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CaptZoom started another thread on getting a small second monitor. Rather than take his thread off topic, I thought I'd start another.

 

I have an iMac at work, with a second Apple monitor (I'm very happy with both), and a 13" MacBook Pro.

 

I had thought I could get away with photo-editing on the MacBook, but that soon turned out to be unworkable. I use iCloud, and that also works very well. But, my photos are all over the place, and I realise I need a home computer with all music, movies and photos stored on it. My internet connection is good there, and I realise that having everything on DropBox might not be sensible.

 

I have read here a number of times that the Apple monitors are not so good for photo-editing, so rather than getting another iMac, I have been thinking about getting a Mac Pro, and using an alternative monitor, properly calibrated and better suited to post processing. I see that people here recommend the Eizo and NEC monitors. If you were buying new (to go with a Mac Pro), what would you get?

 

Thank you in advance.

 

Cheers

John

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Using our friend Google, I have found the following:

 

The NEC is cheaper. Anyone have experiences with these monitors, and a Mac Pro? I'm assuming using either on a Mac is not an issue.

A MacPro is just fine; but note that the maximum number of monitors you can use (without resorting to extra gear) is two, despite more interfaces.

For editing two screens is advisable. Keep one screen for a full view of your image and all the tools etc. on the second one, which can be a lesser screen, but preferably the same size.

Edited by jaapv
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Thanks Jaap (& Jeff).

 

If using two screens is advisable, an iMac with an Eizo screen could be cheaper than a Mac Pro and two screens. This will be my main computer, as I will use it for music, videos, photos and as a backup so I can work from home. I use two screens at work (an iMac and an Apple cinema scree, which work well together, but I don't do much photo editing on them).

 

Does anyone use an iMac with an Eizo screen as a second screen? One appeal of the Mac Pro is that it's easier to add peripherals, add and replace memory and various bits - it feels like a longer term investment.

 

Any thoughts appreciated.

 

Cheers

John

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I prefer the Mac Pro for my home system. Mine is 4 years old, and I'm in the process right now of enhancing the memory, drive and back-up system.

 

The new forthcoming Mac Pro is going to be another leap altogether, if you haven't checked out the video ads. It's nice that Apple finally got around to serving its desktop customers again. But it's nice, too, that the changes I'm making now to my 2009 Mac should last quite a while yet...at least in digital terms.

 

Jeff

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Thanks guys - I have ordered the Eizo CG276 from B&H Photo (with shipping and GST, it's about half to 2/3 the local price).

 

By the time it gets here, the new Mac Pro should have been released, and I can make a decision about that. It looks nice, but the price remains a mystery ...

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I wouldn't be without my Mac Pro, it is much easier to add disks, memory, exchange cards etc. I also have the idea that it is more robust. After all, an iMac is basically a large laptop without the folding mechanism, with the construction compromises that come with it.

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I suspect you're right - the new Mac Pro will be interesting.

 

From what I can see, it doesn't have a DVD drive. The Apple superdrive has some pretty poor reviews. Also, setting up the computer is going to take a bit of thought - backups etc. It all gets very complicated. To be honest, I'd prefer an online backup system, so I don't need to worry about hard drives, and off-site storage.

 

How do you set yours up (and what's a RAID drive, and why would I need one)?

 

Cheers

John

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John,

Looks like you went with the Eizo. Based on the feedback I've received here combined with other research, when its time to upgrade my NECs I'll be getting Eizos.

 

iMac vs Nac Pro

I use a 27" iMac quad core, i7, two on oars solid state hard drives, 16gb ram, Nvidia 1gb video card. I save little data on the computer, in fact the onboard drives are used for software and data that I'm currently working on. I store my data in external HDs. Of the external HDs, I have a redundant copy of each. One set is turned on when ever my computer is powered on; the other set is powered on long enough to back up data (after which it stays powered off). Some time soon, I'll be investing in a couple of Drobos to use for data storage.

Edited by CaptZoom
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John,

Looks like you went with the Eizo. Based on the feedback I've received here combined with other research, when its time to upgrade my NECs I'll be getting Eizos.

 

iMac vs Nac Pro, and Data Storage

I use a 27" iMac quad core, i7, two on oars solid state hard drives, 16gb ram, Nvidia 1gb video card. I save little data on the computer, in fact the onboard drives are used for software and data that I'm currently working on. I store my data in external HDs. Of the external HDs, I have a redundant copy of each. One set is turned on when ever my computer is powered on; the other set is powered on long enough to back up data (after which it stays powered off). Some time soon, I'll be investing in a couple of Drobos to use for data storage. RAID is used to set up arrays, commonly used for data storage. You can set up an array to back up data in a number of ways. Say you have two HDs in an array. You can have the drives mirror one another in real time, or at set intervals (one HD records data in real time; the other duplicates it periodically- say every Sunday at 4am). There are other configurations available for setting up arrays. Dropbox is nice for housing current projects, portfolios, etc but isnt sufficient for data storage/back up. It isn't efficient for storing 50,000 raw/DNG files! With other online storage companies, be mindful of their privacy, ownership policies. You also have to worry about the companies changing terms of usage, as well as the longevity of the company. What do you if the company goes defunct or changes terms so they are unacceptable to you? How much time is it going to take relocating/migrating tens of terabytes of data? Online backups work well for redundancy, but not so much as the primary backup. Returning to the iMac. I enjoy using it. It works sufficiently well for private use. However, they are severely limited as a long term investment if you are a power user, ie photo-editing. The latest models don't allow for the user to easily change RAM; there's no easy way to upgrade the drives and the processor (if at all). Going forward, raw files are going to get larger, which means they'll become processor intensive to edit. So you'll have to contemplate upgrading your iMac along with new cameras. The Mac Pro negates this problem, which is why when its time for an upgrade that's what I'll be getting. iMac's screen: it doesn't hold calibration well (certainly better than most monitors, but nothing like NEC's pro monitors). The uber glossy screen further affects the contrast of the image. While these things aren't a big concern for most users (no reason for them to be), when making color/contrast sensitive decisions for critical applications the screen isn't good enough. I do commercial and product photography. Getting the color of the product right (often times its the color that is the market differentiator) is of paramount concern. When I work from home, I have to check the colors at work to ensure accuracy. The iMac is lacking in this regard. If you can afford to, you should seriously consider the Mac Pro over the iMac.

I would stay away from installing music, and other non-essential being on my photography computer. You could get a Mac Mini, or have a networked HD for that stuff. iTunes allows for home sharing of media files. The data can be in the Mac Mini or networked HD, and all your Apple products can share it (provided they are WiFi enabled). The more you use your computer, the more likely it is to crash. I treat my photography computer as sacred, and want to minimize the chances of it crashing.

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Thank you for this - I will try to decipher it while I'm waiting for the Mac Pro to be released, and my monitor to arrive :o

 

I will probably go for the bottom of the range, on the basis that I can upgrade as my needs change and my understanding improves. I will also store almost everything on the hard drives, and do external hard drive backups - one time machine (I guess) and one a traditional full backup, done periodically.

 

Music and videos, contacts and the like are on iCloud/iTunes match, work is in DropBox (so I have mirrored versions of my work files on my home computer, work computer and laptop) - that really just leaves photos.

 

As an aside, does anyone have any recommendations for HD music? I am using a Musical Fidelity M1Clic with my stereo (a nice piece of kit), but it does not work with iTunes. I was recommended (and joined) HD Tracks, but I find that it is only for US residents. I have installed JDRiver, which mirrors my iTunes library, but I am limited by my iTunes library which is not HD. I would like to start adding some HD music to the JDRiver library.

 

Cheers

John

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Sound like you're on your way.

 

I love music, but I know nothing about music players. I too find iCloud convenient bit not a replacement for high quality audio. Dunno much about HD music format, but one of the very nice things about living in SoCal is being able to find live music any night if the week.

 

Contact fellow forum member jdsvt regarding audio equipment.

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I am in two minds about the trash can, mainly due to the lack of internal expandability and the need (and costs involved) to buy Thunderbolt drives. Ars took a critical look on it. HDD and SSD prices may be dropping but cost saves there will be eaten up by having to get Thunderbolt boxes to house them in.

 

Realising that it would be an older computer, and depending on the cost of the new Mac Pro and necessary peripherals, you might consider one of the penultimate Mac Pro, refurbished. They remain very capable and expandable machines. I am (still) using a 2008 8-core, now with various SSDs and HDDs installed and 24GB RAM which I keep updating as prices drop. It works very well for my purposes (hybrid film-scanning workflow but sometimes with rather large files).

 

Now, the classical Mac Pros have of course only 3GB/s hard drive interfaces on the internal back plane (and the extra ports on the logic board) but it is possible to upgrade to 6GB/s using the PCIe bus (which is how the new Mac Pro gets much of its speed increase; same with the new Air). Sonnet Tempo Pro SSD is an interesting card which is about 250€ and which allows striping (thus RAID 0) two SSDs (say Intel 520s or such) for rather insane speeds, beneficial for program launches and Photoshop scratch for instances. The Tempo also exists in a non-Pro version for one SSD which allows mounting one or two SSDs. OWC also has a similar solution, the Accelsior, and there is also the cheaper Velocity Solo X2. BareFeats found the Sonnet card is the fastest by quite a bit. Then again we're discussing pretty bizarre read/write speeds here so any of these is likely enough for most users. Incidentally it is also possible to make the internal back plane interface 6GB/s (but not bootable, so useful only for storage and scratch) using this.

 

Btw, I'm not saying these drive upgrades are necessary. A 3GB/s SSD as boot and application drive is sufficient for most.

 

For application of filters and other processor-intensive tasks older computers will of course be bottlenecked by the processor they happen to have (unless upgraded, which I believe can also be done on the Westmere Mac Pros). If you can get Apple Care with a refurbished computer you may well be in a better situation for the future than with the new Mac Pro. Just some thoughts.

 

Cheers and good luck

Philip

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Thanks Philip,

 

Reading through the acronyms and various other words I really don't understand, I take your point that the current Mac Pro might be a better option (for my needs) than the all singing all dancing new Mac Pro. Against that, I tend to buy the latest technology (or all my computers at the same technology point) on the basis that it will stave off redundancy.

 

Two new iPhones announced this morning, but still no pricing or release date for the new Mac Pro; and I have a huge box with my new monitor sitting in the corner of my office.

 

Cheers

John

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Another one here waiting to know anything more about the new mac pro before deciding how to substitute my 7 years old i.mac 24 . The new pro, the mini, or another i.mac ? Usually I tend to buy something with high specs and keep it for many years but with the actual short innovation time maybe better to spend less money and change the hardware more often. The sure point for me is I'll buy a good monitor to couple with whatever computer I'll buy.

robert

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  • 2 weeks later...
Another one here waiting to know anything more about the new mac pro before deciding how to substitute my 7 years old i.mac 24 . The new pro, the mini, or another i.mac ? Usually I tend to buy something with high specs and keep it for many years but with the actual short innovation time maybe better to spend less money and change the hardware more often. The sure point for me is I'll buy a good monitor to couple with whatever computer I'll buy.

robert

 

 

Same here, waiting for the new Mac Pro.

 

I am interested in buying a Mac with lots of processing power and memory, RAM and Flash, Thunderbolt II and USB3, and a quality display separate from the computer.

 

Then I also need to find a way to hook up my Firmtek eSATA RAID enclosures with lots of hard drives and SSDs. There seem to exist several options to attach those via Thunderbolt though.

 

Currently I have those RAID enclosures attached to my 17" MacBook Pro.

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  • 1 month later...

Mac Pro available in December, and the price doesn't look too bad.

 

I will probably go for the base model (with the 256 GB solid state drive), and add a hard drive. I've been using the Eizo screen with my MacBook Pro - I was surprised at first as the matt finish and subdued colours of the screen were not what I was expecting. Once I have the computer, I will sit down with the manual and see if I can understand how to calibrate it properly.

 

Any advice welcomed.

 

Cheers

John

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I will sit down with the manual and see if I can understand how to calibrate it properly.

 

The good news is that since your monitor is self-calibrating (no need for 3rd party device or separate software), all you need to determine are the target settings for a given type of work and the schedule for calibration. The concept is similar for any monitor calibration system, so you shouldn't have difficulty finding some good articles or tutorials if you're not already familiar.

 

This video, using an earlier Eizo, provides a brief overview of the features (without going into the all-important target parameters). I use an NEC, requiring a separate 'puck', but the concept is the same.

 

Jeff

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