to make the experience enjoyable, but holds true for a MacPro as much as a MacBook.

 

[koobcamuk]

It's been out for a few weeks now. Some people on this forum are already using CS3. 😉

I am - it's so much quicker.

I have PS and Illustrator both open with ease and exchange photos via Adobe Bridge effortlessly.

Fantastic. Amazing when apps go universal... just MS office now...

 

[EvryDayImShufln]

I can also testify that the CS3 ownz CS2 in terms of running speed, it takes alot less time to boot into and it doesn't heat up your mac like CS2 did.

 

[quigleybc]

me too

PS CS3 is the goods

super fast, makes CS2 (even on my PPC desktop) seem sluggish

 

[RaMaz]

PS CS3 runs great,

only sometimes its slow (only when i have big apps open like firefox or iTunes etc.)

but it does need ram, i have 2 so its good 😀

 

[stainlessliquid]

Its been years since the speed of a processor or video card has played a role in photoshop. It pretty much runs totally on ram now. Filters make use of the processor but hopefully you dont plan on using filters all the time.

If anything slows down the macbook it will be the hdd speed when your ram gets maxed out and you need to use the scratch disk. Laptop hdd's arent exactly quick.

Put 2gbs of ram in it and it will perform like an 8core mac pro for most documents.

 

[bursty]

CS3 works fine on my MB, for what I do.

 

[Derfy]

Photoshop CS3 is worth it just for the universal binary goodness - not that it didn't run well under rosetta, because it did, but now it's blazing.

 

[Digidesign]

I did most of my Photoshop work in Windows on the MacBook via Bootcamp since I had CS2. It ran fine, I was very impressed with the performance (had 2.0gb mem).

One thing to keep in mind is the screen real estate on the Macbook. the 13" screen was a little hard for me to work with in PS, but not impossible. I just had to zoom in a bit more on layouts. It depends on what you're working with. If full scale layouts, it might get tedious after awhile on the MB, but if just graphic work here and there, or touching up Photos, you should be fine.

 

[marvinsum]

Can someone time how long it takes photoshop to boot on a MacBook with a 5400rpm hdd? Cheerio.

 

[Andrew D.]

Thanks for all the replies everyone, I will probably upgrade the RAM down the road to 2GB. Screen size shouldn't really be an issue for me when working on Photoshop, I like to zoom in anyways when doing close detail to some layers. Thanks again!

 

[jellomizer]

Well I am running on a MBP glossy and the glossy doesn't seem to be any problem. Actually I am rather Happy with the Glossy Screen all together. Looking at the Min Specs of CS3 it can run on some rather low end Macs. I don't there there will be a major problem running it on a MacBook. for 72 DPI stuff (Web Graphics non Printed) it should work fine for 300 DPI stuff it may take a while. I know my MBP does with CS3 (Still a lot quiker then PS7)

 

[jellomizer]

Its been years since the speed of a processor or video card has played a role in photoshop. It pretty much runs totally on ram now. Filters make use of the processor but hopefully you dont plan on using filters all the time.

If anything slows down the macbook it will be the hdd speed when your ram gets maxed out and you need to use the scratch disk. Laptop hdd's arent exactly quick.

Put 2gbs of ram in it and it will perform like an 8core mac pro for most documents.

CPU and Bus speed are still rater important. If all the data is still in memory when you put filters in or use semi transparancies.... There is a lot of traffic from the CPU to Memory so having a fast Bus speed is important. For the MB and MBP I think the Bus speeds are the same at 667mhz which was the clock speed of my previous PowerBook.