I used to be a PC girl.
Not a hard core, I-really-cared-either-way type of girl, but PC was just easy because I'd always had one since college -- and well, our house was wired and networked for them. Plus my husband has always been a big PC geek (I'm using that term metaphorically - you are not an actual geek honey), so I just never saw the need to make the switch, despite the fact that something like 90%+ of photographers were on Mac and made fun of us PC people.
Then last year Microsoft went and released Vista. I wasn't going to make the switch to their new operating system, but by the time October rolled around, I needed a new computer, so Vista is what I got. I pretty much hated it from the get-go. Ironically, my PC-loving-husband also hated it. Bugs galore. Programs would stop working and responding frequently. My Epson printer didn't work with Vista, only Windows XP on my older Dell. I could no longer find simple tasks and shortcuts because MS felt the need to move stuff to ubiquitous places that no longer made any sense. By the time I was two months in, I was doing hard shutdown/restarts daily and was cursing my computer hourly. I kept mumbling "I'm moving to Mac. This thing SUCKS!" My husband, who had always knocked Mac's for years, finally said, "Well move the Mac then! Just stop complaining!"
"But it's going to be expensive and painful to make the switch. I'm so embedded," I continued to complain. Ugghhh! I felt like I was stuck, but knew I needed a way out of Vista Hell. So I found myself driving to the Apple Store just to play and see if Mac was really that much different. I got an iPhone and fell in love. I would hover in the Apple section of Best Buy when I went in for other items, exploring the machines further. They sure looked purty! But definitely more costly than PC. I mean, I knew full well that Mac lovers LOVED their Macs, so would it really be that expensive to make the switch? What could make this computer so great? (I should note that during this time, my husband went and specially ordered a Dell laptop that still had Windows XP because Vista was hampering his ability to get work done as well. Go Microsoft!)
So in late December, I took JT to lunch to pick his brain since he has always struck me as this Mac computer guru who basically started iPod slideshow proofing and just knew about this stuff. I asked him a bunch of questions, assessing if this would be a worthwhile investment for me... how long would I be down? Would Mac read my PC files? Vice versa? What software would I need to replace? What would be my real costs of switching? He was very helpful and allowed me to think through this big (to me) business move. But the one thing he said that was the clincher for me was this: "Everyone I know who has made the switch said they would never go back."
Then last year Microsoft went and released Vista. I wasn't going to make the switch to their new operating system, but by the time October rolled around, I needed a new computer, so Vista is what I got. I pretty much hated it from the get-go. Ironically, my PC-loving-husband also hated it. Bugs galore. Programs would stop working and responding frequently. My Epson printer didn't work with Vista, only Windows XP on my older Dell. I could no longer find simple tasks and shortcuts because MS felt the need to move stuff to ubiquitous places that no longer made any sense. By the time I was two months in, I was doing hard shutdown/restarts daily and was cursing my computer hourly. I kept mumbling "I'm moving to Mac. This thing SUCKS!" My husband, who had always knocked Mac's for years, finally said, "Well move the Mac then! Just stop complaining!"
"But it's going to be expensive and painful to make the switch. I'm so embedded," I continued to complain. Ugghhh! I felt like I was stuck, but knew I needed a way out of Vista Hell. So I found myself driving to the Apple Store just to play and see if Mac was really that much different. I got an iPhone and fell in love. I would hover in the Apple section of Best Buy when I went in for other items, exploring the machines further. They sure looked purty! But definitely more costly than PC. I mean, I knew full well that Mac lovers LOVED their Macs, so would it really be that expensive to make the switch? What could make this computer so great? (I should note that during this time, my husband went and specially ordered a Dell laptop that still had Windows XP because Vista was hampering his ability to get work done as well. Go Microsoft!)
So in late December, I took JT to lunch to pick his brain since he has always struck me as this Mac computer guru who basically started iPod slideshow proofing and just knew about this stuff. I asked him a bunch of questions, assessing if this would be a worthwhile investment for me... how long would I be down? Would Mac read my PC files? Vice versa? What software would I need to replace? What would be my real costs of switching? He was very helpful and allowed me to think through this big (to me) business move. But the one thing he said that was the clincher for me was this: "Everyone I know who has made the switch said they would never go back."
Two days later, I walked out of the Apple Store with a brand new iMac. I loved the pretty box and slim design. Wow, a whole computer inside this slim monitor! Cool. My husband even commented how easy it was to set up and how nice it looked. I broke it in slowly, getting my feet wet for a few weeks. My business production stayed on the PC for awhile since I knew I'd have to take both machines into the Apple store eventually to have my files converted. I picked up a book (Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual) and read it before bed for a few nights. That turned out to be a lifesaver since there are differences between how the two machines operate, but all in all, less complicated than I feared. I was really digging my new Mac. Finally I moved it over to my desk next to my PC, and low and behold, I could actually SEE my PC from my Mac. All my files were accessible virtually through my Mac, but still sitting on all my hard drives on the PC. Very cool. Maybe I wouldn't need to move my files over after all. I even moved my Outlook Mail files over by myself through this easy $10 converter program, and then I really didn't need to take both machines into the Apple Genius Bar for them to do that for me. I plugged in my printer and it just worked. Just like that. Novel! This switch wasn't nearly as painful as I thought.
Four months later, I love my Mac. I have sold the Vista based PC desktop and laptop (sorry, suckas!) and have since also invested in the MacBook Pro. I still use my Windows XP PC for various programs (Quickbooks, Epson Print CDs, Cute FTP and more) and am using both machines pretty cohesively side by side. I can open any document on my Mac, but not the other way around. But that isn't too big of deal. They really work well together. So now I am Mac girl. And proud of it.
So now the second part of this blog post, hence the title. To date, my biggest issue is using two separate monitors and seeing how they render color differently. (And how all monitors render color for that matter.) For photographers, I think it's important to stress that your color correction is only as strong as your monitor calibration. A properly calibrated monitor is the foundation for getting natural skin tones and overall pleasing color. For example, this process today of fixing my blog posts (because the X's are showing up on PC and not Mac) has shown me how DIFFERENT my two monitors are rendering color. (They are not hooked into one another, each monitor sits with its respective machine, therefore I don't color correct on my PC quite as much, even though I calibrated it several months ago). My colors look great on my Mac - beautiful skin tones, pleasing shadow and light balance. But the images are showing much different on my PC - darker, more muted, more warm or orange-y. So I guess it's time to re-calibrate both monitors again to get them as close as possible. Does anyone know how I can get them to match perfectly? Is that even possible?
This experience has shown me that even if you have a perfectly calibrated monitor and good color correction, it's extremely likely that your clients and others out there viewing your work do not, so they are seeing different colors than you are. This is one of the downsides to this digital world we live in - getting color consistent across all areas. This year at WPPI, I heard many photographers stress in-studio proofing only (they do not post online at all) for this very reason. If they bring the clients into their studio, they can control the colors that the clients are seeing. How many clients have old CRT screens or poor color in their monitors? How are they really seeing your color correction? Do they care? I may start doing this in the future; we'll see. For now, my busy clients like seeing their images online, but I want to ensure they are seeing the most accurate color as possible.
Which brings me back to the iMac (in a roundabout way) as I'm now about to calibrate it again...minus this one issue of matching calibration exactly JT was right, now that I have made the switch, I wouldn't ever go back.
