A question about computers

Hello,

I am a visual observer; however, my daughter is getting into digital photography as a possible major. She has been told by an instructor and by fellow students that she will be at a disadvantage in processing images by using her plain IBM laptop rather than a Mac.

I thought that I would seek out some wisdom from the folks that give the rest of us such wonderful images.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Daniel

Daniel:

As an academic, I suggest that your daughter follow the standard in her field. If her professors use Macs, the she should use a Mac. Otherwise, she will not be "in step" with her peers and professors.

That said, I use CS3 on a PC XP system and an open source program on Linux. BUT, I am not studying to be a professional photographer. If I was and Macs were the standard, I would buy a Mac. Follow the standard of the field even if the point is debatable and the down payment is $2,000+. Compared to a successful career, it isn't that much money.

Ed

Daniel,

As a professional graphic designer and photo buff, this day and time either platform is just as capable. I actually use both. I have a Mac G5 loaded to the gills and 2 custom built pc's loaded with the most RAM and extreme video card I could afford at the time..(dont ask...I still paid more than I should have..lol). I run Adobe CS4 Master on both platforms with no issues.
One thing to remember if she is going in the graphics field...most coming to her with a file created in Paintshop, MS Publisher etc so on..she will be expected to be able to handle those files. Hi res pdf files, eps, jpg, tiff, png, you name it. There are so many variations she will need to know both platforms to make life easier.
My personal preference is the Mac platform. I use it as my main system. If Bill Gates ever gets Windows correct...it will be so like a Mac it aint funny.

Regards,

Keith

Thanks for the feedback. I will pass it on to my daughter.

As others said, she should go with whatever her peers
are using. That way, when there is a bad problem,
she will be able to get lots of help / advice / sympathy.
If her PC freezes and they've all got Macs, they will
just laugh.