What mac hardware do you use for your Photography?

[casperes1996]

About 4 weeks for any panel to drift. Sooner for cheap ones.

Well, drift is gradual. How big of a ∆E2k are we talking when you say 4 weeks?
And surely you can't say any panel. IPS and TN for instance will surely have greatly differing drift times. Not to mention OLED based panels or Micro-LEDs.

I agree that panels drift and need to be readjusted, but if it's a ∆E2K ≤ 1.2 It won't really matter on Apple's retina panels, as per their supreme accuracy from the factory. That would still only bring them to ∆E2K 1.8 (roughly - There's variation from panel to panel, but this is based on averages). That'd still be below what is generally regarded as what the average, untrained human eye can distinguish - ∆E2K 2.0.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Well, drift is gradual. How big of a ∆E2k are we talking when you say 4 weeks?
And surely you can't say any panel. IPS and TN for instance will surely have greatly differing drift times. Not to mention OLED based panels or Micro-LEDs.

I agree that panels drift and need to be readjusted, but if it's a ∆E2K ≤ 1.2 It won't really matter on Apple's retina panels, as per their supreme accuracy from the factory. That would still only bring them to ∆E2K 1.8 (roughly - There's variation from panel to panel, but this is based on averages). That'd still be below what is generally regarded as what the average, untrained human eye can distinguish - ∆E2K 2.0.

I'd not consider Apples panels to be superior for colour or uniformity. That's why I'd never use one for photo editing.
I think you should look at the 100's of threads on here before claiming their supreme accuracy.

Yes different panel technology will not all drift the same, but they all do.
Even two identical screens used for identical times won't give the same results.

 

[casperes1996]

I'd not consider Apples panels to be superior for colour or uniformity. That's why I'd never use one for photo editing.
I think you should look at the 100's of threads on here before claiming their supreme accuracy.

Yes different panel technology will not all drift the same, but they all do.
Even two identical screens used for identical times won't give the same results.

I'm not saying Apple's panels are the absolute best on the market, but they are good. The 5K iMacs ship with an average ∆E2K og 0.68. A drift of ∆E2K1.0 would still be below the 2.0 threshold.
Again, when you said 4 weeks is the drift time, how much drift are we talking?

 

[Apple fanboy]

I'm not saying Apple's panels are the absolute best on the market, but they are good. The 5K iMacs ship with an average ∆E2K og 0.68. A drift of ∆E2K1.0 would still be below the 2.0 threshold.
Again, when you said 4 weeks is the drift time, how much drift are we talking?

It would depend on the panel! When you quote the average delta have you ever actually measured one with a colorimeter? I think the results would surprise you.

 

[Mark0]

I don’t really understand those numbers but hey, my prints look good considering I’ve never calibrated. I should try it sometime though

 

[Apple fanboy]

I don’t really understand those numbers but hey, my prints look good considering I’ve never calibrated. I should try it sometime though

Well it's just a tolerance.
If your prints match your screen that's good. But for many they don't (or they learn how to make their images look on the screen to get a print they like!).
Or as the panel changes with time, they stop matching their prints.

 

[mollyc]

I calibrate when I get a new computer and then rarely after that. I typically keep a computer 3-4 years, and after the initial calibration I do it again maybe once or twice? I print at home and my prints match well enough for my purposes. I think if I were a professional I'd make a more concerted effort, but I find the iMac holds the color fairly well.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I calibrate when I get a new computer and then rarely after that. I typically keep a computer 3-4 years, and after the initial calibration I do it again maybe once or twice? I print at home and my prints match well enough for my purposes. I think if I were a professional I'd make a more concerted effort, but I find the iMac holds the color fairly well.

If you have a calibrator, why wouldn't you use it more often? It only takes a few minutes.

 

[casperes1996]

It would depend on the panel! When you quote the average delta have you ever actually measured one with a colorimeter? I think the results would surprise you.

I've only measured a single one myself (brand new). Hardly enough to judge the entire line based off of, so what I've been saying has been based on reviews I've found online

 

[mollyc]

If you have a calibrator, why wouldn't you use it more often? It only takes a few minutes.

Because my prints always match my computer. And I can't do it first thing in the morning when the message pops up, because you have to do it when the monitor has warmed up, and then you have to go into system preferences to make sure that the screen doesn't go to sleep in the middle of it, and then set those preferences back. And I'm lazy. And mostly because my prints always match my monitor.

Plus, I have had occassion where I calibrated after feeling guilty or obligated, and the new profile was way off, whereas the original one was just fine. So I decided that unless I was running into major printing issues, I'd just stick with the profile I have as long as I can.

 

[Clix Pix]

I have never purchased a calibration device and I have never calibrated any of my monitors..... To my eyes, the images look fine on the computer and on the web when I share them, and I rarely print anything.

 

[mollyc]

I have never purchased a calibration device and I have never calibrated any of my monitors..... To my eyes, the images look fine on the computer and on the web when I share them, and I rarely print anything.

The average person is not calibrated and would have no idea if the colors were right or wrong. My husband's computer blinds me and my photos look like crap there. But he doesn't know the difference at all.

Calibration is only important if you are printing, IMO.

 

[Apple fanboy]

You'd be surprised how many people buy calibrators and don't use them!

I try and remember to do it once a month or so. Actually as I just updated MacOS I guess I should break out the i1 Display Pro this weekend.

 

[Clix Pix]

Exactly, Molly! No real need for calibration in my case, which is the major reason I have not bothered with buying a device and using it to calibrate. If I printed more of my work then it would be a different situation, more important to me.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

13” rMBP with 16GB RAM and 1TB SSD from 2013. Had a swollen battery this year and got it replaced by Apple. Software of choice is Aperture.

 

[p8blr]

I've been a Lightroom user for some time now but after purchasing my new Fuji camera last year and finding out that it doesn't support Fuji's RAW format, I switched to Apple Photos and it's been great. I'm an amateur, I don't make my living off photography so a lot of the missing features between the two didn't really phase me (plus there's no way I'm subscribing to Adobe's new Lightroom for something I do as a hobby). Honestly, for bundled software I was surprised at how much control Photos gives you. But my aging 2013 13" rMBP is getting slower, and it's starting to get on my nerves. By slow I mean opening a raw file and waiting on the spinning gear for 10-20 seconds, moving a slider or curve and waiting another 5-10 seconds for it to make the change. Little things like that add up and just make the whole process frustrating. The new 2018 MBPs are tempting, but there are so many faults that I'm waiting to see what comes up in the regular MB or Air line in the September/October events. I'm just not sure how those will compare to my current Mac, these will be low-power intel chips. Is a new low-end cpu an "upgrade" from a 5-year old "pro" Intel i5? Will just have to wait and see I suppose.

 

[casperes1996]

I've been a Lightroom user for some time now but after purchasing my new Fuji camera last year and finding out that it doesn't support Fuji's RAW format, I switched to Apple Photos and it's been great. I'm an amateur, I don't make my living off photography so a lot of the missing features between the two didn't really phase me (plus there's no way I'm subscribing to Adobe's new Lightroom for something I do as a hobby). Honestly, for bundled software I was surprised at how much control Photos gives you. But my aging 2013 13" rMBP is getting slower, and it's starting to get on my nerves. By slow I mean opening a raw file and waiting on the spinning gear for 10-20 seconds, moving a slider or curve and waiting another 5-10 seconds for it to make the change. Little things like that add up and just make the whole process frustrating. The new 2018 MBPs are tempting, but there are so many faults that I'm waiting to see what comes up in the regular MB or Air line in the September/October events. I'm just not sure how those will compare to my current Mac, these will be low-power intel chips. Is a new low-end cpu an "upgrade" from a 5-year old "pro" Intel i5? Will just have to wait and see I suppose.

Yes, Photos is really good for something that you get for free with macOS . Plus it keeps getting better and better.

Whether the processors are upgrades or not depends on a lot of factors actually. A processor can be an upgrade in some aspects and a downgrade in others.
For burst-workloads, it's without a doubt an upgrade, as the turbo speeds and IPC gains will result in faster computations. For long-running, intense computations, it might not be, since a 28W TDP would still have the advantage against the what? 5W the MB has as its TDP.
Photo work will generally be mostly in the bust category though.
I don't think we'll see anything September, but I think there'll be a separate October event where a new laptop might hit the streets. Either that, or early next year. If this new laptop will come with a Y chip, you might experience it an upgrade in some ways and a downgrade in others. If it comes with a U-series chip, it'll likely all around just be an upgrade.
(Traditionally, Air have had U series and the new thin MacBooks have had Y-series. MacBook Pro 13" also uses a U-series, but higher up the lineup than Air)

 

[Micky Do]

As per the title, I'm curious what Mac hardware everyone uses for their photography and how they use it.
Me personally as a keen amateur, I use a 2012 i7 quad core mini with upgraded SSD and 16GB RAM hooked up to a Benq 27" monitor. I use this for a number of tasks including Photo DAM using Apple Photos. For editing, I mainly use a combination of Photos, Affinity Photo and Luminar 2018 supplemented with some additional software such as Pixelmator, Nik Collection and RAW Power.

I switched to this from a rMBP 15 since I was typically editing in my home office most of the time anyway and using the external monitor. I already had the Mac Mini on 24/7 as a server anyway so it made sense and proceeded with a quick bump in RAM and the drive.

Although the mini works great and in general is a quick machine, the integrated GPU is really starting to show its age so contemplating an upgrade to a new iMac if we get new hardware announced this year.

What are others using?

Until recently a Mac Mini here too, but nothing flash. Just a base model early 2009 Mac Mini, the only upgrade being an additional 4 GB RAM, for a total of 5 GB. It is connected to a 22 inch Samsung Monitor. I still use the Mini to archive keepers, but I got a new MacBook Air (base model again 1.8 GHz i5 / 8 GB RAM / 128 GB SSD) a few weeks ago, which I now use for editing.

No fancy software either, just using Photos 3.0 on the Air, which I find OK..... a big step up for on the Photos 1.0 that I got landed with when I upgraded the Mini to El Capitan (more recent OS updates have dropped support for the 2009 Mac Mini). I quite liked iPhoto, but lost it with the El Capitan update.

Nothing flash in the camera department either, just a Fujifilm X20, which has a 12 megapixel sensor. No interchangeable lens, just the fixed one with up to 4 x zoom.

It would be nice to have something like the Fujifilm XPro 2 with a 50 - 140 zoom, and a more recent mid-level Mac Mini for editing, but all that is beyond my budget at this stage. Not interested in getting into more advanced apps.... I'll leave them for the pros.

As a photographer, I just like to document things, usually with a bit of action going on. I'm not looking for anything artistic or whatever that would put me in the "keen amateur" category. My photos are used on various web sites or groups and also often by the local press for sports reports.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I have a base 2017 5K iMac where I use Lightroom 6. I went with LR6 because it was the last Adobe software release you could own, and I don’t shoot enough to go with a subscription model (not a fan of subscriptions anyway). We moved recently, and due to floor plan logistics, the iMac is now in the basement and has become the family computer. I can still use it for LR, but I finally took the plunge on a 2017 iPad Pro 12.9 (from the Apple refurb store). I also purchased Affinity photo from the App Store and have been tinkering with it ever since. I’ve been quite impressed with both the iPP and Affinity so far. If I could do it over again, I would have just purchased Affinity for the iMac too. I had to learn how to use both it and LR, so familiarity wasn’t really an issue. Everything gets dropped into Photos, synced with iCloud, and backed up in Time Machine.

 

[tizeye]

15" MBP (late 2013) 2.3 ghz Core i7, 16gb ram, 500gb SSD. Needed something that powerful primarily for FCPX with video rendering. Moved back to Apple from original IIc due to needing a laptop and returned a Windows 8 machine experience - hardware fine but the OS experience was a disaster.

Like @kenoh, primary desktop is a PC running Windows 10. I did try taking a second SSD and creating a Hackintosh to dual boot but gave up and not the motherboard/CPU, while decent is a little dated 3 or 4 generations old (Skylake???). I've personally built each of my desktops since a 286 processor. Looked at a Mac Mini as a second hookup to my 4K monitor, while good for photo, just not powerful enough for serious video processing.

An iMac and upgraded/updated MBP probably will be in my future as I am looking to dump Adobe and FCPX is the key replacement for Premier Pro. My auto-renewal of CC is this month, and at worse will drop the full CC down to PS/LR subscription but going to try total drop first. Having a hard time leaving Lightroom as so ingrained. Capture One has potential but getting use to a new workflow is difficult. Thought the hardest to replace would be InDesign, but Quark had a phenomenal upgrade pricing so now own it as became frustrated awaiting the long rumored, promised, delayed Affinity Publisher. Turns out the hardest to replace is Photoshop as virtually every program has either weak or non-existent layering. The best I have seen is Corel's Paint Shop Pro - which I used from shareware on, through JASC and Corel ownership until switching to Photoshop - but it is Windows only. May look at getting the most recent (upgrade eligible with Corel) and let it join my one other investment program running under Parallels.

 

[tcphoto1]

I have an Apple MBP 15" Mid '15 with an Apple 27" Cinema Display and take it on location for shoots. I use CaptureOne to tether and finish editing in CC2018. I have just starting working with an out of state client (4-5 times a year) and bought an LG 27" IPS LED that I left with them for our shoots. It's easy to setup and calibrate to start the shoot.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

I'd not consider Apples panels to be superior for colour or uniformity. That's why I'd never use one for photo editing.
I think you should look at the 100's of threads on here before claiming their supreme accuracy.

Yes different panel technology will not all drift the same, but they all do.
Even two identical screens used for identical times won't give the same results.

@Apple fanboy I'm a little perplexed about this whole display calibration thing. Reading through this thread, you got me thinking about calibrating the display on my 2017 27 in. iMac.

Prints done by a printshop looked ok, I don't print at home and I have no other point of reference other than the displays of a couple friends who are also using uncalibrated iMacs but I thought I should check anyway.

This morning I used an "x-rite color munki - Display" that I picked-up a couple years ago but never used (see paragraph above ). To my eye there was quite a difference between the standard iMac profile and the newly calibrated profile.

The calibrated profile has a much warmer colour temperature and is much dimmer (lower luminescence?). With the calibrated profile active, everything I've edited appears to have whites that are too warm, are under exposed and, because of this, have colours that appear over saturated.

I know that if it looks good to me on my screen, that's great. But, you've got me wondering what others see. Of course there will be a significant variance between displays but what about those that are using calibrated displays. What are they seeing?

I have no doubt that comparing calibrated display to calibrated display will yield more consistent result. What has me wondering though is that the color munki software takes you through the process and, when done, let's you compare before and after results using images the application displays. Without doubt, the after images looked horrible compared to the before (uncalibrated) images. Their resulting images are too warm, dull and over saturated.

I've redone the calibration several times, following instructions to the letter, with the same result. Am I missing something?

~ Peter

 

[Apple fanboy]

@Apple fanboy I'm a little perplexed about this whole display calibration thing. Reading through this thread, you got me thinking about calibrating the display on my 2017 27 in. iMac.

Prints done by a printshop looked ok, I don't print at home and I have no other point of reference other than the displays of a couple friends who are also using uncalibrated iMacs but I thought I should check anyway.

This morning I used an "x-rite color munki - Display" that I picked-up a couple years ago but never used (see paragraph above ). To my eye there was quite a difference between the standard iMac profile and the newly calibrated profile.

The calibrated profile has a much warmer colour temperature and is much dimmer (lower luminescence?). With the calibrated profile active, everything I've edited appears to have whites that are too warm, are under exposed and, because of this, have colours that appear over saturated.

I know that if it looks good to me on my screen, that's great. But, you've got me wondering what others see. Of course there will be a significant variance between displays but what about those that are using calibrated displays. What are they seeing?

I have no doubt that comparing calibrated display to calibrated display will yield more consistent result. What has me wondering though is that the color munki software takes you through the process and, when done, let's you compare before and after results using images the application displays. Without doubt, the after images looked horrible compared to the before (uncalibrated) images. Their resulting images are too warm, dull and over saturated.

I've redone the calibration several times, following instructions to the letter, with the same result. Am I missing something?

~ Peter

So first of all if you have been using an uncalibtated display for some time, your eyes will be used to seeing it that way.

So if your monitor is set too bright (and by default most are), when you set it to 100 candelas, it will seem dull.

Same with your white point. By default your white point is likely to be quite blue. When you set it to D65, it will seem quite warm at first.

As for sharing online, you can only know your calibration is correct. If someone's screen is incorrect then there's not much you can do.
But the whole purpose of an ICC profile is to standardise your screen to set parameters, so there is consistency across different people.

But if your screen is overly bright then it's likely that your editing process will make it darker than it needs to be. Then as a general rule your prints will look dark.
However an external printer may take this in to consideration in their printing process.

 

[Cheese&Apple]

So first of all if you have been using an uncalibtated display for some time, your eyes will be used to seeing it that way.

So if your monitor is set too bright (and by default most are), when you set it to 100 candelas, it will seem dull.

Same with your white point. By default your white point is likely to be quite blue. When you set it to D65, it will seem quite warm at first.

As for sharing online, you can only know your calibration is correct. If someone's screen is incorrect then there's not much you can do.
But the whole purpose of an ICC profile is to standardise your screen to set parameters, so there is consistency across different people.

But if your screen is overly bright then it's likely that your editing process will make it darker than it needs to be. Then as a general rule your prints will look dark.
However an external printer may take this in to consideration in their printing process.

Thanks AFB.

What you're saying makes sense but it is a bit disturbing. I hate to think that every shot I've processed over the course of two iMacs since 2011 (both displays appeared the same) appear under exposed on a calibrated display.

 

[cbautis2]

I use a MBA 2016 connected to a external display with the gamma slightly skewed to reveal shadows and highlights easily. Color accuracy is a bit undersaturated (intended compared to a calibrated one) so that when I perform color grading it won't be undersaturated upon export, the shadows will render perfect on jpeg as I find that RAW to Jpeg export degrades dynamic range on the shadows by a margin and so I compensate by lifting the shadows on the RAW file in a way that it reveals all the shadow details on my external display.