arrowsmith

I don't think that the MacBook Air was designed for heavy use. Use MacBook Pro or similar computer. As you all know, it's designed as a portable accompaniment for basic tasks. And the lack of a retinal screen is also a problem for good viewing of a photo. Hopefully it will be upgraded next time around, with better screen and more memory.

tomcat

Still, I see them used a lot in seminars and webinars. And pictures were great before retina screens came along and they're still great on non-retina screens.

Dano Loc: North Carolina

I'm running both LR and PS on a 2011 Mac Air with no problems at all. Sure it's slower than an MacBook pro, but it's only a 1.6ghz machine with 4meg of ram vs a machine running at 2.9ghz and 16meg of ram. The main appeal of the air is it's extremely small size, but now the 13" MacBook pro is almost the exact same size and weight, but packs a ton more power. They've already dropped the 11" air from their line, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last year for the 13". So while the air would work, I'd really look at the 15" MacBook pro... or the 13" if performance isn't as important. (Macs and PC's are both great machines... it's just what you're most comfortable with IMHO)

markjay

The person writing this is the Moron !
And anyone who thinks Nikon is superior to Canon further enhances his position as a moron.
Check Ken Rockwell on the subject. He reviews everything fairly and thinks Nikon has some good products - but he also says that Nikon is increasingly further and further behind Canon and no longer thinks they can catch up. He thinks Nikon is dead long term.
But I guess if you think Rockwell is a moron, you moron, than I guess you are truly the moron.

tomcat

I didn't say Nikon was superior to Canon. I said that Canon is not superior to Nikon. They both have their advantages over the other and it's up to you as the user to determine which you prefer. It's not a matter of Nikon "catching up" to Canon. It's about Nikon maintaining their focusing accuracy and color rendition

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Surprising, although I haven't really looked into the Air. Small, thin, and light isn't always the best choice for power processing. For real work, I use a deskop. For email, browsing, etc., I use laptops, Kindle, Chromebook - small and light.

http://ask.metafilter.com/280003/Macbook-Air-powerful-enough-for-Adobe-CS-Photoshop

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

At one time I owned an 11" MacBook AIR which I purchased specifically for travel because it was small and light. After a couple of years of ownership, I upgraded to a 13" MacBook Pro, which I still own. Again, lighter and smaller were key to this purchase. I found that I needed a more robust laptop than the AIR series, but I did not want a big, heavy one. I do almost all my PP on my 27" iMac 5k Retina -- great machine. Like the PC world, Apple uses Intel processors and for really heavy work I believe the I7 is best, although all my Apple machines are I5. My laptop has 8GB and a 256GB SSD and I find it acceptable if not good. The SSD is only half full. My iMac has 1TB and 32GB memory (purchased with 8GB and upgraded myself at great savings). Very good. It should be noted that I store neither my Lr CC library nor any photo files internally on either machine. I have an expansive amount of both external HD and NAS HD space, all of which is RAID 1. Apple machines are every big as good (I think they are much better) than Windows based PCs. Best of luck.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Although I would personally prefer to not read an attack on another member, if you must, it would be nice if you would use "Quote Reply" so the rest of us immediately know who you're complaining about! OK, moron? Jesus!

whitewolfowner

My son has the 2015 mac book pro and loves it. Lightroom runs perfectly fine and fast with 10mp files from his D80. I cannot speak for larger files. For storage, get an external hard drive and use it to store your photos on. Even if you had a desk top computer, you should be storing your photos on two different external hard drives for safety reasons so you don't lose your photos when the hard drive fails. It is NOT WILL my hard drive fail, but WHEN WILL my hard drive fail. Using the hard drive that holds your programs for photo storage will only slow it down and quickly run out its memory space.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

The OP wants to know how well these programs run on the Macbook Air not the Pro. Big difference.

I don't own a Mac, but my advice is to get one and try it. Almost all computers can be returned to the place of purchase if you aren't happy. Just remember, the Macbooks mostly come with a very small hard drive. They usually come with SSD drives (Solid State Drive). They range in size from 128GB to 512GB. Some may have 1TB but I'm sure that would be special order and cost a fortune. Also, when shopping for a computer to run Adobe products, you should consider that not all computers have the same processor. I'm sure that the Macbook Air product line comes in many different configurations and if running Adobe products, you'd want to consider one with the more powerful processor, more RAM and preferably a larger drive.

As far as your color goes, you'll never see perfect colors when comparing between a computer and a phone. Color can be calibrated on a computer with a colorometer such as a ColorMunki or Spider but you can't calibrate a phones LCD. So you get what you get with a phone. You can make some adjustments to a phones brightness but that's about it.

markjay

Read Ken Rockwell for the definitive opinion on the Canon /Nikon comparables. He's got no vested interests, and is more impartial than any leading camera site.

Gspeed Loc: Rhinebeck, NY

Last week I got the 2016 15" MacBook Pro with the touch strip and it is a superstar. Also, a guy from Apple corporate explained to me Apple has an unstated policy to give technical advice for free, as long as you don't call them every day with mindless issues, and their approval rating has gone through the roof. Purchased a refurbished model from the Apple website ($700 less expensive), ordered by phone, they waived the $22 overnight shipping and it showed up at my door in less than 24 hours. Even migrating over from my other machine was seamless (including my 11,000 photos).

tomcat

Apple's tech support is 2nd to none. That is the number 1 reason that I buy their products. I've never had an issue that someone at AppleCare did not solve, even escalating one issue up to a software engineer for a series of phone calls. Sometimes they will "waive" the AppleCare expiration date, if you talk to them nicely. There is none of that fingerpointing "it's a software issue, so it's not my problem" or it's a "hardware issue, so it's not my problem" that you get with Microsoft.

Amandy

I was thinking of buying a refurbished from Apple but did not see any for less than a $1,000.00. Maybe I went to the wrong site. Where did you find that?

Gspeed Loc: Rhinebeck, NY

The refurbished with 512 GB of storage cost me $2209 ($700 less than a new one) but still with the same warranty as a new one. I replaced my 15" MacBook Pro I had since 2009 which still works great except for the track pad. Private message me if you would like to buy it for $300, plus shipping. It has 1 TB of storage, wireless mouse, Aperture + Office for Mac (Word + Excel). The track pad does not work but the mouse is awesome. ~ Eileen