I’m looking a buying a Dell laptop with Windows xp professional operating system. I’m using Ill 8, Photo 5, Pagemaker 6.5, Acrobat 4 and Quark 4. I’m tired of being tied to my office & would like some freedom so I can use at cafe, road trips or in the backyard. I’d love to hear any good or back experiences about using a laptop, using Windows xp prof. and quality of monitors now on laptops. Thanks
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I use a laptop all the time, but when I use Photoshop with the laptop, I always connect up a CRT. There are not many folks who can get consistent performance, monitor profile-wise out of your standard LCD display. Some can however – it’s a function of the LCD and the intent of the images. If you have no need for screen/print matching, this may not be a big deal. On the other hand if you relegate your work to doing anything you want away from the desk EXCEPT photoshop, where you connect up a CRT, you may end up quite happy.
Personally, I wouldn’t use a laptop for my primary machine simply because of the limited upgradeability and the price performance ratio.
I was recently on the road and opened the laptop in the car to look up a street address and couldn’t see a thing because the sun was out – I had to shade the display. Something to think about I suppose.
I use a laptop for Photoshop as that’s what the company provide us with! It’s a good machine and it does mean that I can use Photoshop at home in the evenings/at weekends. I even work from home sat out in my back garden sometimes! As Tony says a shade is useful and bellows type attachments are available which might be worth purchasing it you’re going to be using the laptop outdoors a lot. At work I tend to hook it up to a nice colour profiled CRT monitor. I also have a wacom pad with a long wire so that I can move a bit further away from the laptop if required.
I will shortly be upgrading to OSX, will Photoshop 5.5 run ok or do I need to upgrade this also.
If you partition your hard drive so that OS9 (Classic) is still on as an optional operating system I think you should be fine running Photoshop 5.5 in Classic mode. If you do not partition and have only OSX you can’t run Photoshop 5.5 using OSX alone.
As a side note, beware of OSX 10.3.3 (Panther) update, it’s not a good update. Should you be using your computer for work you may want to consider using Jaguar OSX 10.2.8, I think it is more stable and dependable for client related work.
"As a side note, beware of OSX 10.3.3 (Panther) update, it’s not a good update."
Hmm…10.3.3 runs just fine for me. And I almost always run Photoshop 7.0.1 under OS 9.2.2 (access to plugins, and all)(Along with Illustrator 8.0.1, InDesign 2.0.2, TypeStyler 3.7.2, the latest iLife suite, and many others). Haven’t noticed anything that kills my day yet.
But, then again, I strive to run a clean house.
Your Mileage May…No…WILL…Vary. Such is the nature of an almost infinite number of system permutations.
As a side note, beware of OSX 10.3.3 (Panther) update, it’s not a good update.
Sorry but this is a load of crap. 10.3.3 runs circles around 10.2.8 is more stable and is faster. If you are going to use OSX you really should get native software. upgrade your Photoshop.
Panther OSX10.3.3 is strongly not recommended in the circles I run in (Photoshop and Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro).
As a side note, I don’t just run Adobe products like Photoshop on my computer and I also cannot afford to miss a beat with my clients, so I’m a little more cautious.
Panther OSX10.3.3 is strongly not recommended in the circles I run in (Photoshop and Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro).
well I don’t use FCP and I’m Just getting into DVD studio Pro, but I’ve had absolutely no problems with 10.3.3 and Photoshop any version. It seems that people with problems specifically are having hardware issues and its just a few not everyone.
I find it hard to take advice from someone who has no experience with 10.3.3 and is just spouting hearsay. Weren’t you trying to convince everyone that the world was giving up digital and going back to film?
I went to your link in Macfixit and saw nothing extraordinary there. And remember that any OS version/any platform will have a laundry list of glitches of various severity which may or may not affect the way you work.
IMHO, I would never run much video editing software or Photoshop off a laptop for a variety of technical reasons, so the battery issue (for me) is irrelevant. And, unless I missed something, I saw no problems related directly to the apps you cited.
I’m fairly new to OS X myself, but I’ve found Panther to be very fast and stable so far.
10.3.3 has been totally stable here and I have (so far!) run into no problems with any of my applications or hardware.
As for Classic: Why would you want to remove it?
It takes up very little space on the HD and runs seamlessly with 10.3.3 so that you can run older software, including a copy of any version of Photoshop (prior to CS), which lets you use your whole library of plug-ins when you need them.
I find it hard to take advice from someone who has no experience with 10.3.3 and is just spouting hearsay.
I’m one of LAFCPUG <http://www.lafcpug.org/forum.html> moderators and read the boards regularly. There are enough known issues with OSX 10.3.3 that it is not recommended at the meetings I attend within the movie industry. I respect the advice given by my colleagues who use Panther in my line of work.
Weren’t you trying to convince everyone that the world was giving up digital and going back to film?
Yup, this would be me. But, regardless of whether you agree with me or not concerning the use of film over digital photography is OK. I prefer to document with film, photons and molecules. If this is not your bag, cool, remember it’s not the pencil but the writer holding the pencil. I’m using the crappie digital camera on my mobile phone and have fun with it, learning to incorporate the digital noise as part of the compositions to give the shots a mood.
I’m very glad some of you aren’t having any problems with 10.3.3 🙂 and like I stated before we film editors tend to be three clicks on the paranoid side because our project files are so enormous and encompass a much broader range of file types and applications that tax the operating systems and hardware we work on, unlike the dinky and much more limited file types you guys work with in Photoshop. We are comparing an aircraft carrier to a water taxi here using the same ocean.
I wish you only sunshine and smooth sailing as you taxi your vessel through the digital sea 🙂
I’m Just getting into DVD studio Pro
All right! Apple did an amazing job with it, I use it everyday with the Pioneer A07 I installed inside my mac. Should you ever need any help with it email me, I’ll be glad to help you with it 🙂
I went to your link in Macfixit and saw nothing extraordinary there.
Yes, it is sometimes hit or miss as to what unsubscribed visitors can read there. I think macfixit posts the reviews and whatnot for three days before they are archived. After Ann recommended reading it daily it has become a daily read for me. When the 10.3.3 update came out macfixit had a rather large laundry list of the problems.
Again, I’m giving my advice coming from what I use my system for — work and pay the rent — which includes Photoshop. If something is not stable I just don’t use it nor do I update every time an update comes out, this is very good advice.
Heck, I have to take a step back and consider all the things computers do as it is aside from being an end all to everyone’s workflow needs.
I mean I’m still blown away by being able to speak to my computer and have it perform an action as far back as in OS 8.1 and no one even uses it except the disabled.
Heck, I have to take a step back and consider all the things computers do as it is aside from being an end all to everyone’s workflow needs.
I’m waiting for someone to come up with three dimensional pixels the size of molecules to replace those square things we are all using and make the computer small enough and fast enough to be imbedded inside my eyelid and operated by eye movement, of course it will be water cooled 🙂 and of course we will all still be fighting over the same things 🙂 digital no film, film no digital, pc no mac, mac no pc…
Last week I lost 4 of 5 (fully backed up) partitions on my LaCie FW 400 drive, OS 10.2.8. In discussions with LaCie tech support they strongly recommended that I stay with 10.3.2, specifically stating that 10.3.3 has many issues.
The LaCie tech said pretty much the exact same thing and laid it squarely on OS X. My crash was a (rare) OS crash. The biggest (140 GB) partition survived the OS crash. I am now wiping that drive and will reinstall as a single partition; apparently multiple partitions are a bit more susceptible. My older but also FW400 Acom drive has never had such problems, including survival of the same OS crash.
I’m still very happy to be booting the new machine into 9.2.2, with the black cat sleeping indefinitely on a different drive. Whenever I begin to get tempted to try something on OS X, a thread like this (or the comments on that other one about making things stick in OS X) brings back memories of my initial experiences with Cheetah and Jaguar.
Buko, no one has your luck –especially yours truly.
In discussions with LaCie tech support they strongly recommended that I stay with 10.3.2, specifically stating that 10.3.3 has many issues.
This seems to be the recommendation, as a matter of fact Apple immediately posted a reinstall of 10.3.2 right after the reports started coming in about the bad update — 10.3.3.
Sorry to hear about the loss of your hard drives. FWIW, on the LAFCPUG site some recommend staying completely away from all FW hard drives. I’m using 4 internal Ultra ATA Seagate Barracudas.
