Hello, and thanks for taking a peek at this topic...

I am adventure/wilderness photog who has been very slow in making the transition from film to digital. A few years back I began shooting a D70 around home, but still using Provia for all my long trips. The recent acqusition of a D200 has made it clear I need to pull up my socks and getting moving on a proper digital workflow.

Most of the stuff I shoot ends up as editorial in adventure mags, or advertisements. Until now I have been sending editors drum scans of my trannys, or horribly mangled NEF files that I have tried to tweak on an ancient PC version of Photoshop 6.

Now I want to purchase a MAC, and some proper RAW conversion software.

My first instinct was to get a 24" iMac (w 2G) and CS3 when it ships...

But the more I searched and googled and read discussion boards, the more overwhelmed I got.

There seemed to be options of Powerbooks and PhaseOne and a lot of other flavours too.

I am not overly interested in the technical side of photography, the faster I can shot, archive, process and get back outside again, the happier I am. I just want something simple yet powerful that will do the job, and last for some years.

On a final note, I do a lot of corporate slideshows, kind of after-dinner keynote entertainment stuff - and currently I run all that from a VooDoo laptop, on PowerPoint. The VooDoo has been pretty reliable, and at some point I may flip over to a MAC on that side of things too, but it doesn't have to be now.

Any thoughts of advice on a home set up for a photographer shooting a reasonable - but not enourmous - number of images (and no requirements for processing or submitting from the field) would be tremendously appreciated.

Many Thanks,

Bruce Kirkby
http://www.brucekirkby.com/gallery/view_al...t_albumName=top

Hi Bruce and welcome. I hope your transition to digital is a smooth one.

If you can think of a computer as just another tool in your bag, then you'll feel more at ease with whatever system you buy. Even though I'm a Mac user, it appears that it's a good photographer, not hardware, makes a photograph good.

Since you seem to be more of a location photographer, I'd recommend a laptop. The new Intel Mac Laptops are much faster than the ol' G4 versions (like the one I have) when Universal binary programs are used. Most programs are now Universal Binary except Photoshop CS3, which is due to be released by summer.

My location work centers around Capture One, Photoshop, email and Quickbooks Pro. Anything else and I'm just playing games.

Of these programs, Quickbooks is the oddball. I use it to track production fees, assistants, check writing, and job costs. It works, but not as nicely as the Windows counterpart. If you don't need bookkeeping on the road, then you're better off.

Of the image processing software, I began with Capture One and have become very satisfied with it. It produces clean files (low noise), has a good USM algorithm, has an excellent interface and is very easy to manage hundreds of files with. The downside is that it is disk intensive. Combine that with a laptop hard drive spinning at 5400 rpm and you'll find yourself waiting here and there for thumbnails to display in folder containing more than 300 images. Once that folder is cached, then image display is much faster. It is available in Universal Binary now and smokes on a PowerMac tower -- It churns out files in half the time of a dual G5.

As for general image processing, Photoshop is your best choice. There is GIMP, the free image editing program, but I've never tried it.

There also seems to be a strong Adobe Camera Raw user base. I've tried it a few time, but prefer the file management of Capture One.

Other RAW processors for the Mac:
Bibble Pro
Raw Developer

You should be aware that if you haul off into the woods and "capture" 1,200 images in a day, for four or five days, you will have a strong need for a good image filing system. Look closely at how this is managed with raw processors.

For archiving images I use two firewire drives for live storage and save a backup set to archival gold DVDs. All this data is catalogued with iView Media Pro (which is now owned by Microsoft).

If you go the laptop route, you will need a backup drive for that as well. Here are a couple of choices:
OtherWorld Computing
G-Tech (my current favorite)



There are many slide show programs out there for the Mac. iView Media Pro has slide show capabilities, but I've never used it. Perhaps others here will speak up about their favorites.

My choices:
- MacBook Pro (Intel) mid-line 15" (you can always add a monitor if you want more desk real estate)
- Adobe Lightroom for Library, Raw conversion & output (v1.0 will ship in the next few weeks)
- Photoshop Elements for local specific corrections (or PS full version if you can afford it after above )
CS

Bruce, Imo Chris's approach is spot on. If you are new to a digital workflow you need to keep it as simple as possible. It can be very overwhelming at first. From what you have written I get the distinct impression that sitting in front of a computer processing images is not your thing. The good news is that there are software developers out there who have figured that out to.

The 15" Mac Book is a great piece of kit. I've been using Macs for about 20 years so I've seen the best and worst of them. They very recently upgraded them to include a Firewire 800 port. That's great because it gives you access to fast hard drives for back-up and fast card readers for downloading images form the camera.

That's the easy bit taken care of!

I think Lightroom would be a good match from what you have written. But you need to know a couple of things.

It's a new class of software which seeks to manage a large part of the workflow from import, metadata maintenance, storage, viewing, basic image adjustments (Mostly global e.g. tone curve), presentation in the form of slideshows to cropping and printing. What that means is that it does a lot, but only up to a certain level. If you are the kind of photographer who likes to get it right in the field first then it's going to work well for you. However some still want or need to go further and that's where Photoshop comes in.

Aperture from Apple seeks to do the same thing. It had a slow start but since version 1.5 it's up there with Lightroom imo. It does things a little differently, one or two things better and one or two worse. Aperture is available as a free trial download for Macs and Lightroom is available as a Beta version for Windows and Mac. The Beta will expire in February. My preference is for Light room, yours might not be, try both.

Finally. You didn't say how you are shooting with the D200. I will assume uncompressed NEFS. When you import a NEF in to Lightroom or Aperture you do so with a set of default settings from Apple or Adobe NOT Nikon. Typically imported NEFs need perking up, to improve the dull tones and lifeless color. If you use Capture NX from Nikon you will more likely get an image that is closer to being ready because Nikon will pull through additional camera information on Import. I won't be the same but it will be close to the image you would have got if had been shot as a JPEG. You'll get Nikons take on the image. In my experience most people prefer the image because it's more vivid and a little sharper from the get go. You can get round this in Lightroom by developing your own image presets which can be applied when you import the images automatically to each image in the import. In short you need to make a little more effort. Due diligence says you should take a look at Capture to see how it would work for you. It's not as fully featured as the other two but it does have plus points like the import I mentioned and something called control points you can look in to if you are interested. In an ideal world Nikon would allow you to save the processed NEF in to an Adobe DNG file which could be used by Lightroom. Alas this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Get as much right in the field as possible. It will save time latter. If you can't e.g. you forgot a ND filter, don't worry because if you shoot RAW you can work around it in post on many occasions. No matter which software solution your choose, Lightroom, Photoshop, Aperture Capture NX, Phase, Bibble etc, if you make a modest investment in time to learn them, each will be able to really good conversions and produce great images.

Hey Chris, Chris, and Greg!

Thanks a ton for taking the time to write those detailed replies. They are super useful, and very appreciated... I will read these a few times, and try to digest all you've said. I am sure looking forward to implementing some solution, and soon - as BC gets buried in snow, I am getting buried in NEFs while shooting skiers and mountains!

Cheers, Bruce

I'd also go with latter Chris's workflow. As you said, you're not interested in the digital stuff that much, and just getting to know all the different options is quite an undertaking. So keep things simple. Adobe Lightroom or Apple's own Aperture takes over almost everything in your workflow, simplifying things. You have RAW conversion, slideshows, keywording, contact sheets, archiving, printing, curves, color adjustments, B&W conversions and non-destructive editing all in one package.

According to Adobe's marketers - so grain of salt here - professionals find they do 95% of their work in Lightroom, with only 5% of shots going to PS for further editing. I've used Lightroom Beta and it's a wonderfully simple program to use and I'm sure you'll get the hang of the workflow fast. Aperture has very good reviews, also.

Later, when you're more comfortable with your workflow and when/if you identify shortcomings you can introduce new steps, such as DxO Optics for lens correction or Capture One for RAW conversion. As for GIMP, stay far away from it, it's not something any professional or even a serious amateur would use (lacks 16-bit editing and color management).

I'm sure you'll learn to love digital soon due to its flexibility and the excellent software Adobe, Apple and others are producing!