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Choosing a Computer System for Digital Imaging
iPhoto software is good enough for checking out what you've scanned, even if it
isn't the best way to organize a lot of images. If you've looked at a Mac before and
rejected it because of the operating system you owe it to yourself to take a look at
MacOS X. Until a month ago I had been a Windows user since version 3.1...
The number one thing is RAM - more is better. It is as cheap now as it has ever
been so go for a full gigabyte. If your vendor is charging more than $100 for 256M
that's way too much - see www.mushkin.com for RAM for any system, with a good
return policy. The second thing is hard disk - storagereview.com provides excellent
reviews of hard drives, and their leader board is a good way to choose the fastest at
any given time. Fast hard drives make a big difference. In IDE right now the
Western Digital 120G with 8M cache (not the 2M cache version) is great. In SCSI
the Seagate X15-36LP series is even better.
Arguments over choice of computing platform are possibly the biggest waste of
time on the internet so take my views with a grain of salt and look at them all
before handing over your money. Most of all be clear about what you expect from
your computer and see your candidate systems do that before committing to
anything. Take along a CD with a >50M TIFF image and see it loaded,
manipulated and printed - if your sales person won't or can't do that they shouldn't
get your money.
-- Adam Eberbach, June 19, 2002
My digital darkroom workhorse? Amiga 1200 w/8Mbs ram, '040 cpu, SCSI drive,
Epson 880 printer, working off Photo CD's (when required), photos scanned on
Windows ME platform in PNG format on HP ScanJet 3200 scanner, and then rewritten
to JPEG format on Amiga Cross-Doss for printing at a digital color lab.
Photogenics, Personal Paint, Image FX for image manipulation. Who needs
Photoshop?
-- Juan J. Garza, November 26, 2002
Excellent general article. I'm not sure why the author felt the need to poo-poo
complete home solutions and promote outsourcing for "fine art." Every year massmarketed
printers and scanners get closer to the big-bucks hardware. Some will
argue they can't see the difference now.
I love the dual-monitor recommendation since most people rarely think about it.
My ATI Radeon 7500 (now on sale at $75) dual-output is very stable in WinXP
with the latest drivers and two medium-size monitors are way cheaper than one
monster.
http://www.photo.net/photo/computers (25 of 33)7/3/2005 2:19:07 AM