photoshop - vfusion or parallels?

[carrieann]

I had posted this in the beginner Mac forum, but this seems more appropriate.

So I found out I can't transfer my PC license of Photoshop CS3 to the Mac... and I'd like to avoid spending another $200 to buy the mac version (customer support said I had to upgrade to CS4 for the Mac). And since I had planned on buying VM software to do .NET programming for work anyway, I plan on just porting Photoshop to the VM until I save up the extra 200 to run it on the Mac natively.

SO... which would be better for Photoshop, VMware VFusion, or Parallels? I'd like to avoid rebooting to edit/save photos, so Bootcamp really isn't my choice... but just curious as to what others are using

 

[bcrguy]

I had posted this in the beginner Mac forum, but this seems more appropriate.

So I found out I can't transfer my PC license of Photoshop CS3 to the Mac... and I'd like to avoid spending another $200 to buy the mac version (customer support said I had to upgrade to CS4 for the Mac). And since I had planned on buying VM software to do .NET programming for work anyway, I plan on just porting Photoshop to the VM until I save up the extra 200 to run it on the Mac natively.

SO... which would be better for Photoshop, VMware VFusion, or Parallels? I'd like to avoid rebooting to edit/save photos, so Bootcamp really isn't my choice... but just curious as to what others are using

why not just bootcamp it?

 

[carrieann]

I'd like to avoid the reboot every time I want to edit the photos... hence the no-bootcamp love

 

[wrldwzrd89]

I'll warn you that performance in either program will be slow... slower than using Boot Camp, at the very least. Also, how much RAM do you have in that Mac? For Photoshop in a VM, you'll want lots... at least 16 GB, so you can allocate 8 GB to the VM, so that Photoshop can have 4 GB all to itself. Unfortunately, only the most modern Macs can handle 16 GB of RAM...

 

[Winni]

I had posted this in the beginner Mac forum, but this seems more appropriate.

So I found out I can't transfer my PC license of Photoshop CS3 to the Mac... and I'd like to avoid spending another $200 to buy the mac version (customer support said I had to upgrade to CS4 for the Mac). And since I had planned on buying VM software to do .NET programming for work anyway, I plan on just porting Photoshop to the VM until I save up the extra 200 to run it on the Mac natively.

SO... which would be better for Photoshop, VMware VFusion, or Parallels? I'd like to avoid rebooting to edit/save photos, so Bootcamp really isn't my choice... but just curious as to what others are using

Stay in Windows and use your Mac like a PC. Nothing else makes sense in your case.

 

[ayeying]

I'll warn you that performance in either program will be slow... slower than using Boot Camp, at the very least. Also, how much RAM do you have in that Mac? For Photoshop in a VM, you'll want lots... at least 16 GB, so you can allocate 8 GB to the VM, so that Photoshop can have 4 GB all to itself. Unfortunately, only the most modern Macs can handle 16 GB of RAM...

16GB is overkill. Depending on what type of photos is being utilized, an 8GB system would do fine as long as the VM has enough ram dedicated to it. 2 or more cores should also be considered.

 

[carrieann]

It's a 4gb, 2.26 13" macbook pro. I'm not a professional photographer, I just use photoshop for my hobby, and editing photos of my family So at most, my files are a few 100 mb... nothing crazy.

So Bootcamp really is the way to go for this? If it's annoyingly slow in a VM, I may just fork over the money for the new PS license... ugh. Why can't adobe just have cross platform licenses? Jeez

 

[ayeying]

It's a 4gb, 2.26 13" macbook pro. I'm not a professional photographer, I just use photoshop for my hobby, and editing photos of my family So at most, my files are a few 100 mb... nothing crazy.

So Bootcamp really is the way to go for this? If it's annoyingly slow in a VM, I may just fork over the money for the new PS license... ugh. Why can't adobe just have cross platform licenses? Jeez

If you have a copy of Windows, which I assume you do, download a trial of VMWare Fusion or Parallels and try it out. I'd dedicate at least 2GB of ram to the virtual machine and 2 CPUs though, but you really have to try it to see how it really is.

 

[pknoot]

A couple of things to consider:

Running CS3 in either VM or a separate Boot Camp partition will be considered as a new installation by Adobe; you will need to deactivate the old install to make sure it works!

PS will run far better in Windows under Boot Camp; you didn't mention your version of OS X, but under Snow Leopard files are accessible on either partition with either OS.

If you're only doing this with family photos as a hobby, PS is likely to be total overkill; iPhoto will be a great alternative and you won't need to reboot! Save yourself some $$.

 

[carrieann]

Yep, I have an MSDN license (I'm a .NET programmer by day) so I have valid Windows copies to install. And while it's just a hobby and Photoshop is overkill, I love it, and have used it for years, especially with actions I have Snow Leopard, and I didn't realize files were accessible by either OS... so it looks like Bootcamp may be the way to go! I'll try the trials... thank you all so much for the feedback!!

And I asked Adobe support, and they stated that same platform installs are valid with the same license (so I could have the same license at home and at work if they are both PC's) but only the Mac version would count as a new install. So installing my current license on Bootcamp, since it's still a Windows platform, is legal Why they have Lightroom as cross platform and not Photoshop is beyond me...