# After some 20 yrs transitioning to Apple ...



## rjalex (Mar 6, 2011)

Dear friends,
after frying my motherboard irreversibly with a unsuccesfull BIOS update (tried everything but it's gone) and needing a QUICK replacement I am buying a friend's 27" Mac i7 with 16GB RAM / 1TB disk.

Long Win/Linux experience. Mac noob. A few questions:

a) for the monitor calibration will I be able to use my Spyder3 Elite ? I cannot recall for sure now but I am afraid it only had Win software with it.

b) Is there a good guide for a computer expert but Mac newbie to quickly transition. Guess the interface will be a bit hostile and I'll be wrongly trying to find Windows ways to do things if you get what I mean.

Thanks and all have a good Sunday.

Bob

PS Of course frying the PC comes right in the middle of an urgent assignement. Murphy's laws are soooooo true !


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## DonRicklin (Mar 6, 2011)

Things happen,

You should be able to download MAc software for your Spyder3. As to the transition. You may not find it that hard. LR will be the same. Just look slightly different. And browsers all look mostly similar, but you have more choices in browsers with Mac. I use Safari and Camino.

Have fun!

Don


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## edgley (Mar 6, 2011)

I made the switch when installing a FW800 caused my system to go, about three years ago now.
You wont look back!
Best bit of advice I have is, when you are trying to do something, it will always be easier than you think, which is why you cannt see how to do it, at first.
There are loads of videos on Apples site showing you how things are done; good place to start.

Only problem with calibrating an iMac, depending on its age, is that it will have a glossy screen.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 6, 2011)

Don't panic, you've got a great crew here ready to answer your questions.  If you're used to switching between Windows and Linux, I don't think you'll have any trouble transitioning.  If you need any software equivalent suggestions, just ask.


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## Mark Sirota (Mar 6, 2011)

a) Spyder3Elite is available for Mac, that's what I use.  I don't remember the licensing terms -- I don't know if you need to buy new software.  But you definitely won't have to buy new hardware.

b) Maybe start here: http://www.apple.com/switch/


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## Philight (Mar 6, 2011)

edgley said:


> Best bit of advice I have is, when you are trying to do something, it will always be easier than you think, which is why you cannt see how to do it, at first.


 
Ain't that the truth.  Mac Noob here too.   Started with MS Win when it was Win 386 - Pre-95, tired of the AntiVirus arms race  - Malware as well.  I knew that when I went to Adobe, I wanted it to be on a Mac.  MBP 15" i7 Quad 8GigRAM arrived yesterday.  LR3 noob too....sigh.  So much to learn - so little time...


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## DonRicklin (Mar 6, 2011)

Philight said:


> Ain't that the truth.  Mac Noob here too.   Started with MS Win when it was Win 386 - Pre-95, tired of the AntiVirus arms race  - Malware as well.  I knew that when I went to Adobe, I wanted it to be on a Mac.  MBP 15" i7 Quad 8GigRAM arrived yesterday.  LR3 noob too....sigh.  So much to learn - so little time...


Yeah, I went to Mac about 1995 from Windows 286 on a pre-pentium PC (486) with a Mac Clone.   Been Mac ever since! Was even doing some PC software righting, back then.....

Oh, and welcome to our Forum! 
Don


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 6, 2011)

I use the Spyder too, you shouldn't need to buy anything, just download the latest software. The iMac screen is very good considering its target audience and cost in my opinion. It calibrates well and doesn't drift much at all.

Remember that OSX is a unix based system so your Linux skills will work at the command line if you get really stuck.

I use Safari as my main browser (Firefox is pretty good).
I use TimeMachine for local backups and SuperDuper for offsite clones.
Lightroom & PS will look almost identical.

The biggest issue most people have is getting used to Finder after using Explorer - it seem limited to start with but you will get used to it.
Lynda.com have a training video for Leopard and an update video for Snow Leopard that will get you up and running much faster.


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## rjalex (Mar 6, 2011)

THANK YOU ! As usual you friendly help makes me feel this community is so special !!!  I've been neglecting family and am a bit shamed but darnola a new toy like this one doesn't come every year  It's a 27" iMac with a quad i7 2.8 GHz, 1TB HDD and 16GBs of RAM. Seems a tad faster than the poor old former Core 2 duo 2.6 GHz with 2GB RAM 
Went to the Spyder website and downloaded the application for the Mac. It works wonders and did a lot of magical tweaking of brightness levels which under Windows I would have had to do manually. Now I hope the calibration is correct. Fore some reason I perceive it as a tad too warm (it asked me to set the K at 5800 and not the usual 6500 for some reason).
The Lynda.com hint is great since I usually find her videos really good.
Yes Finder is THE first thingie I must master.
Timemachine is humming sending stuff over to the QNap NAS. I am not 100% of what does Timemachine back up and am left wondering if it will take care of the Lightroom catalog backup making an explicit backup of it redundant/unnecessary.
Thank you all a lot.
Bob


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 6, 2011)

I calibrate to 6500K on my iMac which I think is pretty standard. Only the copies of the catalog that were taken by TimeMachine when LR was shutdown are actually valid. Best to use LR to run regular backups and have TM copy these too.


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## Philight (Mar 6, 2011)

DonRicklin said:


> Yeah, I went to Mac about 1995 from Windows 286 on a pre-pentium PC (486) with a Mac Clone.   Been Mac ever since! Was even doing some PC software righting, back then.....
> 
> Oh, and welcome to our Forum!
> Don



Thanks Don.  Dittos on the intel 386 platforms.  Remember Novell?  Geez all the Certs I had...Oh well...Just like Wang !  I'll get there on this fine MBP, but it will take some time.  Now if I can just get my iTunes off this external drive from my XP box onto this MBP....


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## rjalex (Mar 7, 2011)

sizzlingbadger said:


> Only the copies of the catalog that were taken by TimeMachine when LR was shutdown are actually valid.


 
Very good point !!! Thanks
Bob


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## edgley (Mar 7, 2011)

Moving iTunes will be fairly easy. Not sure how you keep all the ratings and playlists though.
Fortunately, Google does:
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/transfer-itunes-library/#comment-514


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## PatrickC (Mar 7, 2011)

I use both. The most remarkable tool on the Mac is Spotlight - it'll find pretty much whatever you're looking for in a trice!

When we first got the Mac I spent ages trying to find out how to uninstall a program. Eventually discovered you just drag it to the trash; now, that really shouldn't be allowed to be so simple!

I still use PC for the main image processing because I can put together a dedicated high spec machine for a fraction of the price because I don't have to buy all the unnecessary additional hardware which comes as standard with an off-the shelf Mac.

One irritation with the Mac is that they say you don't need to do maintenance but you do; you need to 'repair permissions' from time to time.

I'm pretty neutral on the platform wars; being computer literate I kind of like the way I know what is happening and how I can do stuff at a fairly fundamental level on Windows, but I appreciate that the Mac is more intuitive - well illustrated by the other 'arf who is less techie minded.  

Enjoy the experience!

Patrick Cunningham


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## rjalex (Mar 7, 2011)

Thanks Patrick  I earn my bread working with computers (and the people surrounding them) for the last 25 years (they should give me a nice pen this year LOL). So been through so many OS on mainframes, unices, and PCs that I too tend to like/dislike them for what they actually do for me and not for the nice logo or evil owner  So far like the new toy and feels cozy to open up a Terminal and see a bash shell and issue sudo commands


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## Pavel108 (Mar 12, 2011)

:angel:

I am on Macbook Pro so I only calibrate with OS X built in colour calibration software. Since Leopard I was able to match the Mac display with older Dell 20 monitor, which on windows were miles away in terms of colour and contrast.

Switching was not easy, for about 6 months my Mac and I had a lot of discussions. But after that we work in mutual respect - non-verbally. Almost it feels we can communicate telepathically.

Even the worst thing on Mac is by comparison to PC a sweet dream, in my view.
:nod:

Also Lightroom libraries can be read on both systems.

Enjoy!


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## rjalex (Mar 12, 2011)

Interesting concept Pavel but cannot understand how you can calibrate SW only or are you using the Spyder with the builtin SW ? What am I missing ?


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 12, 2011)

OSX has a built-in calibration program. It uses patterns on the screen and asks you to adjust sliders. It works ok for overall balancing but is not the same as a hardware calibrator.


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## Pavel108 (Mar 13, 2011)

rjalex said:


> Interesting concept Pavel but cannot understand how you can calibrate SW only or are you using the Spyder with the builtin SW ? What am I missing ?



Hardware calibration for laptop screens is not compulsory. I remember at the University we did some experiments, it turned up that there was no difference. 

For dedicated monitors it is a different.

Arivederci!


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## rjalex (Mar 15, 2011)

Aw ok so the SW only method is similar to what you could do also on Win with the Adobe calibration software if I got the point. It will give you a fair indication to set luminosity/gamma but cannot ensure colour fidelity (which means that you have no guarantee that the prints will come out with a similar colour to what you see on screen. Did I get what you said ? Laptops can be colibrated too, not all chips and drivers are easy to tame though (my personal experience).
Take care
Bob


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## sizzlingbadger (Mar 15, 2011)

Bob, your correct


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## rjalex (Mar 15, 2011)

Thanks ! Still discovering so many new things in this Mac universe


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