Pros & Cons - Mac vs. PC & Photoshop?

Question

OK What are the pros and cons in using a Mac vs PC using Adobe Photoshop CS3. Please also consider file storage, speed, accessibility ect when answering.

Answer 1

I use both platforms in my freelance design business.  I can tell you, from many years of experience, that, from within the application, the difference between Mac and PC is pretty transparent.  Except for a few keyboard commands, the apps are pretty much identical.

Raw processor speed makes SOME difference in how fast an effect is rendered, especially on the larger files.  But all that means is that a fast PC will run faster than a slow Mac, and vice versa.  And, in most cases, the differences can be measured in seconds, and fractions of a second.

And, maybe I've been lucky, but my PC doesn't seem to suffer the ails that seem to plague other people's PCs such as compatibility issues, freezing up, or, even suceptibility to viruses.  My hardware peripherals seem to all get along and I have few file sharing issues in my internal network.

The list of software apps I use cross platorm include, among others, Photshop, Illustrator, Flash, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Adobe Acrobat Professional, Word, Excel, etc.

For me, at least, the platform wars of the 90s ended back then.

Answer 2

Go with what you know.

I am an MCSE, but before that an ad agency talked me into buying a Mac because it was the "only" computer for photographers.  It was not a lie, but it was an uninformed statement by someone who had only used Mac's and had not kept up to date on the current PS's

Only three years ago I was using both Mac and PC based computers to run Photoshop ... and as it turned out, CS2 actually ran substantially slower on OS X than Windows XP and later Vista.  I have sold the old Macs and have spent my valuable time learning more about Photoshop, Photo Mechanic and other image enhancing programs which run just fine in Windows thank you, and I only have to learn the the updates on one computer operating system ... with two mouse buttons

My current desktop has 8 GB of RAM and 2TB of hard drive running with an Itel® Core™2 Quad Processor.  CS3 processes my the RAW files from my D3 with ease ... the old RAW files from my D200 process in milliseconds ...

One of the things I used to hate about my Mac's was when ever I attempted to copy image files from my memory cards, Find used to automatically delete all the files from the card ... not a good thing, especially when I still had to copy them to a PC later.

Answer 3

I have only used it on a PC but I have had several folks tell me that it actually ran slower on the Mac