Why Mac for design?

[chrono1081]

Have you installed the wacom tablet driver under OSX? If so, just open system preferences and klick on the tablet, it should be in the bottom row. There you can choose which monitor should be mapped for the tablet. You can even choose to only map it to a single screen in a specific program, photoshop or scetchbook for example, and leave it mapped to dual screen for the rest. Hope this helps.

This has nothing to do with the OS ...

+1 You need the driver for any OS you are using. I use dual displays and I am always doing graphical work.

Also make sure you set it in the wacom preferences.

 

[lucidmedia]

STOP!!!!

The real reason why Macs are preferred for design goes back to when someone had to make a choice about how type would appear on a computer screen.

Designers and editors needed What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) so that what they saw was what would appear on the magazine page in the shop.

Apple adopted anti-aliasing, which meant letters like O would appear on the screen nice and rounded (the bitmapping would be greyed down).

Windows and PCs etc etc went for sharp text, ie, no anti aliasing, and following the bitmap squares. Great for clarity and scientific use but no guide to what would appear on the printed page.

That's why the text on Windows PCs look sharp to Mac users and Windows people say Mac text looks fuzzy.

Anyhow, that is why designers and editors started using Macs.

Well, thats' what I always thought...

Actually, back in the day (the 1990s) Apple could care less about anti-aliasing type... Adobe took care of that for us with Adobe Type Manager (they also had software that grouped our fonts).

Postscript Type 1 fonts (on mac or PC) have both bitmap and vector files. ATM allowed us to view layout using renderings of the vector data instead of the bitmaps.

ATM existed for PCs as well. Both systems could do WYSIWYG. And, because of ATM, the antialiasing was generally the same across platforms.

ATM was discontinued for the Mac after we shifted to OSX (i.e. not that long ago). ATM light still exists for PCs.

What you mention, however, is not entirely wrong. Windows anti-aliasing is much "thinner" than the mac. Thats why you correctly note:

That's why the text on Windows PCs look sharp to Mac users and Windows people say Mac text looks fuzzy.

Its all a matter of preference... kind of like what computer designer's feel makes them most productive.

Emigre designer Zuzana Licko famously said "people read best what they read most" when people complained about the legibility of her typefaces in the early 90s. (John Baskerville also was criticized for poor legibility in the mid-1700s). To paraphase her:

"Designers use best what they use most".

At this stage in the game, it matters little what platform you are on.

 

[MisterMe]

Actually, back in the day (the 1990s) Apple could care less about anti-aliasing type... Adobe took care of that for us with Adobe Type Manager (they also had software that grouped our fonts).

Postscript Type 1 fonts (on mac or PC) have both bitmap and vector files. ATM allowed us to view layout using renderings of the vector data instead of the bitmaps.

ATM existed for PCs as well. Both systems could do WYSIWYG. And, because of ATM, the antialiasing was generally the same across platforms.

....

This is a misrepresentation of ATM and what it did. ATM was a screen renderer for PostScript Type 1 fonts. It gave WYSIWYG view of type with only one or two type sizes of bitmaps in a single typestyle. The ATM renderer generated all other type sizes and styles from the printer [vector] fonts. However, ... text displayed on screen by ATM was not nearly as good as bitmapped versions of fonts in the proper typesizes and typestyles. Bitmaps' quality advantage onscreen was outweighed by the fact that they required valuable space on the limited-capacity hard drives of the day.

Your assertion about ATM ignores the real reason that it was developed in the first place. Apple had requested that Adobe make Type 1 hinting available for low-resolution devices. [In the parlance of the day, low-resolution devices were laser printers and Macintosh monitors.] Adobe refused, scolding Apple that Adobe's target market was professional typography [on professional phototypesetters]. This was the beginning of the Type Wars. In response to Adobe's hubris, Apple announced that it would develop TrueType. TrueType would work on both laserprinter and computer screen without bitmapped fonts. Adobe returned fire with the development of ATM as a System 6 INIT.

This Mac user used ATM from ATM 1.0 until it was rendered obsolete by MacOS X. This Mac user can state without fear of contradiction that ATM 1.0 sucked! Fonts looked reasonably OK on screen. However, ATM required several iterations to perfect the layout of text on documents printed by QuickDraw printers.

As for antialiasing, it is my understanding that all ATM did on the Mac was to render characters on the fly. The System handled ATM-generated fonts just like it handled bitmapped fonts and TrueType fonts when they became available. Antialiasing would have been done by the System, not ATM.

 

[anriqueroy]

Macs are easy to install, manage and maintain. There are no viruses for Mac OS X, you do not have antivirus software, as opposed to Windows users. Mac is the most advanced, stable operating system on the market, unlike Windows. Apple has the best customer service and support at the same level over the last three consecutive years, no PC manufacturers, even close to their classification.

 

[daver11]

Macs for design and PCs for business is an old cliché. All the industry standard design programs are available on both. Use what you want. For me, that's Mac.

 

[btbrossard]

As far as PC goes ... the world runs PC.

That may be the case, but working for a very large commercial print house, I can tell you that 95% of our work comes in on the Mac.

We only have 1 PC workstation. When a PC job comes in, everyone avoids it like the plague.

Edit: You should certainly, if new to the industry, know how to use both platforms. We have some people at work who don't even know how to use the PC.