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Hi All,
Perhaps some advice. I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop, professional, so it is the only screen I have to view my pictures and develop them in Paintshop Pro. When I see my pictures on other people's larger screens I begin to realise that perhaps I could get more out of using a better screen.
I'm thinking about going over to an Apple Mac laptop, at great expense, and I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion in terms of really getting great benefits from doing that before I fork out a lot of shekels.
Thanks,
Jonathan
Oh, by the way, my lifestyle doesn't accommodate having a desktop or an external screen...travel far too much for that... Jonathan
Quote: Macbook won't give you much larger screen. The largest is Macbook Pro with 17" screen, and that cost almost £2k.
It's not really size of screen, but more quality of screen and graphics....Thanks.
There are only so many manufacturers of screens and graphics cards, so its not a Mac or PC thing. Further I would say for photo editing its more down to the screen than the graphics card.
Sony have some lap top's optimised for photo editing and the top Dell laptops have good screens. Some come with built in calibration devices from memory.
So for photo editing specify the screen and pick the OS you want.
But for photo editing an external screen is the best, as you want to control the viewing angle and relative screen position and calibrate it under the lighting it is being used.
There are lots of reasons for buying a Mac(Book), but the screen isn't especially one of them - their screens are good, but not necessarily better than upper-brand windows laptops.
One thing which is worth knowing is that a MacBook costs you £0.30 per charge. Maybe that's the same as Dells, but it still seems a lot.
You wont look back; i've been a convert for just over a year now!
Quote: Can you get Mac Books without those glossy reflective screens these days? I would avoid the glossy screens for photo editing. They look nice at first but those reflections annoy.
All current Apple laptops have glossy screens apart from the 17" Macbook Pro as it wasn't updated when all the other laptops were.
No laptop of any brand will provide a great screen for photo editing. Colour critical work is always best done on a separate monitor.
Quote: No laptop of any brand will provide a great screen for photo editing. Colour critical work is always best done on a separate monitor.
...but the new MacBooks have better screens than most, in this respect.
I've been using mine for about a month now, and the glossy screen is really not as much of a problem in practice as I thought it would be. The screen calibrates well and it's clearly better than my (3 year-old) 23" Cinema Display...
Quote: ...but the new MacBooks have better screens than most, in this respect.
Why? Yes its nice and trendy shiny but that is not the best display. The best choice has to be a decent display without the gloss. There are plenty of good screen's out there.
Why they had to drop the matt screens is beyond me. I guess it is looks first.
I too would vote for a good stand alone screen.
Have you actually tried using a gloss screen for any length of time? It's not the big disaster people seem to think it is. Besides, we were all using glossy CRTs until TFT displays came along....
Having used one for a while, I actually now prefer it to my standalone display to the extent that I'm considering buying the (glossy) 24" Apple display to replace my 23".
As jools says, the glossiness or otherwise is one of the less important qualities of screens - its a big deal in the showroom when the computer is turned off, but not otherwise.
If you have lights behind you and therefore reflections on the screen, you need to fix the lights before you start editing pictures.
Stolzy, why should users have to live with an old problem that has been solved on modern devices? We know we do not need to have glossy screens so why go backwards?
If you are using a lap top as a mobile device then it is hard to get the exact lighting condition.
Lets turn it on its head, apart from device styling why pick a glossy screen when the better solution is available? I used to use shiny computer screens that glowed orange, will we go back to that?
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