Apple 27" iMac: The Best Computer for Photographers

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A few weeks ago I wrote about my plans to order a new 27" iMac. You can read all of those details here. But a few things have changed since that post and I want to update you on what I've found. 

First of all, it's official, I've ordered my iMac. But it's a bit different than I originally imagined. Here are the changes:

1. Go with Fusion: You can see in my original post that I ignored the Fusion drive because I felt like it was only relevant for a general consumer who wanted a little SSD (Solid State Drive) on top of raw storage. Turns out I was wrong. It has broader appeal which I'll explain in the next paragraph. I went with the 1TB Fusion drive instead of the 3TB. My bulk storage will still reside on the external Drobo 5D which is filled with 20TB's of drive space so there's zero reason for me to spring for a 3TB Fusion drive.

2. Speedy: I originally thought the Fusion drive would suffer speed problems compared to a straight solid state drive. In fact my discussions with Apple told me as much. But the benchmark tests are out and the difference between the Fusion and a SSD is negligible. For my photography workflow I won't notice any drop at all and in some areas it's faster. The Fusion drive is a genius piece of hardware because you really do get all of the benefits of a full SSD drive without the cost. 

3. The Cost Savings: Apple is only offering a 768GB solid state drive configuration in the 27" iMac. I didn't know that at the time. I assumed they'd offer up a variety of options, perhaps starting at 256GB. The cost is significant for the 768GB configuration, a whopping $1,300 more than the 1TB Fusion drive. No thanks. After reading all the benchmark tests the decision was an easy one for me.

4. Extra RAM: I didn't mention it at the time but decided to spring for the extra RAM. You can grab 8, 16, or 32GB of RAM. With the savings on the SSD I decided to go for the big boy and grab the 32GB of RAM. This will let me run a whole slew of apps with speed and efficiency. 

In the end here is my configuration:

• Processor: 3.4GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
• Memory: 32GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 4x8GB
• Storage: 1TB Fusion Drive + external Drobo 5D expandable up to 20TB
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX 2GB GDDR5

I'm convinced this is the best possible configuration for photographers.

Photosmith for iOS: Using the iPad with Lightroom

I've recently been in a number of situations where I wanted to look at my just-shot RAW photos but didn't want sit up in my office at a desk all night. I just wanted to sit on the couch with my iPad and have some impact on my overall photography workflow.

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Enter Photosmith. This is the iOS app I'd been looking for.

I look at it as a way to sit on the couch, import a bunch of RAW photos to my iPad and do some Lightroom work without using Lightroom just yet. Don't get me wrong, I like Lightroom, but nothing beats an iPad for being able to hold the photos you took in your hands. 

Photosmith syncs with Lightroom using a simple plugin, so all the metadata I add to the photos in Photosmith winds up in my permanent Lightroom library.

As an example, tonight I took 60 photos of my daughter. I imported the RAW files to my iPad and used Photosmith to create a collection, star the photos I wanted to edit eventually, and added some creative commons metadata.  Then I opened Lightroom on my Mac and hit the sync button. Because both my iPad and Mac are on the same network the photos started showing up in my Lightroon library with all the metadata intact. Sweet!

The workflow looks like this:

   1. Take pictures

  2. Plug in Camera Connection Kit, and allow the built-in Photos App to start

  3. Import the photos from the camera or card

  4. Start Photosmith

  5. Do your tagging 

  6. Sync to Lightoom, start Lightroom, run the plugin, and import directly from Photosmith

  7. The images and all the settings are transferred over WiFi and added directly into your catalog

I'm planning an amazing trip to New Zealand in the coming months and Photosmith may become an important tool for my return flight. At 30,000 feet it'll be wonderful going through hundreds of photos on an iPad's touchscreen. When I get home I'll be ready to edit and process the photos I've already picked. 

Best iMac for Photographers

Apple finally answered my calls for a new iMac. I just returned for Apple's iPad mini event where they announced two new beautifully designed, wafer thin iMacs. I spent some quality time with the new 27 inch iMac and I'll share my thoughts below. 

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First it's important for me to tell you about my current set up. My 2009 iMac is long in the tooth. It's a core i5 27 inch iMac. All of my media is backed up to an original 4 bay Drobo over FireWire. The computer is fast enough when browsing the web but trying to access my photos on my Drobo is just painfully slow. For instance, importing 70 raw photos to Lightroom is so slow that I can start the process and go eat dinner. 

I spent a bunch of time talking to Apple engineers about the best set up for photographers and here's what I walked away with: Get the 27 inch iMac and spring for the for the 1GB graphics card instead of the base 512MB. With future versions of Photoshop you're going to want that additional graphics power. 

Avoid the Fusion Drive. Apple describes it this way:

It combines 128GB of flash with a standard 1TB or 3TB hard drive to create a single storage volume that intelligently manages files to optimize read and write performance. Fusion Drive adapts to the way you use your iMac and automatically moves the files and apps you use most often to flash storage to enable faster performance and quicker access.

That's great but it doesn't make sense for professional photographers. The fastest possible set up is to stick with a pure SSD configuration and run a Drobo via Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 to house your photos (I'll explain more about the Drobo in a second). Apple confirmed that this is the fastest way to go. The base level is 128GB and is expandable up to 768GB. Really you just want enough space to run the OS and the apps you'll need. I will probably bump it up to 356GB of flash, that'll give it enough breathing room to run some of the big apps.

The new Drobo's are out and they are fantastic. I'm getting the Drobo 5D. It's blazing fast now with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. They house up to 5 regular spinning hard drives or SSD's. I have a bunch of 3 TB drives that I'm going to put inside. With Thunderbolt connection I don't see the need to have SSD's in the Drobo just yet. You might feel differently if you're working with a lot of video. Once the cost drops a bit I might spring for them. For now I'm sticking with the old spinning drives. Drobo works by keeping your data spread across multiple drives so if one drive fails you don't have to worry about it. Simply swap out the drive with a new one and you're good to go.

Another bonus is the screen. While it's not Retina, the new iMac screen is 75% less reflective because the pixels lay just under the glass like the iPhone and Retina iPad.

The 21 inch iMacs came out in November and the 27 inch model shipped in December. I think with the new 27 inch iMacs Apple is saying forget about the Mac Pro.

Snapheal 2 a review

Want to remove or fix some objects in your photos but you're scared to death of Photoshop? Then Snapheal 2 is for you (and me). 

Snapheal using some really impressive algorithms to erase and heal objects in your photos. You can use either a lasso tool or higher precision eraser modes. I found the lasso tool to be my favorite.

Snapheal 2 is a sequel to Snapheal 1. Imagine that! I never used the original but I'm hearing that it's twice as fast. Faster is always better when dealing with photos. I found the software to be lightening fast. I tested it on a variety of photos including the example below of this church in Heidelberg, Germany. In this photo you can see two women who were wandering slowly through my photo and I wanted to get rid of them. I used the lasso technique and one click later Snapheal artfully removed them from my photo and my life. 

 I used Snapheal on both my new Retina MacBook Pro and my 2009 iMac. It worked just as well on both computers and it's optimized for the jaw dropping Retina display so that's an added bonus. It's available in the Mac App Store for only $7.99. It's worth it!

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efore Snapheal

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fter Snapheal

Using the iPhone 5 Camera

his weekend we took our annual Fall apple picking trip to a local farm. I took a handful of pictures with my brand new iPhone 5.

he first thing I noticed is how much faster the camera loads during those impromptu moments  when my son is climbing on something. Apple says it opens 40% faster. I didn't have my abacus with me for calculations but I can say there's almost no lag in launching the app.

The second thing I noticed was color vibrance. This camera definitely has a richer color cast and everything looked more vibrant without looking overly saturated.

Here's an unprocessed gallery.