Professional Designers - iMac

[ontpaintballer]

I'm thinking about getting an 24" Imac for home for some design work I've started doing on the side.

I've heard so much about how bad the Imac's screen is and I would like to know just how many graphic designers are using them? how do you like working on these systems? and how do you find the color?

I know alot of people are going to say just get a mac pro, but I don't need the power, and I don't have the money. Really the only other option I have is if Apple brings out some sort of mini tower computer in the near future (I've heard rumors about this for a long time now) what is the likelihood of this really happening?

thanks

 

[fredsarran]

I'm thinking about getting an 24" Imac for home for some design work I've started doing on the side.

I've heard so much about how bad the Imac's screen is and I would like to know just how many graphic designers are using them? how do you like working on these systems? and how do you find the color?

I do graphic designing and some photography but I am not expert. I have a iMac 3.06 and the screen is one of the best I ever looked at. Partly because of the glossy. To have the best colors you will need to go in the system preferences and calibrate. For me, it does great. But once again, I am not an expert. You could use an external calibration tool, but I never used them so I don't know much about it.

 

[kkat69]

I do graphic designing and some photography but I am not expert. I have a iMac 3.06 and the screen is one of the best I ever looked at. Partly because of the glossy. To have the best colors you will need to go in the system preferences and calibrate. For me, it does great. But once again, I am not an expert. You could use an external calibration tool, but I never used them so I don't know much about it.

Because the iMac has a glass/plastic outter layer that stands above the screen I've heard the calibration tools can be off.

I've also read that to avoid this, do the calibration in complete darkness to avoid any light getting in the way/reflected from between the actual lcd and the clear cover.

As far as another tower, I highly doubt it.

 

[neogeo71]

I had bad luck with my first imac (1 week old, refurb unit), the screen is horrible (backlight bleed), however at my workplace, we have 2 imacs both 24 inch (2.4 and 2.8ghz). the screens are perfect, no gradient, no backlight bleed and the designers using them are both very pleased.We had a issue with blues on screen printing purplish but only on one particular printer, our proof printers looked fine with same files.

I am currently awaiting my replacement refurb from apple. If it too has screen issues, I will ask for full refund and buy a new one locally until I find one I am happy with. Perfect screens are out there. I have seen 2 with my own eyes. I cannot accept anything less than a screen of the caliber of the ones at my work. they are stunning and the gloss is not an issue for the two designers working on them, they are in well lit areas with overhead lighting and both have brightness set to minimum on the unit themselves. I tested these units for backlight bleed in the dark and no issues at all. stunning. I hope you find a perfect one for you....

 

[fredsarran]

Because the iMac has a glass/plastic outter layer that stands above the screen I've heard the calibration tools can be off.

Do you mean an external calibrator tool or the tool in the system preferences ? When I first booted up my iMac, I felt that there was too much yellow, so I decided to calibrate the colors and that did the trick (to be picky, there is now a bit too much blue, but if you spend time, then it should look good).

 

[River Studio]

I'm thinking about getting an 24" Imac for home for some design work I've started doing on the side.

I've heard so much about how bad the Imac's screen is and I would like to know just how many graphic designers are using them? how do you like working on these systems? and how do you find the color?

I know alot of people are going to say just get a mac pro, but I don't need the power, and I don't have the money. Really the only other option I have is if Apple brings out some sort of mini tower computer in the near future (I've heard rumors about this for a long time now) what is the likelihood of this really happening?

thanks

We are using the 2.4ghz 24" iMac as a home computer and also for reviewing digital images. We have calibrated the screen and images look much better although nowhere near as good as on our NEC SpectraView 2180 monitor on the main graphics computer. I am not sure that you can ever hope to get really accurate colours on the iMac but as a computer it is truly excellent and is quite rapid with 4gb RAM (ours is from Crucial). If your work is not absolutely colour critical the actual image is very bright, colourful and contrasty, in fact it's quite brilliant!
We have been so impressed with the Apple Mac way of doing things that we are about to change over to a Mac Pro for our main graphics computer (still with the NEC SpectraView 2180 monitor) and relegate the PC to an Office 2007 based machine.
I hope this helps, Dave.

www.river-studio.com

 

[D4F]

The only case where the iMac's screen might be not a good idea is PRINT.
Personally I even do that but results do get a bit different sometimes.
I work with After Effects, PS CS3 EXT, Cinema 4D, Silo, Vue and use the iMac as much as the Pro.

Get it and I'm sure you will love it. Totally worth it.

 

[stiles]

I have to say I have had a few frustrating times working on the brand new iMacs at work. They have plenty of power for what I'm doing (adobe suite). But the display is frustrating at times. For instance, if i draw a square and fill it with a solid orange and stretch it from top to the bottom of the screen, it looks like a subtle gradient. I have little surprises every now and then when i get stuff back from the printer. This bothers me. Sometimes before i send my work off to print, i load it up on the mac pro in my office to double check that everything is color accurate. It's a relief to work with pantones since i usually avoid these issues. If worst came to worst you could always pick up a nice display for your design work.