# Mac Monitor vs PC Monitor??



## CrimsonVerbs

The wife wants a MAC. The photographer in her thinks the mac will (as stated by friends) have better color correction and screen-to-print compatibility than a pc would. This is the "Reason" for buying one(stupid over priced piece of crap IMO*)...

Anyways, I have already convinced her that I can build her a BOMB-ASS pc from NewEgg at 2000.00 less than a mac.. We are willing to spend around 3k... So shes going for that... She is just still scared about the monitor being color callibrated.... 

Now, on to my question. Is it Possible to pair a custom built PC with a 23 or 30 inch mac monitor? Will the color look ANY different than it does on a mac (because of internal settings?)??? Or what is the work-around solution you suggest... Should I just buy a 28 inch hanns-g save an extra 300 and buy a spidyr color calibrator thingy??? Do those work...??

I need some photographers advice.... We have the money I just need to know if it is COMPLETELY imperative that we buy a mac.... Or if I can just have my pie and eat it too as far as color correction goes...


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## tlarkin

A monitor is a monitor.  Regardless of brands, they all have the components in them.  Apple monitors have always been nice and always have had great picture quality.  Just read the reviews that PC magazines give them, they are always very high, and that is coming from a PC magazine.

As for running a Mac for photography, it is a very wise choice IMO.  The money and time you will save for it just running smoothly with very little problems is worth more than any PC.  Plus, it has everything you will ever need out of the box.  There are no viruses for the Mac and no spyware, so downtime will be minimum.  

The thing is, that the Apple OS, has a built in color calibration for your monitor that allows the user to calibrate the monitor manually for the lighting in your office and the color scheme you want.  This feature is not really in Windows.  I think that is what she is referring to.

If you have any specific questions about Mac platform or differences between a PC you can ask.  I have been IT/network admin for Macs and PCs for several years now.


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## CrimsonVerbs

tlarkin said:


> If you have any specific questions about Mac platform or differences between a PC you can ask.  I have been IT/network admin for Macs and PCs for several years now.



Hey there, thank you for your lovely response... I think I have made my decision now, based just off of that review... You are right, pcs don't really have any kind of place where you can edit color settings unless of course, you want to go and download adobe gamma and a bunch of other nonsense and you still may never get it right... 


Anyways now that you've okay'd me asking you questions , i am gonna shoot:

I am not a cheap-o I just have been using a pc for so long and I am a flash designer so for me, it works. For image processing, etc. I have no idea... 

I am wondering tho.... What you think will be ample enough for her... Money is no object and she shoots ALOT she have 2 cameras both that have 50 megabyte files per image sometimes.... 

we where looking at the Mac Pro.... I am thinking if I get one off ebay its around 2000 less than in the store... w/warranty and there are a couple of deals on there... I would like not to spend more than 3,000.00 for the tower itself.... and 500 for the 23inch monitor which I've already found.... 

what do you think of these deals??

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...item=300188837200&_trksid=p3984.cWAT.m240.lVI
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...item=320205538768&_trksid=p3984.cWAT.m240.lVI
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...item=130188711670&_trksid=p3984.cWAT.m240.lVI

I don't know the difference between quad core and dual core, and really... am I going to see much of a difference?? If any.... I would like to spend less, but if u really think the quad core is imperative I will go with a newer model...

As you can see with the ones I've picked out already, they all have different amounts of hard drive space, ram space, and ghz (also quad and dual)..

I know i'd like to have at LEAST a Terabyte of storage, if not more, the ones listed above seem to have at least that... 

As far as memory goes, how much is too much???

Thanks for all your help, again I am a little at a loss for all this stuff because I am a pc user... 

Also, do you think it would be better NOT to buy from EBAY and look into buying direct?? Or a refurb?/ Also, can you add more Memory, Hard Drives etc. w/o going through the mac outlet for all your upgrades??

David

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***edit those links up top^^^ are actually all quad-cores 

here is another link to a dual core I was looking at earlier but it sold already:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...item=270201742054&_trksid=p3984.cWAT.m240.lVI


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## tlarkin

Well here are my opinions.  I urge you to talk to someone else to double check my opinions because by trade I am not a designer, however I have supported graphic design departments for several years.

First off, don't buy a PPC mac.  That means no G4s, G5s, etc.  Get an intel Mac.  The main reason is that CS3 was designed to run on an Intel Macintosh computer, and that is the future of that company.  It also makes it more compatible for windows users.  If, your wife has this one little application she has to run and its windows only, you can run windows on an Intel based mac.  So, it basically breaks the application barrier that some users have.  Also, since you use a PC and you want to share applications (like you own a PC version of something she wants to use) it is also possible by either loading windows on the Mac or running a virtual machine.

Now, here is the hardest part, deciding what mac you want.  To be completely honest with the Mac Pro is overkill for almost every user.  I mean for one it runs off of Xeon processors, which are Intel's work horse processors, and its also the same processors that servers use.  If she does some serious photo editing, or serious video and audio editing, then yes the Mac Pro is worth the investment.  If she does professional grade photo editing but doesn't quite hit the "hollywood" level production, then perhaps an iMac will do fine.  It really depends on how she uses it.  I mean when it comes to pure number crunching power the Xeon will kick the crap out of Core 2 duo every time.  When it comes to multimedia play back, like audio/video there is no difference, and video games would run better on the Core processors.  

Data storage is something that can be simply done by just building or using an old/cheap PC and setting up a file server.  You don't need something powerful and you don't need to upgrade your current machines.  You can also centralize data in this aspect and then back it up again for redundancy.  For example, I have built cheap (like $300) PCs and slapped large HDs in them, then loaded Linux (a free OS) and set up file shares.  Which can be mapped to both Windows and OS X machines.  Of course this is just one way of doing it.  Adding in internal drives or getting external FW drives are other ways of doing it.  The plus side is its a bit cheaper to just buy a drive, but the down side is that it is harder to organize.  So, if you need to make sure you have back ups of your current data, centralizing it makes it easier.  If you have an old PC lying around you aren't using, you could use that.

If your wife needs mobility Macbook pro would be the way to go.  She could then bring her photo work to her clients directly, and load digital photos onto your mac on site.  Then set up a file server at home or her office so she can regularly back up her data.  

I once did data recovery for a recording studio that had a crash, first crash they ever had and the Mac was 8 years old.  No back ups, and there were like 3 or 4 almost finished albums on this rig.  It took me many hours and I was able to salvage most of the data, but some of it was lost.  Needless to day, the clients of that studio were pretty pissed off.  Your data is the most important thing on your computer when its your business.

Me personally, I have owned, repaired and maintained a HP laptop, Sony, Compaq, 2 different ibooks, Acer, gateway, and several others (I didn't own all of those, but I had to deal with them at work) and I can safely say that my Macbook Pro is by far the best damn laptop I have ever owned.  It is fast, reliable, dependable, sleek, cool, and has every feature I would ever need right out of the box.  I also run 3 OSes on it and use it daily at work.  For me, I need the Macbook Pro to do my job.  For your wife, I would have her seriously think of all her options, because I think for photography have the ability to be mobile is a huge plus.  Also, buy the extended warranty because Apple includes phone support with it, so you can call them for support as many times as you want.  Where as with Microsoft they charge you per a support call.  Apple will charge you too, but if you have apple care that is an included feature, just FYI.


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## evil-xxx

at a word women know nothing and you dont need to listen to them.


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## fortyways

evil-xxx said:


> at a word women know nothing and you dont need to listen to them.



I agree. She's just regurgitating Apple's advertisements.


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## evil-xxx

fortyways said:


> I agree. She's just regurgitating Apple's advertisements.



and maybe his wife reins the money even him.


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## CrimsonVerbs

evil-xxx said:


> and maybe his wife reins the money even him.



and maybe your just a misogynist who can't handle a women having more money than you within a relationship... Get over your twisted views and then come talk to me... O by the way, nice pic, my wife was good friends with him


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## PunterCam

CrimsonVerbs said:


> and maybe your just a misogynist who can't handle a women having more money than you within a relationship... Get over your twisted views and then come talk to me... O by the way, nice pic, my wife was good friends with him



That sounds like a woman talking... A woman earning more money is the dream, we just need to keep it quiet as men, if they catch on the dream may be shattered...

I've got both imacs and an 18 month old mac pro in my house. They imacs are pretty lovely, the screens are stunning. They're just 'big' as opposed to widescreen which is nice for a change. I haven't run much software on them yet though so I can't tell you about performance. My mac pro was one of the 'base' models, so 2 x dual core 2ghz processors and a gig of ram. I'm running both windows and mac osx on it (which works beautifully btw). Mac osx is very quick. Haven't done any photo editing but I've done loads of audio editing and used loads of processing power and it's been very good. I run photoshop cs3 in windows and it's very quick also. It's also properly upgradable which might appeal to you, but if money's not a problem then maybe thats not such a big deal. 

Don't write off the imac. You can spec it highly and comes with a great screen.


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## elitehacker

I don't think it makes a difference, the only one I can think of is the price. Mac screens are so expensive, they are rip offs. Samsung screens are looking very hot at the moment. I have a Samsung SyncMaster 245B and I can't be happier.


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