Opinions on Imac setup ??

[bigdazzler]

OK so ive decided to switch to mac ..

I only use my home PC for internet , email , music & photos .. thats it

I think ill set it up as follows;

24" 2.8 imac .. upgrade ram to 4 gig ..

with Aperture , PSE7 and Lightroom ...

that should keep me going for a while ?? Any other thoughts or suggestions ?? I would like to set the mac up from the outset so I dont need to add anything to it for quite a while as Im quickly running out of money .. :eek:

[Calxoddity]

Good setup - that's what I run here at home - but no PSE7 for Mac - it's PSE6 (no biggie - hardly any difference). Upgrading to 4GB is important. If you can afford a little more, spend it on an external hdd and usb hub. I have iomega unit with 2x500GB and 3 port usb hub.

Regards,
Calx

[Jimbo]

One question: why Aperture AND Lightroom? Don't they more or less do the same thing?

Oh, and welcome to OSX btw :D

[Calxoddity]

One question: why Aperture AND Lightroom? Don't they more or less do the same thing?

Oh, and welcome to OSX btw :D

Perhaps he's got too much money? :confused013

[MarkW]

Hi Bigdazzler

Both Aperture (Aperture2) and Lightroom will both want to have their "Library" system setup on the C drive and that will chew up enourmous amounts of drive space. Much of this can be changed to an external drive which is almost a necessity with an IMac but the app still needs a fair sized C drive space - especially in Aperture 2.

Another issue I found with both those applications is their refusal to actually change the master image but rely on an output MXL type file. This didnt suit me as in many cases I want to do basic changes to the master image then have a range of alternate sub images ie web suitable jpg's or cropped images etc, and those images actually as image files not an MXL info file.

In the end I chose CS3 and Nikon's own image applications - Nikon Transfer, View NX & Captuure 2 (there are some things that Nikon actually do better than Adobe - albeit you can now get a pluggin to do the same). All of these apps allow full external HD storage including any thumbnails for search/retrieval systems.

[Allann]

Hi Bigdazzler

Both Aperture (Aperture2) and Lightroom will both want to have their "Library" system setup on the C drive and that will chew up enourmous amounts of drive space. Much of this can be changed to an external drive which is almost a necessity with an IMac but the app still needs a fair sized C drive space - especially in Aperture 2.

I run Lightroom 2.2 catalogs straight from 1Tb external drive (eSATA connection). Data is also stored with the catalog (in a seperate directory). Only the application resides on my root drive. Never used Aperture, so can't comment, but that seems strange to me. I ensure that images NEVER reside on my root drive (only exception is when doing an export to my gallery, and then it's only temp). This could be a mac thing but seems strange the same program would work so differently.


Another issue I found with both those applications is their refusal to actually change the master image but rely on an output MXL type file. This didnt suit me as in many cases I want to do basic changes to the master image then have a range of alternate sub images ie web suitable jpg's or cropped images etc, and those images actually as image files not an MXL info file.

Again not sure if this is a mac thing, but on PC version of lightroom you can create virtual copies which are stacked with the original. Before I make an edit of the original I create a virtual copy and change it. Always good to be able to go back (but then I have the backup created on import if I forget).

Hope this helps, happy to create a post on Lightroom workflow if people are interested. Sorry to see you go to the dark side ;)

[Calxoddity]

Allan,
You just beat me to it: Aperture allows you to catalogue your photos in either referenced or managed modes - or a mix if you like. In referenced mode, Aperture leaves the photo where it is and just points to it. In managed mode, Aperture imports the photo into its database.

Where you keep your Aperture library is up to you - there's nothing to stop you from keeping it on the internal iMac drive, as you get the speed benefit, but your backups had better be good! (and mine are!!!). There is an inherent compromise in selecting an iMac that means external storage is not optional...

I'm not sure I understand Mark's comments about Aperture - it does non-destructive adjustments to your photos, keeping a record of the adjustments so that you have infinite undo capability. I've got multiple versions of several photos, by creating new versions such as:
- one optimised for a particular photo printer
- another as a monochrome
- another as a cropped version I'm playing with
- plus the original photo as the reference point

From my trial experience with Lightroom 2, this is the same as the virtual copy capability.

At any time (and I did this earlier today) I can choose one of the versions and export it as a reduced size jpg to post on this site.

Hope this helps.

PS - He's finally realised the power of the Dark Side.. bwahahahahah etc etc :action3:

Regards,
Calx

[Jimbo]

"Windows, I am your father...." :action3:

[Calxoddity]

"Use the Force, Daz.."

[MarkW]

Maybe I didnt investigated Lightroom far enough to get the configuration correct to get everthing but the actual app out of the C drive. I did manage in both apps to get it to store the image on an external drive but it wouldn't catalogue on the external drive, it wanted to use the 'pictures" directory for cataloguing. Must be something I missed.

The other issue is I want to use destructive altering of the master image. I don't want to be told I cant change the master image without destruction of the other images. This also goes for naming the file. The big no no in Aperture is you cant change the name of a file once its in the image library cause it upsets all th other image XML files. I change file names to suit my cataloguing system, sometimes a file is miss-filed so I cant change it - no way.

Didn't purchase Lightroom just used a trail version, but I did buy Aperture 2 and it just sits on the shelf as it didnt do things the way I wanted them to. Oh well - each to their own. CS3 worked the way I wanted and now its the main app.

[davwhite]

My Imac came with a 300+GB HDD which I partitioned 100Gb to be my Photo drive.
I have a Lacie external HDD which takes the macs backup, it from memory, is around 150Gb. This constantly backs up only new info, deleting the oldest information when the disk is full.

I run Aperture 2 for all my RAW processing and storage until I convert to JPEG and at that time they go to the partitioned drive.

I only use CS3 for image size changes.

Just for fun:

I was asked by a friend to look at her laptop (Windows XP) After waiting 5 minutes for it to be ready with numerous error messages I could finally got to work on it :eek: . It was a great reminder to me not to go back to a PC :th3:

[bigdazzler]

I would probably create and manage my library on the int drive but back up to an ext WD or Seagate HD every couple of days ..

i like the sound of what Dav has done .. partitioned 100 gig of his int HD for photo storage .. it sound simple and easy

[bigdazzler]

REMOVED : Double post

[davwhite]

Let Time machine do your backup automatically, it only backs up changes.
Does it every hour I think.

[bigdazzler]

time machine seems like a great feature but i still like to have an independent storage back up for my images .. just in case :)

Call me paranoid :D

[Calxoddity]

That's what I do - I use Aperture in referenced mode for my photos. Time machine backs all stuff up on hourly basis to one external drive. Another external drive contains an independent manual backup of my photos and important other files. If any one drive fails, I have 2 spares...

BTW, there's no real benefit in partitioning an internal drive. If anything, you're going to create problems down the track with effective utilisation of the drive.

Regards,
Calx

[bigdazzler]

that was my next question .. so you can configure time machine to back up to external ??

EDIT: Scratch that .. just watched time machine tutorial on Apple site .. what a top feature hey

[jev]

I made the exact same switch a couple of weeks ago, got that exact same configuration (24" iMAC with 4 GByte RAM, standard harddisk and CPU). I did choose Aperture, still don't know if LightRoom is better but I'm quite happy with the configuraton.

As for photo editors, I absolutely loath photoshop. Tried it, found it much too heavy and much too expensive. Steep learning curve too.

So, what than? I tried three options: GiMP (free!), PS Elements and Pixelmator. Each of these have their own pro's and contra's, but in the end I decided to keep GiMP (hey, you can't beet its price / performance ratio :)) and PixelMator. The reasons I dropped Elements:
- No full color management support (limited to sRGB and AdobeRGB)
- Only partly supports 16-bit color depth
- Provides a couple of pre-cooked curves, but you can't freely define your own
- Adjustment layers in 8-bit mode only
Now, the latter is somewhat deceptive, since it's the only one out of those three that provides adjustment layers at all, but at 8-bit color depth I'm not impressed. I keep hoping though that PixelMator will soon be extended with adjustment layers.

Pro's for Elements: it does provide these adjustment layers (but not very extensive) and it provides support for ACR. To me, however, the latter is not a reason to choose Elements since the RAW converted in Aperture is at least as good if not better anyway.

[Calxoddity]

For photo editing, I was going to chose GIMP or something other than PSE6, but a funny thing happened when I went to OfficeWorks to buy some stationery. In the bargain bin was a returned copy of PSE6 for Mac, marked down to $49 - some n00b had bought it thinking it was the PC version and realised the mistake later and returned it. At that price it was too good to pass up.

To make up for my absolute lack of knowledge in PSE6, I bought the Missing Manual for PSE6 for the Mac - it's really useful. As it turns out, I use PSE6 perhaps 1% of the time - all of my other adjusting and printing is done in Aperture (PSE gets a workout only when I need to chop up a photo e.g. double-exposure or special effects).

Regards,
Calx

[bigdazzler]

perhaps a stupid question .. but does Aperture have layer and mask functions ?? After watching a million tutorials on the Apple.com i see noe reference to layers at all ..

[Calxoddity]

Daz,
Short answer - no. Long answer - that's not what it's designed for. Aperture is intended for digital asset management (DAM) and processing of photos, not for manipulation.

If you come from an Adobe background it can be a bit of a shock, because you have to unlearn some Adobe bad habits. As it does DAM properly, keywording and management of projects is the means of managing your collection, not the folders on the hard drive - and this is a conceptual leap that some people can't make.

It does very good processing of raw (better than ACR imho) and all the expected adjustments are there (sharpening, noise, white balance, highlights, shadows, flip, rotate, crop. straighten, saturation, colour adjustments), but not spot adjustments except for dodge and burn, unless you buy plugins.

Aperture has an "edit with..." option that allows you to round-trip your photo as a tiff to your favorite editor for the more advanced photo manipulation. Mine is set up for using PSE6, but only use it around 1% of the time. Your usage may vary depending on how often you cheat with your photos... ;) (philosophical sore point - I'd rather take the photo than create the photo).

Anyhow, here's a pikkie of my working with some coastal shots I took recently, where I'm comparing 4 shots side-by-side. (BTW, this is the 4th project structure I have used, as I become better at using Aperture. I've been renaming albums, creating and deleting albums, splitting and consolidating projects to my heart's content until it has arrived at current iteration - which seems to be working pretty well.)

Feel free to ask more questions - it took me some time and some reading to really start using Aperture properly and leveraging the power of it.

Regards,
Calx

[davwhite]

We are very similar Calx, I am now around the same point as you are with Aperture and I use CS3 just for sizing.
Takes a while to come to terms with it but there is nothing like a four week trip with two cameras shooting RAW to sort it out.

[Calxoddity]

I also use Aperture for resizing - if the export options don't give me what I want I customise them accordingly. Usually, it's to reduce jpg quality to meet specific filesize requirements. I've even created a couple of new export resizing presets.

Regards,
Calx

[bigdazzler]

thanks for the detailed answer cal ..

There are two things I want to accomplish by switching to mac .. 1. Organise and catalogue my images much more meticulously and 2. maximise the power of shooting in RAW thorugh processing. It seems Aperture is designed for just that and will suit my needs perfectly.

I am at a stage of my photography learning curve that I am focusing on getting my in camera results as close as possible without resorting to excessive processing.

I am also a fan of capturing as opposed to creating. I rarely chop up photos and am not into HDR or any other of the overly reliant PPing styles.

I will buy my mac , install Aperture , sort out my catalogue ( which mind you is all over the place in my PC at present !! ) and maybe try and find a copy of PSE6 for any further editing beyond RAW processing.

I think thats a plan.

[bigdazzler]

ok so after months of procrastinating i bit the bullet and ordered my mac this afternoon .. should arrive on monday.

On Sunday morning i guess Ill have to go and get myself an external HD for copying data from my PC and then to use with time machine.

A few questions on that front. Firstly..

1. what do you guys use ??
2. should I buy a ext HD specifically formatted for mac like the WD passport ?? Is there any advantage to this other than having a firewire connection option as opposed to only a USB ??
what is the advantage of firewire ??
3. If I do buy a passport type HD , if using when the mac is on to back up from time machine , after shut down can I disconnect it and use it as simply a portable storage device and use it elsewhere on other computers ? Will this muck up my back ups from time machine ?? ie. should I buy a desktop HD and leave it connected to the mac permanently for time machine and get a separate passport for transporting files from one machine to another ..

Sorry if these are rather sublime questions but ill be a first time mac owner/user and these are a few of the simpler things I hadnt thought of and Id like to know what to buy when I go shopping on Sunday morning :D

I know how you mac guys love it when you get a convert so I know youll help me out :D

[davwhite]

1. what do you guys use ??
2. should I buy a ext HD specifically formatted for mac like the WD passport ?? Is there any advantage to this other than having a firewire connection option as opposed to only a USB ??
what is the advantage of firewire ??
3. If I do buy a passport type HD , if using when the mac is on to back up from time machine , after shut down can I disconnect it and use it as simply a portable storage device and use it elsewhere on other computers ? Will this muck up my back ups from time machine ?? ie. should I buy a desktop HD and leave it connected to the mac permanently for time machine and get a separate passport for transporting files from one machine to another ..

I have a Lacie external HDD, firewired because it is the only way to go :D But with the Lacie you can use USB or firewire
Don't use the HDD for any other purpose than backup, it will only wotk on another mac anyway.
And yes, get a different hard drive if you want to transport to another mac, I am just about certain that a PC would not be able to read the HDD
What would be your intention to transport to another machine?

If you partition your drive and have two externals you will be able to keep master copies in Aperture, in your partition, on your time machine backup HDD and also a copy on the other external, I reakon you are covered there.

[bigdazzler]

Well in the next few weeks Ill probably buy a macbook too to bring with me on the road , work etc.. so i just figured Id like to have my pictures available in a portable HD so I can do some editing in the "quiet" times at work etc .. :D

So the advice is to buy a mac specific ext HD, set it for time machine and leave it there ?? In that case ill look at a mac formatted desktop HD of about 500gig ...

[MarkW]

For a HD Im using a WD My Book Studio 500Gb which has some advantages over some of the other drives. But they aren't cheap. The My Books are not the sort of drive to carry around as they are the size of a thick novel and require an external power source.

If you use USB or Firewire (it has both 400 & 800 ports) it will start up and shutdown with your Mac either when you eject the drive or when you shut the Mac down.

It also has an eSATA port which is reputedly 3Gb/second. A MacBook Pro has a card slot for an "Express 34" card which can take a 4 port eSATA. There are cheap eSATA cards on the market with lots of reports of failure and then there are cards up around the $300 mark which work well but you pay the price. I'm not sure whether the iMac has a card slot but if it has, then eSATA is always a possibility. Especially when USB 2 is only about 400Mb/sec and FW800 in reality is not that much better. BTW if using eSATA the auto shutdown does not activate.

What ever sort of drive you purchase, erase and reformat the drive as a "Extended Journaled" drive which allows it to be used as a backup drive in the Mac system.

[DanNG]

Welcome to mac.

Do you have a display calibrator already? I have found that coloreyes does a really good job profiling the glossy displays on the alum. imacs. - the latest version is able to adjust the brightness to much lower levels then the machine can do by default. Quite handy for matching prints

[Calxoddity]

Daz,
For migrating files you can either transfer it across the network (I did this when I migrated), or via a usb HDD. Note that Macs can read NTFS, but not write.

If I was actually keeping working files on an external HDD, I'd prefer to use Firewire 800 but as I'm only using the externals for backup and files that aren't needed in realtime, I'm using usb. This is because the external drive is also a multi port usb hub, hence needs to be connected via usb!

Note that FW800 has certain quirks and there's been problems with the WD Mybooks in this respect - they're sensitive to order in which plugged/powered up and down etc. eSATA is nice, but as yet the iMac has no eSATA (wish it did!) so you'll need (as MarkW mentioned) something that does bother interfaces. More $$$ heh heh heh....

Of course, as with all of such advice, you may have no problem at all, or the migration poltergeist may decide that it's your turn to suffer...

I cheated with calibration. I first calibrated by eye using the advanced options in the Colorsync utility. I then installed Shades to reduce the brightness of the screen to human levels. I then printed correctly proofed photos and compared them to the screen appearance. Then, back to the previous two steps, print again, repeat, print again etc. After 4 iterations of this the prints looked like the screen, without adjusting the printer driver or printer settings itself.

Of course... you could just buy a decent calibrator (e.g. Eye 1 Display 2, or a Spyder 3) and be done with it... if you're lucky!! :0

[mcdesign]

What size HD are you getting, you will need and external HD, I have two, one for backup (time machine is magic) and one for all my data, I don't keep any data on them main HD at all only system and applications and the necessary stuff that goes into the user library.
When buying a external HD make sure it is a Firewire one, there are two Firewire ports on the iMac, one 400 and one 800, USB is far too slow to read and write to with images.

Someone mentioned a C drive?????????????? (MarkW) never heard that one before and I have been using Macs for many years, I think you would be better off getting Photoshop than Elements, but I guess that is a personal choice and depends on how far you want to push your images.

If you need any help in the change over just ask and I hope you enjoy it as I do.

[MarkW]

Someone mentioned a C drive?????????????? (MarkW) never heard that one before and I have been using Macs for many years, I think you would be better off getting Photoshop than Elements, but I guess that is a personal choice and depends on how far you want to push your images.



OK so Mac dosen't call the single HDD within the case a "C" drive, yes I know its called the Mac HD (if you looked I do own an MBP) but for ease of communication to somebody who is changing from Windoze to Mac, this is a very easy way to describe the internal HD.

Personally I would generally refer to it as a c drive as after more than 20 years with Windows and IBM compats before them, its a habit hard to break.

BTW USB2 (480Mb/s) is actually better (marginally) than FireWire 400 (400Mb/s) and FireWire 800 whilst supposed to be 800Mb/s is rarely that fast and generally not much better than about 600Mb/s.

Bigdazzler
If your going to do backups or image transfers and walk out of the room while you transfer a whole HD then the difference between USB 2 and FW800 is pretty much negligible. If your sitting and waiting for every last second then use FW800.

You might also like to note that getting good quality shielded FW800 cables is difficult and the plugs fitted to them usully aren't overly reliable. I went through 4 different sets of leads before getting a good set but they are so thick - about 10mm that they are difficult to position in the office due to the wide bend radius of the cable (they dont bend easily).

For backing up to an image dtatbase HD, I use a program called Chronosync - works very well. System backup is Time Machine. Note where Windoze does backups which end up as a huge single compressed file, Macs dont do this. They just make a mirror copy of what ever you back up. There maybe programes out there for Mac which will make a Windoze like copy but my own preference is for the mirror copy which means you can replace bits and pieces if necessary or the whole thing if you have to.

[bigdazzler]

ok i wanna be clear on this ..

if i go and buy a 500gig external HD , can i use it to do the following ..

1. plug it into my PC and load up all my data ready for transfer to the mac ..
2. plug HD into mac and dump all my data into it ..
3. clear the HD and then use it for back up with time machine

once ive transferred all my files from my PC to the mac .. ill clear it , sync it with time machine and leave it there never to be touched again ..

is this the best way to do it ??

I was reading some info about different formatting for windows and mac and began to get a little confused .. i just want to be certain about what kind of HD to buy

please reply in lay terms .. no tech talk , my head hurts :D

[Calxoddity]

Daz,
Some of the external HDDs are mac formatted, but are in the minority (FW800 connector and Mac format pretty much go hand-in-hand) Assuming they're either bare or formatted as NTFS and they've got usb2 ports at the very minimum:

1. Yes, you dump your PC transfer content onto the HDD
2. You attach the drive to the iMac and copy the content across, being careful to not transfer any useless stuff like .ini files, dlls
3. You confirm that the content is on the iMac in the place it's supposed to be
4. You then format the HDD to mac format (journaled)
5. You then activate Time Machine and designate the external drive as the time machine target.
6. You let time machine do its first backup
7. Once you have 2 copies of all of your vital information, you can then consider throwing your old PC against the wall - not before!!

Another IMPORTANT note: have you identified your migration path for all of your databases, documents and especially your e-mails? Email in particular may not be an easy migration, depending on your choice of e-mail client on the iMac. For example:

Email: migrated outlook to Thunderbird on the PC, then transferred result into Thunderbird on the iMac.
Garmin Mapsource (my GPS records): downloaded Garmin Roadtrip as Mac equivalent
Word, Excel, Powerpoint: used OpenOffice v3.0 on the Mac
Nikon ViewNX: ViewNX on the Mac (actually discontinued this due to Aperture being so uber!)

There were a bunch of other items, but you get the idea.... I got a bit analytical about it and confirmed all the migration paths before buying the iMac, even to the extent of downloading onto the PC before migrating.

Good luck!

Regards,
Calx

[MarkW]

Try to have the external harddrive formated as FAT32 for the pickup of the PC data. Try to just copy your data and not the program files which are useless to the Mac system. Note though that the largest single file size is 600Mb which means that any movie files cant be transfered by this method. You will also note that the dive size probably wont be the size that you bought - another FAT32 limitation but that will correct itself when you reformat the drive into a Mac journalled drive.

Mac has a hard time reading NTFS. You can see the files sitting there but cant do anything with them.

To format the HD go to Finder/Go/Utilities and click on Disk Utilities
From there its pretty much like using any other utility application.

[bigdazzler]

ok .. went to the Apple store in Sydney this morning to have a chat with the people in the know about the switch ..

the guy recommended an external HD twice the size of the main drive in the imac ( in my case 320gig ) , and to get one with 2 x firewire 800 ports ..

I ended up going to JB HiFi and getting a Western Digital My Book Studio Edition 640GB drive.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=566

This has 2x xFW800 , 1 x esata , and 1 USB 2.0 connections.

Ill dump all my data ( pictures , music , videos ) onto the drive and transfer them all to the mac. He told me once all data has transferred and everything is where it should be in the mac to erase the drive and format it for mac using the disk utility. Then launch time machine and sync it to the drive and everything should be sweet.

I also told the guy I wanted to eventually run a second external HD for cataloging from Aperture to keep the main drive in the mac for pretty much applications and essential system files and folders only.

His advice was for best utilisation of the ports on the mac to link the second external HD to the Time Machine back up drive with a patch cable from FW to FW.

Always make sure though that the TM Drive is the drive actually connected to the mac and the secondary drive is patched in as the second drive. Reason being is if you eject the first drive from the mac it will obviously eject the patched drive as well. So if the TM drive is second in the chain and you remove your other storage drive for whatever reason this will interrupt the continuity of your hourly backups.

All seems logical to me ..

[Calxoddity]

Daz,
Just be aware the the Studio edition is pre-formatted for Mac, so you'll have to reformat it if you're going to use it as the migration drive for the PC....

Here's the external HDD I got from the Apple store (I wanted to usb hub as well!!):
http://store.apple.com/au/product/TL591X/A?mco=MTIxODk3Mw

Regards,
Calx

[bigdazzler]

yep reformatting it now on my laptop .. i only had the option to reoformat to NTFS not FAT32 .. apparently XP can only use NTFS for any drives beyond 32GB capacity ?

Im reformatting the drive on my laptop right now as I type this , im using XP. Most of my data however I want to transfer to the mac is at home on my desktop machine which runs on VISTA .. Do you forsee any problems Calx ?? Once formatted for Windows it should be fine on both Windows OS yea ??

[RememberThis]

Brought a Imac 24 after years of using a PC, Its was a steep and unhappy learning curve, but now we use it more than the PC.

We can also process images in a quicker time, thanks to aperture. and images look better.

Just my 2c

[bigdazzler]

Gday RT ..yea im looking forward to the switch. Ive been considering it for a long while but never did , but now here I am .. the general consensus of mac converts ive come across is that it does take a lttle time to get your head around the differences but once that initial introduction is over with most say theyll never go back to pc again .... i very rarely hear someone say ywa i tried a mac but it sucked and now i got another windows machine .. :D

[bigdazzler]

[QUOTE=Calxoddity;222059] Daz,Note that Macs can read NTFS, but not write. QUOTE]

Calx im reformatting the drive to NTFS now ( was the only option i had , FAT32 wasnt there ), when i connect it to the mac tomorrow , it should read it ok ??

After dumping the data into the mac ill reformat it back again for mac ( journal ) and then sync it with time machine ..