The iPhone is a highly disruptive device! It led the way to destroying entire segments of the photo marketplace.

I love mine, but it (and the congruence of Internet technologies it uses) probably cost me my job.

Photography has become a near universal language of sorts, since most of us carry a decent smartphone camera with us all the time.

Yes, MrT brings up a great point. Never leave ANY batteries loose in your camera bag or luggage! They should always be protected in some sort of plastic case that prevents the terminals from shorting against random metal objects.

In fact, lithium rechargeables have to be kept in your device, or in a protective case, or properly capped, because if they short, they can explode or catch fire! Even NiMH cells can start fires when shorted. So don't just dump a bunch of batteries loose in your bag...

As an AV specialist, I usually carried spare batteries for the wireless mics we used at events. I once burned my leg by putting an unprotected, new 9V alkaline transistor battery in my pants pocket with some loose change. It shorted against a quarter, burst open, and leaked caustic goo, ruining the battery and my suit trousers... Fortunately, I had an assistant to take care of things while I changed.

Visit the link I included. I think you might be surprised.

I shot 'chrome (slide) films for years, as a multi-image AV producer. That is about the same as working with JPEG files. Discipline and thought up front yielded great results then, and now. In fact, it's easier now.

In this instance, I would have used Canon's DPP to export all the RAW files to JPEG, using the in-camera JPEG settings stored in the RAW files. It would be the fastest way to do it with my existing software.

Extraction software is useful for editing, but those embedded JPEGs are of seriously inferior quality.

Those of you who insist that always shooting RAW is the best way to work should know what those of us who seldom or never shoot RAW know: "RAW is for Rookies!"

Just kidding! A RAW workflow has its place (weddings and sunlit nature scenes especially come to mind). But a JPEG workflow is all many of us in the professional portrait industry ever use. When you photograph 500 kids a day, and feed a lab that prints millions of packages a year, RAW is not even an option!

PRE-processing in the camera is an art — and a technical discipline — that enables What You See is What the Lab Prints.

Do a search on pre-processing JPEG. Or check out this link to Marlene's site: http://www.imagemaven.com/pre-processing/

Take the link on that page to Will Crockett's video. Note that it was created to look like that IN THE CAMERA. (Video *requires* pre-processing, because it is usually 8-bits on most cameras that cost under $2000.)

I certainly have a RAW+JPEG workflow that I use when I need it, but I avoid it like the plague when I can. I'd rather do just about anything than spend time (and money) editing RAW files. Discipline at the camera usually saves me that time and money.

Just sell all the Nikon gear on eBay. Then start a new system!

Adapters nearly always disappoint, because few to none of them allow all the functions of the new camera to work properly with older lenses from a different manufacturer.

Please, before diving into a new Canon, Nikon, or other dSLR system, look at what Micro Four Thirds has to offer. Most of us don't need the size, bulk, weight, or resolution of dSLRs, and could benefit from the features of an incredibly light m43 system camera, and the plethora of lenses available for that format.

Always remove batteries from any device you don't intend to use within a few days.

Modern equipment often drains batteries even when the device is turned off. Clocks, memory, and other chip-driven functions often use a slight trickle of power to retain settings.

Sure, removing batteries may force you to reset some settings next time, but it's better than risking a device that won't work unless you clean it or send it to the repair shop.

Batteries are a subject unto themselves. Every type has its advantages, disadvantages, and (if rechargeable) its own optimal charging pattern.

For flash work, I prefer NiMH cells. They tend to have the best compromise among number of flashes per charge (energy density), cost, number of lifetime charge cycles, charging time, etc.

There are NiMH cells made with "maximum charge retention life" and other NiMH cells made with "maximum energy density" in mind. It seems that the difference is about 500 to 700 MAh for AA cells (i.e.; 2000 MAh vs 2700 MAh, with the lower capacity cell capable of holding a charge much longer).

If you use your flash daily, and heavily, go with the highest capacity cells available, and keep them on trickle charge for use the next day. If you use your flash only occasionally, use cells advertised to hold a charge for a long time. Charge monthly, and don't store in the flash.

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/

This site is the mother lode of WalMart WeIrDnEsS.

May not be suitable for viewing at work! (NSFW)

The ROI question is definitely debatable. Measure it as Total Cost of Ownership, and the Mac often wins due to lower support costs. When the vendor writes the software and devices for a specific, limited set of devices, reliability tends to be better.

IT managers everywhere know this, so they choose WinTel products to justify their existence. If it doesn't need constant monitoring, service, repair, and attention, it doesn't need an IT staff!

It was ever thus... IT (then referred to as "Data Processing" or "Management Information Services") did the same thing in the heydays of IBM mainframes. IBM sold boring hardware with mediocre reliability and then smothered their customers with excellent service. Few non-IT executives realized they were being conned, and still don't.

This business tactic is present in practically any industry you can name. In the 1970's, I worked for a US subsidiary of a British company that sold "cutting edge" textile machinery (open end yarn spinning frames). Their approach was to build and sell the machines cheaper than anyone else, so they would sell lots of them, and they would break down quickly! Then they could sell expensive replacement parts, so they would have a steady residual profit.

That strategy worked nearly everywhere else in the world, but US mill customers raised hell, and sued! I was on a team of college students who, as "retrofit technicians" replaced the cheap British parts with US-re-engineered parts that lasted many times longer.

Ever since that experience, I've carefully researched vendor data from third parties, and made equipment purchases that include *low TCO* as a high priority. That has led me to brands such as Shure, Sennheiser, TEAC/TASCAM, JBL, Yamaha, and Electro-Voice (pro audio); Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic Lumix (still and video cameras); Noritsu and EPSON (photo printers); Océ, Ricoh, Canon, and Konica-Minolta (various electrostatic printing devices); Apple (computers), Sony and Samsung (TVs); LaCie, Sony, and NEC (monitors).

In the end, it all boils down to preference of how and where you spend your time.

Thanks, Bob. That's the key, WYSIWYG printing. Or, as we used to say in the lab, "What You See is What WE PRINT". That happens when users calibrate and profile monitors, and use the lab profiles from properly-managed devices.

Oh, users of inkjet printers, PLEASE stay away from dye ink printers if you want to maximize print longevity. Many cheap home printers ($50 to $250 or so) still use dye-based inks. While they are better than they used to be, they're still no match for pigments.

Pigmented inks use the same sort of "technology" found in cave paintings that have lasted for thousands of years. Dyes fade much faster. Epson, Canon, and HP professional grade printers all use pigmented inks.

If anything, Photoman64, upgrading the OS on that old 17" MacBook Pro would probably speed it up. The new OS X 10.10 is reportedly VERY stable, and very fast, unlike 10.9 before it.

I'm going to move my 2010 Mini from 10.6.8 to 10.10.3 or so, when that becomes available, *and* after I install a new drive. My old drive will go into an external housing, still running 10.6.8 to support older software such as Final Cut Express and FileMaker Pro 11.

One of the benefits of Macs is that they support booting from multiple external drives. This enables various generations of Macs to run several different sets of old software that is no longer supported on the new OS.

Sometimes, it is more sensible to run an older machine than to upgrade. Not everyone can justify the latest system. I generally keep a Mac at least five years, or until I need a version of some new software that won't run on it.

That said, Gene51, Why are results from a PowerMac G5 even relevant now? Apple switched to Intel processors in 2005. They never made any G5 laptops, because they would have required a five pound battery and would have burned the users' hands. The G5 was a power hog that wasted most of the energy it used as heat. My wife had a G5 for nine years. It always sounded like a jet taking off when processing images!

Folks using Macs know that the Mac experience is NOT ABOUT the hardware. It is about the entire experience of working with an OS that does not annoy you at every turn. It is about working on a machine that can run nearly any software on the planet, because you can install nearly any OS on it, using emulation software from Parallels or VMWare. It is about unparalleled customer support. It is about not needing an IT geek every time you turn around.

I used to support nearly 60 Macs in a photo lab. They were reliable workhorses that lasted for years and years, compared with PCs we replaced nearly twice as often. Our IT Manager stayed busy with hardware issues nearly every day, while I had an occasional Mac glitch to assist with about every six weeks to two months. Our Macs often ran for weeks at a time without a reboot, but we had to reboot Windows at least once a day!

There are huge advantages to using labs, and other huge advantages to doing your own. I'm an ex-pro lab guy, and can argue and support both approaches.

If you understand color management, have time, have skill, and can afford all the right stuff to do your own printing, it enables you to get the very best results. But it is difficult to justify doing it unless you can keep the printer busy enough to use the inks before the heads clog or the ink dries out.

If you truly understand color management, have a great, properly-calibrated and profiled monitor, and work with a lab that also truly understands color management, then you will get their printer and paper profiles, install them on your system, and use them as simulation or viewing profiles when preparing images to print through that lab. If you do that with discipline, you will get great results.

I like and respect Miller's, mPix (Miller's again), Bay Photo, WHCC, Full Color, and most other established professional labs. Pick one near you to reduce shipping costs and time. Get to know their technical support folks. Ask for their profiles for each device they use to print your work.

Know also that there are huge differences in print longevity between inkjet and silver halide prints... Silver halide prints are much less expensive for the big labs to make, but inkjet prints made with pigmented inks can last four or five times longer under the same conditions.

@ Mudshark:

Yeah, it is dream worthy. Right up there with a Panasonic Lumix GH4 and the 7-14, 12-35, and 35-100mm pro lenses, to shoot and edit 4K video in Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, at pixel-perfect resolution!

All you need is a spare ten grand... right?

@ Kubota King:

Photoshop has settings in Preferences that allow you to control how much memory it consumes, and where it puts swap (or scratch) files. The default settings are pretty conservative, and they assume minimal system resources. If you have lots of RAM and a dedicated drive for scratch files, you can change those settings and get much smoother, faster performance.

When working with a bunch of reasonably small files, it's probably not necessary, because PS will store inactive files on disk in scratch memory. But if you are working with extremely large files (>200 MB) for wall size or billboard size output, it becomes a necessity.

Try scaling those 25 files to 250 MB TIFFs and see what happens when you allow PS to use the maximum allowable RAM...

Historically, I've found the Mac to be generally MORE efficient at memory management than Windows PCs.

On either platform, additional RAM keeps more of your files and programs in fast, active memory, rather than in virtual memory or "swap files" on the hard drive. So the more RAM you have, the more files and apps you can keep open and running quickly FROM RAM, all at the same time!

In my world, I run both Mac OS X and Windows 7 on the same Mac, at the same time, using Parallels Desktop. So having sufficient RAM for TWO different operating systems and their applications is important!

I typically run Mail, Safari, Word, TextEdit, SnapzProX (screen recording software), PowerPoint (Mac), PLUS FileMaker Pro database (Windows) and Outlook (Windows), and I did so in 4GB for years. However, it all runs MUCH faster in 8GB... despite a slower processor on my Mini!

One other note: The larger MacBook Pros all include dedicated graphics adapters with dedicated memory on them, so comments seen here regarding the OS eating RAM for graphics memory are irrelevant. On some MacBook Pros, you can turn off the dedicated graphics adapter and use the motherboard's built-in adapter, but the only reason to do that is to save battery power. If you're plugged into AC, that's pointless.

Yes, the original poster is looking at an older machine, but Macs do last a long time (with reasonable care), and they are very robust to start with. A 17-inch MBP was originally a $2500 to $2700 purchase, at minimum, and it's built like it.

iFixit.com can show you, step by step, how to change the RAM modules in that Mac. So can OWC's videos.

With the right adapter, you can connect just about any third party monitor to that MacBook Pro. Look for a monitor that can display over 80% of the Adobe RGB (1998) color space. (But with few exceptions, if you use a photo lab, work in sRGB).

Before evaluating and adjusting color and brightness of ANY digital images, Invest in a great monitor calibration and profiling solution if you don't already have one. XRITE makes the best; DataColor's Spyder4 line is probably easier to use.

Regarding Mac vs Windows: It boils down to personal choice of SOFTWARE in many cases. Some apps (such as Adobe) are cross-platform, with different installers for Mac and Windows. Others are limited to one or the other platform. ProShow Gold, for instance, an excellent slide show program, is Windows only. With sufficient RAM and hard drive speed, and a few tweaks, it can run on a Mac in Windows.

I can tell you, after using both Macs and PCs very extensively since the mid-1980s, that Macs are much easier to use, more intuitive in use, and generally let you think about what you are doing, rather than thinking about how to use the tool!

Once you go Macwards, you never go backwards... But you might have to go sideways. So I do run Windows on my Mac, using Parallels Desktop so I can switch back and forth between apps on both platforms. It takes a little getting used to, but the main differences are simple: the Mac's Command Key becomes the Control Key in Windows, and Windows' right mouse button is a Control-Click on the Mac (although third-party rodents let you use the right mouse button as you are accustomed). Command+Tab is the application switcher on the Mac, just like Alt+Tab on the PC. The Command Key on the Mac keyboard becomes the Windows key when running Windows on a Mac.

Other than that, Microsoft has done a fair job of copying Apple's functions, except that they are not as intuitive and deeply elegant. You will find the switch to Mac goes quickly after the first week, and that you use the Mac apps more easily and more often than you did Windows apps.

If you do switch, search the web for "windows to mac guide" switcher sites that help you do it easier. TONS of work has been done to make your life easier during the transition.