MBA & Photographers

[jaykkub]

Has anyone done any light Photoshop CS3 work on their MBA? I'm into photography and do most of my edits in Photoshop CS3 / Adobe Bridge on my (now dead) PC. Has anyone used either program with their MBA? Did it work ok?

Btw, I'm not looking to do any major work. Just some basic Cropping, Curves, Levels, etc. I typically spend 30-60 seconds on an image.

I really don't want to get the MBP, since they seem so heavy and bulky compared to the MBA.


Thanks!

- Jake

 

[digitalfx]

It handles the apps just fine, but the screen is less than ideal for editing images, 13" is just too small. If you are working on just a few images its ok, but anything more you really need more real estate and resolution.

 

[jaykkub]

Yeah I figure if I ever need a larger screen to work with I can just plug it into my 24in Dell monitors. I have a couple of those at home and at both my jobs. But it would be nice to do some quick edits with if the MBA can run the program ok.

 

[Clix Pix]

Have not installed CS3 or Aperture or any other photo-related program into my 1.8/64 SSD machine yet....I am tempted to install Aperture 2.0 and see what happens, though.....

 

[hotdamn]

Has anyone done any light Photoshop CS3 work on their MBA? I'm into photography and do most of my edits in Photoshop CS3 / Adobe Bridge on my (now dead) PC. Has anyone used either program with their MBA? Did it work ok?

Btw, I'm not looking to do any major work. Just some basic Cropping, Curves, Levels, etc. I typically spend 30-60 seconds on an image.

I really don't want to get the MBP, since they seem so heavy and bulky compared to the MBA.


Thanks!

- Jake

*edit after re-read*

you should be fine with the air.

 

[bcaslis]

I've installed both Photoshop CS3 and Aperture 2.0. They run fine, no real issues with Photoshop except for screen space. Aperture worked better than I expected. The only issue is certain adjustments make moving the zoomed image slow. Edge sharpen is one that slows it down. But normal exposure adjustments, it zips around fine.

 

[smagdy]

Using Photoshop CS3 on 1.6/SSD and its very fast compared to my desktop AMD 64 2.4 GHz/1GB RAM

 

[felixkunze]

I've used Aperture 2 on the MBA. The only thing I would say you have to watch out for is a) screen size and b) the hard drive is quite slow in comparison to other systems, so loading full raw files can sometimes take quite a while. To edit, Aperture loads the full file before even giving you access to the image, including for crops.

But this minor point isn't enough to make me jump onto a Macbook Pro or Macbook. Processor wise the MBA seems to do just fine, and there's nothing that can beat the ultimate portability of the MBA, especially for photography.

Tethering from MBA is fantastic for shoots away from the studio.

 

[UltraNEO*]

For a little more $$$, you could just get a faster machine with a bigger display, capable of more RAM and a faster and bigger HD! OK, it's not gonna be as light or as thin...

I do a little photography though all my images are much larger cause they're shot in raw format... On a 2.2 with 4Gb, the system doesn't feel so swift, so i hate to see how it'll be like on a 1.6 or 1.8 with only 2GB Max!


But the choice is yours ultimately...

 

[Phil A.]

Use aperture and PS3 regularly. Used PS3 for some fairly major retouching work (Such as moving people around, cloning, etc) and it was very responsive. Photos are from my 11MP D200

 

[Clix Pix]

I'm planning to use my MBA as a traveling companion and will be uploading images from my CF cards to it. I shoot RAW with the D3 and D300 so those are BIG files. I'll be using a couple of external HDs to safely store the files rather than having them on my MBA's small SSD. Usually I don't do a lot of post-processing of images while on a trip but sometimes I like to do a few, so was thinking that it might be worthwhile installing Aperture 2.0 anyway. Although I also have CS3 I don't use it all that much and am not going to install it on the MBA. For any serious image editing/post-processing I use my Mac Pro.

 

[UltraNEO*]

Use aperture and PS3 regularly. Used PS3 for some fairly major retouching work (Such as moving people around, cloning, etc) and it was very responsive. Photos are from my 11MP D200

PS3? er... PhotoShop3 ?

Photoshop3 doesn't run on OSX btw..

 

[bcaslis]

I'm planning to use my MBA as a traveling companion and will be uploading images from my CF cards to it. I shoot RAW with the D3 and D300 so those are BIG files. I'll be using a couple of external HDs to safely store the files rather than having them on my MBA's small SSD. Usually I don't do a lot of post-processing of images while on a trip but sometimes I like to do a few, so was thinking that it might be worthwhile installing Aperture 2.0 anyway. Although I also have CS3 I don't use it all that much and am not going to install it on the MBA. For any serious image editing/post-processing I use my Mac Pro.

I've been trying D3 raw files on the MBA SSD model with Aperture 2. It's fine for doing quick edits and viewing. The disk is way too small for my library but a project of D3 files is fine to use as a secondary machine.

 

[Mhaddy]

I too am interested in how PS3 and Aperture perform on the MBA. I picked up an MBA earlier in the week but I haven't opened it yet... still doing a little research. Would there be a speed increase going from Aperture 1.5 -> 2.0? Heck, I don't know what was changed in 2.0...

 

[rom]

Aperture 2 says 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo processor needed - curious as to how this fares on the MBA. Getting a NFR Aperture 2 soon so thinking of whether to install it on the MBA or the iMac.