MacBook Air and CS5

[Sickkage]

I've currently got an early 2009 iMac, 2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM.

How would a base 11.6" MacBook Air compare to my iMac, occasionally using Adobe CS5 applications for light work on PhotoShop, Premier Pro and After Effects?

Or would I be better off waiting for the MacBook refresh for something more powerful?

Cheers

 

[AF08]

Photoshop CS5

I can only speak for PS, but I use PS CS5 on my 11.6 1.4/4gb of ram Air.. It runs it fine. No issues at all.

The little screen sometimes makes it a bit harder, but very useable.

 

[BeyondtheTech]

You gotta admit, seeing Photoshop CS5 boot up within 4 seconds on the Air's SSD is quite impressive. I agree, we could appreciate the additional screen real estate, especially some of the plug-ins that put the OK button at the bottom of the window that ends up behind the dock (forcing you to turn on "hiding mode"), but it's very usable.

 

[bcf-Tawas]

Tricked out 13" & CS5

Hi,
Good to hear about your experience w/CS5.
I have a maxed out 13"MBA and have just ordered CS5 & a NEC PA271W Bk-SV.
Really looking forward to seeing how PS & InDesign runs.
brian

 

[Beanoir]

I use my MBA 11" 2GB to run PS CS5, in fact I installed the entire CS5 Master suite just for a laugh, not all programs are great on it but I wont go into detail of each of them, as I expect most people serious about editing won't even entertain the idea of using a laptop (let alone an MBA!). So, yes PS CS5 runs ok, it's not the same as running it on a MacPro of course, but then who'd expect it to be. The trouble comes with heavy editing of large RAW files etc, as the processor just doesn't have the oomph, and upping the RAM wouldn't make a huge amount of difference.

So yes, it works, but it's restricted as you might expect it to be with the heavier workloads.

 

[fswmacguy]

Mac Pro + MacBook Air (2010) owner here.

The MacBook Air boots PS CS5 8-10x faster than the my Mac Pro. Obviously, the desktop does things a bit quicker (processing a batch of 150+ images), but as long as you're not editing 9000x9000 pixel images every day, it will perform admirably.

 

[Rob.G]

Agreed; I just installed pieces of CS5 last night... Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and InDesign... and grabbed Acrobat Pro 9 off of my old CS4 since it doesn't appear to be on CS5 Master Collection. I love how fast everything starts up!

I'm trying hard to conserve space... I think I have 58 gig left with everything installed, but no music or photos. 256 gig would be perfect on this thing.

Rob

 

[Beanoir]

Obviously, the desktop does things a bit quicker

A bit?? My work desktop is far far quicker than the MBA at processing images in CS5, and to be honest I would hope so too.

 

[Philalbe]

I have CS4 Design Premium on my MacBook Air 11". I've had no problems with Photoshop and Dreamweaver running at the same time. I've been tweaking my website to see how it looks on a small screen like the Air's.

 

[[DL]]

Does Flash run well? I just started getting into it.

 

[GT-R]

windows user here who just got his first mac with the 11.6 air (4gb ram)

i was very impressed with how robust the air was at running both ps and indesign at the same time, no lag what so ever. I had word and a couple of browsers open + itunes and no slow down.

I used indesign primarily, nothing too taxing on ps, but other then the screen being a little too small (cant have everything on the screen at once, have to switch back and forth between programs) the air handles it very very well. I'm impressed.