Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Choosing a Computer System for Digital Imaging
A quick note about CRT vs LCD. Some profiling software & hardware do not work
with LCDs. For instance, the EZ Monaco color probe does not work with LCDs,
according to the manual.
I don't know if it is just a way to prevent the suction cups from damaging the LCD
screen. Among the links below there is an article from Luminous Landscape which
deals with a Mac product which works with LCDs. In any case, should you choose
to use a LCD, always check if it is compatible with your profiling solution.
-- Fabrizio Giudici, April 11, 2002
Hard Disks: IDE RAID (promise fasttrack 100 with 4 x4 40GB WD ATA100,
raid0) worksfor me, never seen anything better, the only thing that beats it is
SCSI160 raid, and a controller for this is way too expensive. Works awesome on
XP. FAT32 is still way to go (Pierre is right), no it is not limited to 32gb, an
fragmentation of MFT and such is not an issue then. Gary is wrong, and NTFS
really gets slower, and cannot be read from a plain boot disk in case of crash.
DiskKeeper is slowing you down and you have to pay for it too.
Inkjets: Epson 1280 works for me as well, the main cost is still ink and photo
paper, cheaper than any lab print still.
Monitors: I have two 20" trinitrons. Works great as well, got them refurbished at a
great price. Photoshop Interface Improver is nice to have as well. (ATI Radeon
7000 VE card) I could not even think to go back to 15" or 17"!!
-- Carl B, May 10, 2002
A word about Archiving and Storage
Lets look at the basics for a bit, ~20Mb/image will give you no more than 32
images/CD!!! At the rate at which we shoot, we will have to burn 1 cd per "roll".
Add to that the time for burning time. All this equals frustration. RAID drives
sound good for now, but does anyone know about lifetimes on these puppies?
The main question however is, what happens a few years from now when SCSI
drives, RAID, IDE, CDRW and DVDRW, etc. are passe? How does one migrate
upward?
I am struggling with this as my digital collection grows to a few gigs in a few
months. With slides you know you have a tanglible medium in you hand!
http://www.photo.net/photo/computers (21 of 33)7/3/2005 2:19:07 AM