Taking a bite of the Apple

Hi Stephen

You're right - speed isn't everything. That's why I mentioned the word quality in your clipping.

It's a debate that is never ending. My computer is perfect for my work, for others it will be different.
Derek, they're not all that instantaneous when applied as part of a twenty-odd parts long Action to a 97mb 16 Bit file.

And the very last sentence of your last post, isn't that what I have been saying? If something else were better, would I really stick with something inferior?

Let's move on,eh?

I would have to agree that PCs can be faster for tasks. The fact is IBM were slow in dealing with apple, I would imagine that will change with the move to intel and the final argument for not using macs would be tore down. I would guess Ian could agree with that.

I think the argument on the Mac side is the whole package, none the least of which is being able to totally concentrate on what you are doing without concerning oneself with system wide crashes, viruses etc, some of the apple pro apps are mammouth and it seems they are very stable products, this must count for why people still choose mac. No doubt Ian will argue his PC has never crashed ever. Another great feature is the core graphics capability which walks all over PC, however Ian is probably not aware that most of it has not been implimented yet, this causing a problem in that the main Processor is still dealing with stuff the graphics card could do.

I accept that a good argument is this is right now, not the future

I found the review very interesting on Aperture. Obviously as a rank ameteur or worse where photos are concerned its of little use to me and there are clearly some issues with this first release.

Even though Apple made it perfectly clear they are not competing with PS it is clear every reviewer is going to do just that which is a shame. I would guess professionals are not happy about the RAW at the moment, but lets be fair Apple will be working on it right now to sort it out.

The biggest problem I see for home ametuers is the ability to burn to CD or DVD does not exist from within the application, requiring an export before this can take place, which is a shame as this is built into iPhoto.

quote:

I have a colleague who is currently in Cape Town shooting a kids catalogue, all his raw files are processed on a PC laptop.

Next week I am in Palma (yes, in December!) shooting menswear and my Powerbook will be taken only as a backup.

This is a valid point. Powerbooks are slow compared to current PC laptop specs. From my limited knowledge of photography, it is my understanding that support for RAW file processing on the Mac has always been limited / lacking and only recently has this improved.

Doing 3D and video work on a quad G5 is a different story.

Its very unfair to say support is poor on Apple for RAW.

The actual fact is RAW is not a single format, each camera manufacturer has its own ideas on what RAW should be. Its only really Photoshop that have got that bit down, and they have had years to work on it. On both platforms.

The demonstration I saw was of the new Mac Quad handling Nikon D2x RAW (NEF) files using Aperture. The speed, ease and quality were way beyond any PC photo handling that I have seen before. Of course, I haven't seen every PC set-up, but every one I have seen was way behind this Apple.