Want to buy a macbook... rookie here

[cain12]

Okay any help would be very appreciated. I want to buy my wife a macbook for her birthday coming up. She does some professional photography. Like maybe 1 job every month or two (a wedding or baby pictures, etc). So right now she has a Mac G5 desktop in which she uses a program like photoshop's Lightroom. But once again, she does some photograhy editing, but not a great deal.

The rest of the time she likes to be able to jst browse the internet from various room's in the house (she is chasing around an 8 month old at home).

Any suggestions? Thanks!!!

 

[hitnrun7]

Okay any help would be very appreciated. I want to buy my wife a macbook for her birthday coming up. She does some professional photography. Like maybe 1 job every month or two (a wedding or baby pictures, etc). So right now she has a Mac G5 desktop in which she uses a program like photoshop's Lightroom. But once again, she does some photograhy editing, but not a great deal.

The rest of the time she likes to be able to jst browse the internet from various room's in the house (she is chasing around an 8 month old at home).

Any suggestions? Thanks!!!

For what you described the mid or high end Macbook will be fine, photoshop is CPU based at the moment. Also if you guys have a G5 you could always fall back on to that if you need to.

 

[team 79 krunch]

A Macbook would work You might even be able to get away with a Mac Air.

 

[David G.]

I have the 2.4 GHz MacBook and last month I shot a wedding and from that processed over 800 RAW photos in Aperture (direct Lightroom competition) and it kept up fine.
Lightroom on a MacBook would not run quicker than on a MacBook Pro. Aperture would run quicker, however. The reason is because Aperture loves graphics cards to apply edits and such while Lightroom leaves it up to the CPU to do that while the graphics card just displays what the CPU already did. MacBooks only have an integrated graphics card so it won't matter while using LR unless she has a DVI monitor over 1920 x 1200 pixels. She should know also that neither the MacBook or MacBook Pro screens are good for color accurate work. That is where the current monitor will come into play.
For the other things (internet, email, etc.) the graphics card won't really come in to play that much. Either laptop would be excellent for these tasks. The MBP is bigger though, possibly a bigger pain to carry around.
Any other questions/clarifications?

 

[cain12]

thanks so much all for those answers. looks like I will look more into the the macbook as opposed to the Pro.

how about memory or hard drive size? do those help to upgrade when dealing with a ton of photos downloaded from your camara?

one more thing... I see the upgrade for an Apple USB modem, but i think its for dial up, not sure I would need this with DSL using a wireless router...

any more answers to this you guys I am grateful for!

thanks... cain

 

[TodVader]

You have no use for the Modem. Also, the resolution on the macbook is much lower than what she has on her iMac. Would the screen size / resolution of a 13" screen be high enough for the size of her photos?

 

[cain12]

You have no use for the Modem. Also, the resolution on the macbook is much lower than what she has on her iMac. Would the screen size / resolution of a 13" screen be high enough for the size of her photos?

not sure... thats the only part that worries me.... they do offer an option for for the Apple cinema display but it's like another $600

does anyone know if the 13" screen would be too little for Lightroom work?

thanks

 

[hitnrun7]

not sure... thats the only part that worries me.... they do offer an option for for the Apple cinema display but it's like another $600

does anyone know if the 13" screen would be too little for Lightroom work?

thanks

You could just hook it up to any other monitor, for example the one hooked up to your G5.

 

[David G.]

More memory would definitely help. The more RAM the better, there's no way around it. 2 gig bare min. But absolutley don't by more RAM from Apple. It's much cheaper from places like NewEgg or Other World Computing. 5 to 10 min install as well on MacBook.
Regarding hard drive size, 160, maybe even 120 is enough. She probably has an extra HDD inside her PowerMac or an external one currently. If she wants lots of space and speed with her future laptop the best would be to edit on a HDD that is connected externally via Firewire 400, though USB 2.0 will do (slightly slower)

 

[cain12]

how about when you want to put the pictures you have edited onto a disk (lets say for a customer), does the regular macbook come with a DVD burner? I didnt see that on the IMac site....

 

[Apple Ink]

Only the 1299 and the 1499 come with a DVD burner (Superdrive) which is a must for you!

Also, I too do some photography work and I'd suggest that everything's gonna be really fine except the screen which is too tiny for handling DSLR RAWs...

The screen also has a weird viewing angle and its glossy => not so great color vibrance but great contrast!

The last points about the screen only apply if she is a very serious photographer and does some very sensitive editing (which you've made clear she doesnt).

All in all, the MBs a great notebook which she'll love and enjoy (and its lighter on pocket too!)

 

[cain12]

Only the 1299 and the 1499 come with a DVD burner (Superdrive) which is a must for you!

Also, I too do some photography work and I'd suggest that everything's gonna be really fine except the screen which is too tiny for handling DSLR RAWs...

The screen also has a weird viewing angle and its glossy => not so great color vibrance but great contrast!

The last points about the screen only apply if she is a very serious photographer and does some very sensitive editing (which you've made clear she doesnt).

All in all, the MBs a great notebook which she'll love and enjoy (and its lighter on pocket too!)

i dont see where it mentions the 1299 or 1499 on the imac site??

 

[cain12]

nevermind I see it.... thanks

 

[Apple Ink]

Just one more thing....
You keep saying iMac. You are interested in an iMac or a MacBook. My post above was in relation to the MacBook only!