Maryann580

This looks like a great site. Photography started for me in the 50's. My uncle was a professional photographer and got my father interested and then me when I was very young. My first camera was my fathers-Had to use a hand held light meter!

I currently have a Nikon D80 and a 7700. The last 6 years I have had a number of surgeries (that's why I have the 7700 for my bad back). Prior to the last few years I had taken a number of classes in Photoshop and Bridge 1 1/2 hours from home-he was worth it, and there wasn't much available where I live.

So I have a few questions. First one is that I have a desktop and have trouble sitting, and it's A PC and I've had many problems with the last two computers. I'm thinking about getting a MacBook Pro with enough room for all of my photographs (20,000+) and wondered if the transition is fairly easy and if the photoshop transition is also fairly easy. We don't have an Apple store in VT but do have a store that carries just the Apple brand. I realize that there is a way to store the pictures that Apple has, but I am not sure how cumbersome it is to access files this way (I'm forgetting the option's name). The other thing I was wondering is about Lightroom. I haven't used it yet, and was wondering about the benefits of adding it, or doing the monthly thing combining it with Photoshop (mine is older-CS5). As usual with technology, a lot has changed in a few years I've been ill and your suggestions on how I should approach this would be greatly appreciated. I got a new computer for Christmas and I'm looking forward to getting it!

ArtzDarkroom Loc: Near Disneyland-Orange County, California

Why store pictures you are not currently working on, in your computer instead of an external hard-drive with a 3 tera byte capacity?

Maryann580

I had several and they kept dying-made me nervous. Any particular brand you like?

ArtzDarkroom Loc: Near Disneyland-Orange County, California

I have had that happen to me too. I always have two external backups I use regularly and if one goes bad I replace it immediately and keep duplicates on both of them. Then I'm safe. The price of external drives is low considering the capacity and the value of the the stuff being saved.

jsharp Loc: Ballwin MO.

Store a copy of photos to DVD as they can backup any drive, I also had a HD fail once.

Timberon Loc: Timberon NM

So I have a few questions. First one is that I have a desktop and have trouble sitting, and it's A PC and I've had many problems with the last two computers. I'm thinking about getting a MacBook Pro with enough room for all of my photographs (20,000+) and wondered if the transition is fairly easy and if the photoshop transition is also fairly easy. We don't have an Apple store in VT but do have a store that carries just the Apple brand. I realize that there is a way to store the pictures that Apple has, but I am not sure how cumbersome it is to access files this way (I'm forgetting the option's name). The other thing I was wondering is about Lightroom. I haven't used it yet, and was wondering about the benefits of adding it, or doing the monthly thing combining it with Photoshop (mine is older-CS5). As usual with technology, a lot has changed in a few years I've been ill and your suggestions on how I should approach this would be greatly appreciated. I got a new computer for Christmas and I'm looking forward to getting it![/quote

I have a similar problem with a new desk top (Win8).
Was advised to get a portable hard drive and down-load every thing to it. Which I did and works fine for me.

I use Photoshop/Lightroom on line at a cost of 9.95 p/month. Shot learning curve, but doable.

Ruthiel Loc: Las Vegas

The MacBook pro will be the best computer you have ever owned. I LOVE mine

EddieC Loc: CT

I have both the Macbook Pro and a 27 inch desktop iMac after getting fed up with Microsoft. There is a learning curve but I will never go back and Apple tech service is superb. I have the backup Time Capsule from Apple and it works great backing up all my stuff at regular intervals. I use Mac Aperture a lot and also Lightroom and have had no issues. Mac is replacing Aperture soon but I believe they are keeping most of the processes.

I say go for it! Get the Macbook with retina screen and you will be blown away.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

"Switching to the Mac," by David Pogue. Good book.

For backups, I use two external hard drives. I recommend Western Digital, either Black (very good) or Red (better), 3TB. When shopping for a hard drive, price should be a non-issue. Buying the cheapest hard drive is like buying the cheapest parachute. You need a minimum of two backup drives.

MTG44 Loc: Corryton, Tennessee

Mac Pro is a very easy computer to transfer to.I did two years ago and never looked back. If you can buy it from an Apple store there is a lot of free instruction and the genius bar is also free and helpful. Good Luck.

rxrose Loc: North Florida

I'm thinking of getting a 3TB Airport Time Capsule to use with my my MacBook Pro (which I love). I have read several reviews and was wondering what people using MacBooks think about the time capsule

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Computer guy here chiming in. External drives and DVD's are great. I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy after seeing clients that don't take my advice lose everything in a fire, tornado, pick the disaster of your choice. I also recommend some kind of cloud backup. I use Carbonite because it's cheap ($60 per year), unlimited and automatic (most people don't have the discipline to backup on a regular basis). Depending on how much stuff you have, there's Google, Dropbox, OneDrive, icloud and on and on. My 2 cents.

superpijak Loc: Middle TN

Mr PC is right on the money. Being paranoid about losing a life time of work, I store all digitized photos to a dedicated hard drive, back up to a secondary external hard drive and then use Crash Plan ( by code 42) to automatically back up to a cloud.

Bob Boner

MacBook Pro is a great choice. I have 3 backups of all my images on external hard drives. Two of them are stored at different off-site locations. I used to have only 2 backups, and both of those failed. The tech where I work was unable to get the files off the first one he tried but was successful with the second one (more than a year's files). That's why I now have 3 backups.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

Be careful of the DVD route--I was doing that and got a new computer in November. Turns out that many of the new computers have given up on DVD drives. I will probably to the backup of important pictures on a memory chip which the new computer will handle--at least until the new model comes out with something else...