New MacPro desktop

Well, my transition to the Mac is almost complete. I purchased a MacBook earlier this year for my travels, but have still been using a Dell machine for all of my serious Photoshop and image management work. Yesterday I purchased a new MacPro 2.66ghz desktop with an upgraded ATI X1900 video card. I haven't made any changes with my existing 24" Dell LCD monitor, but I anticipate either picking up an Apple 23" for an additional display or moving up to the Apple 30". Take a guess which one I want.

So my transition is almost complete. I am now starting to use Aperture 1.5, even though I dabble with Adobe Lightroom beta 4 from time to time. Being in the workshop industry, it is good for me to know both of them. I was at PhotoPlus in New York last week, and I signed up with PhotoShelter. They have a plugin for Aperture that allows for the syncing between my Aperture library and their archiving and selling solution on the web.

So why is this great? I have been looking for a capture-to-output solution for a long time, and this might be the ticket. My images will be imported, culled, tagged, rated in Aperture. I will also have all of my RAW adjustments there. Then select images will be archived onto PhotoShelter for my print sales and stock customers. For print sales, I can let PhotoShelter's technology go to work for me, allowing for searches and shopping carts. Once I receive an order, all I have to do is do what I enjoy most: printing the image. On the stock photography side, they just signed up with Photoquote, which will put my stock library out on the web (instead of somebody sending me an email with an inquiry) with visible pricing, based on need.

I am very happy at the moment, because I have had a difficult time trying to mentally piece together many different technologies to solve my unique needs. iView? Photoshop? Custom web pages? Stock agency? Outsourced printing services? Not any more. Now I get to focus (literally) on what I do best and what I enjoy: photography.

Comments

[mgraf]

IP: 12.159.56.130EMAIL: mark@grafphoto.comURL: http://www.grafphoto.comBoy - I would love to sit down over a beer and find out all the details of that move to Mac Andy. With all the grief I have experienced with PCs, I have been contemplating this for quite awhile. PhotoShelter sounds interesting as well.

Did you ever end up getting the ReadyNAS? Since my terastation is getting full, I just ordered the NV+. I am probably going to move towards using an internal HD as my working drive, and when an image is ready for filing - I move it over to the NAS.

[miguel]

IP: 207.244.161.211EMAIL: miguel@asenciorealty.comURL: http://www.clickshooter.comBye, Bye PC.....it's only a matter of time t-minus 22 seconds before your rid of PC 4 ever. Well I'm glad your taking the time to learn Aperture...Have you figured out how to name your files yet? Let us know how your workflow differs now.

P.S. I think I'll have some of my first Safari pics posted before my 1 year safari Anniversary.

[Andy]

IP: 65.37.68.12EMAIL: andybiggs@gmail.comURL: http://www.andybiggs.comI still feel like I am trying to figure out the applications that I am going to use for my workflow. The more I use Aperture and Lightroom side by side, the more I like Lightroom. The interface is more intuitive, the keystrokes are more logical, and the order in which certain raw processing steps are done all add up to a better raw processing app at this time. Also, Lightroom seems to work quite well on my MacBook 13" display, and Aperture seems to scream for a large 30" display. It is going to be an interesting few months for me, as I figure this whole thing out.

I am going to use multiple internal hard drives for my primary data storage, and then archive onto my TeraStation 1TB RAID5 server for backups. And offsite backups will be updated monthly.