Need A Photoshop Opinion-Please

[theseeker]

My wife is getting serious about her photography. She has a Sony Alpha 700 with the Zeiss lens.
Here is the question; we both have Mac's and Vista rigs, so should we get PS for Mac or Vista? TIA

[Ashraf]

Get Adobe Photoshop CS4 64-bit for Windows Vista 64-bit.

[Mr.Guvernment]

they are both the same really, Adobe doesnt optimize for Apple like it did 5 years ago or so.

i say get it for windows personally, but it would depends on what OS are you both more familiar with? what shortcuts do you know better....


but also what specs are each system, i would get PS for the systems that have the most power in them (ram /cpu)

[theseeker]

Thanks for the replies. Our PC's are both i7 and my wife has 4GB and I have 12. We both use Vista 64 ultimate. Makes the decision pretty simple.

[Macadamia]

Err... if you wanted large batches of photo handling, Photoshop Lightroom would have been a much better choice. :)

[faster3200]

IIRC the mac version is the only one that supports >8-bit printing. So, if you are using a 14-bit printer the mac version might be better.

If not the PC version is far easier to use imo, plus the PC version supports 64-bit and it is easier to get the video card acceleration to work.

[B.E.E.F.]

Doesn't really matter. Both versions are almost exactly the same. Same speed, same controls. The 64-bit version is nice but you must work with some really large files to see a need for it. Resolution and/or layers.

I like CS3 myself. Less bugs, faster and the interface is a little nicer IMO.

For Vista you need CS3 or CS4. Photoshop also does batches but there's more settings to tweak.

[mattgmann]

Since your PCs are faster computers, I'd go with pc. Like everyone else said, PS is basically the same between mac and pc. But, it's optimized for 64-bit on PC, and the hardware excelleration works. (but you can only run 16 windows at a time in openGL mode). Definitely go with CS4. Some of the basic tools have been drastically improved, like 'brightness/contrast'.

[belmontrich]

it just really depends on what OS are you used to..

[Clue69Less]

Doesn't really matter. Both versions are almost exactly the same. Same speed, same controls. The 64-bit version is nice but you must work with some really large files to see a need for it. Resolution and/or layers.

I like CS3 myself. Less bugs, faster and the interface is a little nicer IMO.

For Vista you need CS3 or CS4. Photoshop also does batches but there's more settings to tweak.

I've been combining bracketed montages into HDR, starting with 10MP images on my QX rig. Some of the HDR composites are in the 0.5GB range. Running CS4 with 64 bit Vista actually works great. Not only is the CS4 HDR compiler much improved, but running at 64 bit makes it much faster.

If you shoot RAW, you DO want CS4, no doubt about it.

CS4 is a big step up in many respects, but the RAW engine is way improved, as are the selection tools. No comparison. I recommend the CS4 Extended / Lightroom 2 educational bundle. As far as I know, the 64 bit version is still not available for Mac OS. Having worked with CS4 on 32 and 64 bit Vista, I believe you do want 64 bit if you're doing RAW work.

[audiofreak]

If your wife will shoot a lot of photos I would suggest Adobe Lightroom as a better suited tool for a photographer. It is more intuitive, and she will be able to process a lot of photos very quickly. Current version (2.3) has the same RAW import plugin as the Photoshop CS4.

If she wants to occasionaly compose or edit a photo or two, then the Photoshop might be neccessary, but there are also other programs with similar capabilities (PaintShop Pro, Gimp) which are cheaper or even free (as in beer).

As for Photoshop CS4 -- I had a chance to try it (on a decent hardware) -- 32-bit version is slower than CS3, 64-bit version is a bit unstable/buggy and still lacks many plugins and you really do not need it unless you often compose very large posters from dozens of layers.

As for HDRI work, Photomatix Pro can produce very good results, in my opinion at least comparable to Photoshop if not even better.

As for Mac .vs. PC, I would vote for PC version because you have better/faster hardware there and you can expand if further as opposed to buying a new Mac.

[theoryzero]

I have both Photoshop CS4 (64-bit) and Lightroom 2. While I will agree that Lightroom 2 is more suited for editing multiple photos, Photoshop does have it's place for detail work. Lightroom 2 also runs in 64-bit mode. Personally, I need and use both...for your wife it might be best to start with Lightroom to get started. Adobe has 30-day trials with no restricted functionality. Photoshop does have a large learning curve due to the program being so deep. I've been using it since version 6 and there are still many new tricks and techniques to learn.

As far as bugs, I've personally had no issues with Photoshop CS4 at all. Plug-in support is lacking at the moment, but you can have both the 64-bit and 32-bit versions installed on the same system. Love the ability to work with larger files, this has been a big improvement when working with multi-image panoramas.