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Archive 2014 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?

  
 
Alex Nail
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


I currently live in a shared house with limited space and I would like to take processing workshops ‘on the road’. I also regularly spend time away from where I live, particularly on weekends. I need a laptop so that I can process my images and write articles etc, things I just can’t do on my ipad.

My current workstation is a custom build i7 920 with 24GB of RAM (which I have only ever maxed out doing After Effects renders of a timelapse). I also have 4TB of storage for about 1.5GB of files. I backup direct to an internal hard drive and bimonthly to an external 2TB drive. My portfolio images are backed up the to cloud. I am very happy with my current set up. It is definitely fast enough for me even when producing 100 megapixel multilayer panoramas.

The current Macbook Pro benchmarks show that I should get a big performance improvement over my current system. I am most interested in Macbooks due to the retina screen and obviously high performance.

Have any of you switched to using a laptop as your main workstation (perhaps with an external monitor when at home/office). How do you deal with backups and storage (particularly with respect to LR catalogues)? Are there any other considerations?

At the moment I am struggling to see a reason to keep the PC (other than financial!) so I would be interested in perspectives from people who have switched to laptop only.

Thanks,

Alex



Aug 28, 2014 at 07:21 AM
evertdoorn
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


I just switched last week from using my pc with win 8 (i7 3,4 ghz 16gb ram ssd) to fully working on mb pro retina.

The retina screen sucks for editing, it's too glossy and not very accurate, even when calibrated. But i hook it up to an eizo cg243 and that looks good I have the mac on a stand next to it so I have a dual screen setup.

Speed wise the mac is much snappier, a joy to work with. I have it hooked up to a lace 2big thunderbolt drive in raid 1 which is fast enough. Backs up to a nas and the cloud.



Aug 28, 2014 at 12:45 PM
gdanmitchell
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


-

Edited on Sep 13, 2014 at 09:24 PM · View previous versions



Aug 28, 2014 at 04:00 PM
Alex Nail
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


Thank you both. I probably should have said that I intend to keep using my current Dell IPS monitor and wireless desktop when at home!

What kind of setup do you use out of interest Dan?



Aug 29, 2014 at 02:00 AM
Rajan Parrikar
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


For many years my main machine at home and on travel was the 15.4" MacBook Pro (fully maxx'ed). At home it was hooked to a NEC 27" monitor. The setup worked nicely but with increasing file sizes it would often run out of gas (CPU throttled, fans going crazy etc), and for video processing it was painful. But it was a very good compromise - you had just one machine to maintain. I have a different setup now - nMP as the main workstation and rMBP 13" for travel. The Retina screen is beautiful but only if you have Retina grade images. Normal sized images look worse and this state of affairs will continue until the web ecosystem catches up.

So to answer your question - yes, the rMBP can work as your main workstation but know its limitations.



Aug 29, 2014 at 07:17 PM
Alan321
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


Converting from PC to Mac can be painful, depending on which software you use and how you use it. Not everything in the Mac world is functionally equivalent to Windows software, nor format equivalent. Carefully analyse what you do and how you do it and then see if the Mac software suits your needs. Even Office:mac is not fully equivalent to Office:windows and there can be a lot of lost information if you try to transfer Outlook data.

Although Ps and Lr work well at normal resolutions and presumably at the retina equivalent of 1920*1200 (or 1080), I'm not sure what they'll be like at genuine retina resolution, which has 220 pixels per inch. A lot of stuff will look tiny.

- Alan





Sep 07, 2014 at 05:51 AM
Alistair Watson
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


evertdoorn wrote:
...The retina screen sucks for editing, it's too glossy and not very accurate, even when calibrated. But i hook it up to an eizo cg243 and that looks good I have the mac on a stand next to it so I have a dual screen setup...


I find the retina screen nasty for editing too although it's 'enough' when I am on the road. With a good external, and calibrated, monitor, the MBP is great for image editing.



Sep 08, 2014 at 05:08 PM
eyal.ma
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


I used a rMBP 15 as my main editing for about 6 months.
It works. Its powerful enough for photoshop and a couple of power hungry programs.
But as stated earlier, when at home, get a vertical dock, a good monitor and keyboard/mouse combo.



Sep 09, 2014 at 06:34 AM
Ian.Dobinson
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


Alistair Watson wrote:
I find the retina screen nasty for editing too although it's 'enough' when I am on the road. With a good external, and calibrated, monitor, the MBP is great for image editing.



Wow Alistair its been a long time since you were on here welcome back



Sep 09, 2014 at 07:05 AM
Alistair Watson
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


Ian.Dobinson wrote:
Wow Alistair its been a long time since you were on here welcome back


Thanks Ian, it's good to be back!



Sep 09, 2014 at 07:34 AM
LyonsPhotos
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


I am using a new MBP (maxed out model) and I find it a joy to use, fast snappy and right on. I am wondering what others find "nasty" about their screens? my colors and viewing seem great. I am trying to look out for future pitfalls, any help would be appreciated.


Sep 13, 2014 at 08:17 PM
Alan321
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


Perhaps the early retina screens were not IPS - I don't know.

Big photos look great on high ppi screens but web photos are generally too small. This is fixed by enlarging them on-screen but that never looks as good as 100% would with a bigger image. Text can be a problem too. I don't think the operating systems have quite got high ppi under control, and in some cases the software is to blame - e.g. Ps menus, etc.

The new retina screens use IPS technology, have a gamut that is close to sRGB, and have 220ppi resolution but a lot of stuff is treated like 110ppi and looks chunky in comparison. I'd rather have the old "high resolution" 132ppi screen than a 110ppi screen. Also, they are still glossy; certainly not as bad as most other glossy screens but still nowhere near anti-glare.

The 2014 and I think late 2013 rMBPs with discrete graphics will handle external 4k screens at 30Hz and so will be good for any monitor you care to attach. I can use a 24" Dell 4k monitor at 185 ppi but not with my 2011 MBP; just with my Windows laptop.


In terms of processing grunt, the rMBPs will do the job very nicely until you need more than 16GB of RAM, but even then the speedy internal flash storage will be much faster than any HDD-based virtual storage ever was. I suggest that you opt for the full 1GB so that you can keep the Lr catalog, previews and smart previews on it. The CPU spec may seem a little on the slow side but so long as the computer is used in a coolish environment they can run at close to maximum speed even when close fully utilised. They will slow down if they get too hot.

For external storage you'll have thunderbolt and USB 3 options available. I prefer thunderbolt but I have not yet been able to use USB 3 on a Mac for comparison. However, on a Windows laptop I found that USB 3 is significantly slower than thunderbolt is on my MBP. I have several thunderbolt drive cases. OWC sell a speedy thunderbolt case called ThunderBay that can hold up to four 3.5" drives; way faster than any drobo, but isn't everything . Akitio do nice cases for one or two 2.5" drives. Any drive on the thunderbolt interface will be as fast as if they were internal on a SATA 6Gbps port.


For backups I use a mix of time machine, routine specific data backups, and whole-of-volume clones. It is dead easy to make any backups with Carbon Copy Cloner (including specific folders or files that do not make up a full volume, which Super Duper could not do). I recommend that you make clones of your volumes (including the system volume) because they can easily and quickly be used when needed without first having to rebuild the system on a new drive. This is one area where OS X is especially better than Windows - booting from external drives without messing up all of your software licensing and activation. I certainly make clones before upgrading the OS, because I've had an OS upgrade trash my system drive several years ago - to the extent that it could not be salvaged.

If you want to avoid buying cases for backup drives that will be used only occasionally then get yourself something like a Voyager Q from OWC. Very handy for using any bare SATA drive.

- Alan



Sep 14, 2014 at 11:05 PM
Bruce Sawle
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


I'm using a late 2013 MBP solely for editing now. My win 7 desktop is collecting dust. I have not had issues with the flossy Retina. Profiling it was easy and it matches my profiled dell monitors.


Sep 14, 2014 at 11:22 PM
Alex Nail
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Macbook Pro as main workstation?


Thanks everyone, that really is brilliant information, just what I was looking for. Particular thanks to Alan for putting together such a thorough response, thats why these boards are so great.

Alex



Sep 15, 2014 at 07:01 AM





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