We have written quite a bit about building PCs here at Photography Life, but sadly, we have not given nearly as much attention to Macs. Part of the reason is the platform of choice – a few of the PL’s team members have been using PCs for many years, including myself, and as a result, we have not had a chance to write much about Apple products. But things will hopefully change going forward. Earlier this year, I purchased my first iMac Retina and I have been exploring the Mac world ever since. While I am planning to write a separate article on my thoughts about Mac vs PC and some of my personal experiences with potentially switching to a different platform, in this particular article I want to focus on one topic, which is purchasing an iMac for photography needs. I have had quite a few requests from our readers on this topic and many wonder what type of an iMac would suffice for photography work without breaking the bank. After doing quite a bit of research before purchasing my iMac and consulting with other Mac experts, I believe I found a couple of configuration options that are optimal for photography work for the next few years.
Before we go into the recommended configuration, let’s explore one of the most frequently asked questions – should one get an iMac or a Mac Pro for photography needs?
1) iMac vs Mac Pro
Last year I had a chance to try out the Mac Pro and I really loved it. You can see my detailed review of the Mac Pro, where I talked about the product and explored its use for everyday work, including running software like Lightroom and Photoshop. Running Intel Xeon processors, Mac Pro is surely a very capable beast. However, Apple has not released any updates to the Mac Pro line for over two years, which has been pretty frustrating for the Apple fans who want to stay on the edge. We have already seen two whole generations of Intel processors go by since the current Mac Pro debuted in 2013 (Haswell and Broadwell), which in the PC world would mean suicide for a company. And yet Apple is still continuing to sell the outdated architecture today, which is a bit puzzling. But this is not the main reason why I would not recommend buying the Mac Pro for photography today. The main reason is, the Mac Pro is better suited for demanding, multi-threaded applications that can fully take advantage of its processing power. Unless you stitch a lot of panoramas and need all the CPU cores and RAM you can get (the Mac Pro is expandable up to 64 GB of RAM), there is no point of getting a Mac Pro. For standard post-processing work in Lightroom and Photoshop, the iMac is going to be your best bet, so buying an outdated Mac Pro would pretty much be money down the drain. Today, the most basic Mac Pro will cost you $3K for the machine alone and once you add up the cost of a 4K+ display, you are looking at a pretty big investment that could go well over $5K. In contrast, a pretty decent build with the latest generation iMac Retina 5K based on Intel 6th Generation Skylake CPU will cost $2K, while the most beefed up version that will surely beat the Mac Pro in many ways will still be under $4K.
Let’s take a look at the performance comparison of my now outdated iMac Retina, with the following specifications:
I purchased mine for a really good deal when B&H was running a killer $400 promotion earlier this year. As you can see, with a 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i5 and AMD Radeon R9 M290X, this is a pretty average build by today’s standards. I purchased mine with 8 GB of RAM and upgraded it to 32 GB (more on that below), so I cannot complain about its performance – both Lightroom and Photoshop run perfectly fine, even when doing more processor-intensive tasks stitching panoramas. I would still use my high-end PC for heavy processing work, but for everyday tasks, this machine runs really well.
1.1) Single-Core vs Multi-Core Performance
I ran GeekBench 3, Cinebench and NovaBench on this machine and I have some interesting data to share. Here is the comparison between a beefed up Mac Pro and my iMac on GeekBench 3:
Look at that – for Single-Core tasks, my iMac with an i5 CPU easily beats the high-end Mac Pro! Where the Mac Pro obviously stands out, is its Multi-Core performance. The funny thing is, Adobe really sucks at utilizing all CPU cores for both Lightroom and Photoshop, so at the end of the day, if that’s all you do, Multi-Core performance won’t matter! I would personally recommend to go for faster Single-Core performance CPUs with higher operating frequency, than a powerful Multi-Core machine. The only case where Lightroom is able to correctly use more cores is during the Export operation, so if you do a lot of that, then you will benefit a bit more from a Mac Pro. But come on – how much exporting do you really do and how often? When my wife exports images from Lightroom for her wedding clients, she starts the process and goes to sleep. If there are multiple weddings, she starts multiple export processes. It does not matter how long the process takes, as long as all the files are there in the morning.
So at the end of the day, for your day to day editing work, your best bet is to get a fast modern-generation CPU that will perform extremely well on a single core, which both Intel’s i5 and i7 CPUs will be able to satisfy.
1.2) GPU Performance
Where the iMac lacks when compared to a Mac Pro or other desktop-class machines, is GPU performance. Unfortunately, due to the compactness of the iMac, a standard-size video card won’t fit, so Apple had to integrate laptop-grade video cards into these machines. My iMac Retina came with an AMD Radeon R9 M290X video card with 2 GB of GPU RAM, which is decent, but not as good as the latest generation Skylake iMacs with fast AMD Radeon R9 M395X video cards. Still, there is really no comparison between these and a full-featured AMD FirePro video cards you find on the Mac Pro. When I ran CineBench, I got a surprising result showing slightly better OpenGL performance on my iMac Retina when compared to the Mac Pro:
However, after I ran a NovaBench test, it was pretty evident that when it comes to 3D performance, the FirePro is going to be much better in comparison:
Is this important? Well, with both Lightroom and Photoshop now supporting GPU acceleration, you would want to be running a video card that can handle GPU acceleration well. If you have an older Mac with a slow video card, you might be better off turning GPU acceleration off. But on newer and faster machines, especially with Retina screens, you will be better off with GPU acceleration enabled. On my iMac, it has been a mixed bag. For some actions in the Develop module, GPU acceleration certainly brings benefits, but for other actions like Spot Healing, GPU acceleration noticeably slows things down.
1.3) Storage and Configuration Changes
Both Mac Pro and iMac can run PCIe-based flash storage, so their storage performance is comparable. The iMac has the option to run large-capacity Fusion drives, which are much cheaper in comparison and can give up to 3 TB of total storage – the Mac Pro has no such option (and for a reason). Personally, I would stay away from spinning drives (a Fusion drive is a combination of SSD and spinning disks), since they are slower and not as reliable in comparison to Flash drives. If a spinning drive fails in an iMac, it would be pretty darn expensive to get it replaced. That’s one of the biggest disadvantages of the iMac – aside from swapping RAM, nothing else is easily replaceable. With such a thin form factor, Apple packed everything very tightly into the iMac chassis, making it pretty very difficult to access storage or CPU.
On a Mac Pro, changing the components is much easier. Once you remove the cover, you can easily swap out RAM and PCIe Storage. And with a bit of work, one could even swap out the CPU.
So keep this in mind when buying an iMac. Once you choose your configuration, there is no going back, which is why choosing the correct storage and CPU is so important!
2) Choosing Size – 21.5″ iMac with Retina 4K vs 27″ iMac with Retina 5K
When working on high resolution images, the lower the resolution of the screen, the more you will be scrolling from one are of the image to another when zoomed in. With modern cameras now sporting 30+ MP sensors, displaying those images on low resolution screens does not make much sense anymore. Not when 4K+ screens are becoming much more affordable. Apple has been packing Retina 4K+ screens on its iMacs for a while now for that reason and those IPS screens are really gorgeous for displaying images. So what iMac would be best suited for photography? The 21.5″ version with a 4K screen or the 27″ version with a 5K screen? Unless you have desk space limitations, I would go for the 27″ Retina screen. With a whopping 5120 x 2880 resolution, you could watch 4K content and still have some desktop space left! But the biggest benefit is the physical monitor size – a 27″ screen is huge in comparison to a 21.5″ screen. There is simply no comparison between the two.
I personally went for a 27″ iMac and I have no regrets. In fact, to be honest, I bought the iMac primarily for its 5K screen. If I were to buy an equivalent 5K screen for my PC, I would be looking at spending over $1,600 for the screen alone! Interestingly, this is the first time an Apple product is actually cheaper and more valuable than a PC. Actually, there is no PC all-in-one product on the market with similar screen specifications…
3) CPU and GPU Considerations
With Intel’s Skylake architecture already out on the newest iMacs, unless you have budget constraints, it would make sense to get the latest and greatest CPU (late 2015 model). This would future-proof your purchase and give you the best overall performance. The newest architecture will support up to 64 GB of RAM, so if you want to move beyond the previous 32 GB limit, Skylake would be the way to go. In addition to getting the latest, 6th generation CPU, you would also be getting the fastest AMD Radeon R9 video cards, with up to 4 GB of GPU RAM, which will be beneficial for GPU-intensive post-processing tasks.
It would also keep the resale value higher for a couple of years. My iMac Retina was a late 2014 model that I bought in the summer of 2015 and while I got a good deal at the time, that same iMac is now $400 cheaper, brand new. Unless Apple releases another iMac, which probably won’t happen for another year, your investment won’t tank as fast as buying an older generation iMac that few people want. But do keep in mind that computers in general are never a good investment in the first place – expect to lose value very quickly. With the fast pace of technology, that’s just the way it is! Remember “It’s All About The Pentiums” by Weird Al Yankovic? “My new computer has got the clocks, it rocks, but it was obsolete before I opened the box!” LOL, so true! So while it might be a good idea to get the “latest and greatest” to be set for the next few years, if the newest technology is far more expensive than something that is only 5-10% slower, that marginal performance increase might not be worth the investment.
What about Intel Core i5 vs Core i7? Depending on the workload, the performance difference between the two can vary from 5% to 50%. You probably won’t see more than 10% difference in applications like Lightroom and Photoshop that have a hard time utilizing more than a single core, but for exports and other tasks that can take advantage of hyperthreading, you will be better off with an Intel Core i7 CPU. If money is not an issue, go for an i7 CPU. With a 4.0 Ghz clock speed vs 3.3 Ghz on Skylake, more threads and more cache, my preference would be to stick with i7. If you decide to go with a previous generation CPU for low budget reasons, Core i5 will also do the job. I went with a Core i5 setup personally, as there was not a good deal on the i7 at the time…
4) Storage Considerations
With iMac Retina having so many different storage options (256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB PCIe and Fusion Drives from 1 TB to 3 TB), choosing an appropriate storage option can also be challenging. Like I have pointed out above, you must choose your storage option carefully, as you will not be able to upgrade it in the future. My personal recommendation is to stay away from spinning drives when buying computers. PCIe drives are much faster and they have lower chances of failing or building up “bad blocks” overtime. With the iMac getting pretty hot under full load, putting a spinning drive might not be the best idea. But that’s not the main reason why I would recommend a PCIe flash drive. When choosing your Lightroom storage option, it is always best to place your Lightroom catalog and cache in the fastest drive you have available. Keep in mind that Lightroom stores not only its catalog file, but also preview images under the same folder structure. While a Fusion drive can off-load the catalog into its faster SSD memory, your preview files will most likely still reside in the spinning area of the drive, slowing access times down. So you are going to be better off by placing your Lightroom catalogs in the faster PCIe Flash storage.
What about storage space? PCIe gets expensive fast, so what size is optimal? This is strictly a budget-driven question. If you have a large budget, get the largest PCIe Flash drive, which is 1 TB. But if that is too expensive, 512 GB would also work. Personally, I would avoid 256 GB, as it would be too limiting – once you load up your Lightroom catalog, it will eat through those 256 GB too quickly, especially with full size previews.
Now if you did end up choosing a small PCIe storage option, or if you already have a Fusion drive, there is no need to be overly concerned – there is a great solution out there! Earlier this year, I purchased the Samsung Portable SSD T1 drive and this thing absolutely rocks! Check out my detailed review of the Samsung T1, where I explain how I took advantage of this little drive on my iMac. No matter what you end up choosing for primary storage, you could use one or more of these T1 drives to add a lot more storage for your iMac. The 1 TB version is a bit expensive at $400, but you could get the lower capacity version for your Lightroom catalog and have a larger capacity drive for your RAW files, making a super fast and efficient iMac setup. These drives are so small and lightweight, that you could leave them dangling off your iMac’s USB ports on the back of the machine!
5) RAM Considerations
When choosing an iMac, always choose the least amount of RAM. Apple wants you to shell out $600 for 32 GB of RAM, which is ridiculous! For my late 2014 iMac Retina, I bought two 16 GB Crucial memory sticks, totaling only $150! That’s way cheaper than if I were to buy 32 GB already installed on the iMac – I saved $450 by installing the memory myself. Now the same memory won’t work on the latest iMac with Skylake, so if you are looking for a 32 GB kit, get it from OWC. Even better, get this 64 GB kit for less than $700 instead and you can enjoy more memory than even Apple offers!
Installing the drive is super easy. All you have to do is open the rear RAM panel on the iMac, remove existing memory and swap it out with the new memory. The procedure is not technical at all and if you have trouble with the process, you can ask someone else to do it for you. Folks at OWC made a 2 minute video that shows the process right here. It took me a couple of minutes to do it and the machine came up on the first boot, showing all 32 GB of RAM that I installed.
So unless you want your money down the drain, don’t buy the most beefed up iMac – buy memory separately and install it yourself to save hundreds of dollars.
6) iMac Recommendations
Based on the above, below are my recommendations for the latest iMac (Late 2015) with Skylake CPUs:
- Apple 27″ iMac with Retina 5K, 4.0 Ghz Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395X, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB Flash Storage – $3,499
- Apple 27″ iMac with Retina 5K, 4.0 Ghz Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon R9 M390, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB Flash Storage – $3,199
- Apple 27″ iMac with Retina 5K, 4.0 Ghz Intel Core i7, AMD Radeon R9 M390, 8 GB RAM, 512 GB Flash Storage – $2,699
Personally, I find the most value in the last option at $2,699. It does not have the fastest video card or the most amount of flash storage, but it is $800 cheaper than the top recommended model, which is a lot!
If the iMacs above are still too expensive, these two have some killer discounts at the moment:
- Apple 27″ iMac with Retina 5K (Mid 2015), 3.3 Ghz Intel Core i5, AMD Radeon M290, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive – $1,549
- Apple 27″ iMac with Retuna 5K (Late 2014), 3.5 Ghz Intel ore i5, AMD Radeon M290X, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB Fusion Drive – $1,749
The second option with the Fusion drive is what I bought for myself this summer. While both have spinning drives, they are significantly cheaper than the Skylake models and are much more affordable.
Hope you found this article useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask in the comments section below!
Thanks for this Nasim! :)
Is heat from the i7 vs i5 an issue? I heard they run hot…
You are most welcome Sharif!
Heat is an issue on all iMacs, but it depends on what you are doing. If you game all day long, then the iMac will get hot quite a bit. But for regular work, it is not an issue. You might hear the fan kick off every once in a while and once your usage drops down, it cools down fairly quick. The iMac is not designed for continuous, heavy loads, similar to most laptops.
Great, thanks for that Nasim! :)
I appreciate that this article relates to desktops but have any brief thoughts on equivalent laptops? Thanks. Alan
Alan, stay tuned, the next article will be on choosing MacBook Pro!
Looking forward to reading that article!
But the MacBook Pros still have the 5th gen processors. I wonder why they are so late with these?
Dear Nasim,
Do you have any thoughts about the Zenbook Pro UX501? Thanks
Thanks for this great article. In UK I have not seen anything about the Skylake models the latest a chines are being described as late 2015 but they have 1867MHz DDR3 SDRAM, which I cannot find on Crucial. I will take your article to my local Apple store and see if they are up to speed. Thanks again for the article and Seasons Greetings to you and yours.
I’ve switched from Windows to Macs 4 years ago. Now running a 27″ (non-retina) 2013 iMac i7 with 32GB OWC RAM, 1TB SSD and a 2nd 27″ Cinema screen. Other h/w add-ons include upgraded graphics option, 8TB LaCie Thunderbolt drive and Synology DS1815+ NAS. (3 other NAS’s are used to back up the big guy, which has 2 SSD drives for caching).
I use LR and Final Cut all the time, and have over 400 Apps. Very happy indeed with the system. (As I provide Windows IT services I also have many Windows PCs around, so I am not an Apple bigot!)
Dear Nasim,
I am curious, cause you mention in previous comment – next review will be MBP’s, do you have any thought on 13.3″ – is it going to be anytime soon new model since the last build is Early 2015.
I just decide to buy one 13.3″ with i5, but hoping there is going to be something new in beginning of 2016?
Is it worth of waiting of month or two?
Regards…
All 13″ MacBookPro (mine is 2015) lack external video card and lack dedicated video ram. Thjs was not bad running Lightroom 5.7 with 24mp files. As soon as I upgraded to CC the develop mode began to bog down. And when I edit the 42mp files of Sony A7RII it gets pretty bad. I have not explored options like editing smart previews and detaching the raw files hard drive. That might solve the problem, or not, I dont know. But I do regret not getting the 15″ with external gpu with dedicated ram.
Karlo, just like Art recommended, I would stay away from 13.3″ MacBooks for photography, since they do not have external video cards.
Looking to buy a new laptop- is there an article for that? Or can you tell me- mid-high end, but not super high end- what laptop would you recommend?
Thanks!!
Excellent article! There is one more important consideration, which is that the latest generation of iMac have wide color gamut screens. This is potentially a blessing but there are huge potholes to dodge:
1. Color management is inconsistent among software vendors, so once you begin to use a monitor that is not sRGB, you need to be continually aware of whether your current software environment is supporting the color gamut you are using.
2. iMac color gamut is not Adobe RGB, which is the standard wide gamut for photography (as I understand). It uses a wide gamut optimized for video production. (This might have significant implications for printing.)
3. From what I understand, the iMac does not have an easy way – or perhaps any way at all – to simulate sRGB on the monitor. This means that when you edit on that monitor there may be no way to preview how it will look in various sRGB situation of your target audience. Ideally, if you export sRGB jpegs, they should be properly labeled as sRGB in metadata and then your iMac software would recognize this and adjust accordingly. Ideally. And then there is your target audience …..
Nassim has an older thread on monitors and on that thread, I had interaction in the comments with Betty, who provided excellent detailed explanation of the situation. (Can we convince Nassim and Betty to turn those comments into an article on this topic? :-) )
See this thread, comments beginning on October 25, several interactions.
https://photographylife.com/best-monitor-for-photography#comment-191617
Thanks to Betty!
Art
ps: I’ve been told that it is generally true that monitors supporting Adobe RGB have some button or switch to turn it into sRGB simulation mode, for precisely the reasons I cited above. So Apple omission on the iMac, if true, is a bit of an oversight.
I am desperate for an article of that type as I have been unable to calibrate my Retina iMac using SyperderPro 4 for printing. I have terrible color casts on all prints despite following all recommendations.
First, calibration for print is no different than for any other destination other than it should be generally of much lower in brightness and contrast than what you might use for web display (because you are trying to simulate a ‘paper image’) on an inherently bright monitor screen. Pixels are backlit, ink dots on paper are not. However the underlying colour management is the same. For print, brightness/luminance should be around 80-100cd/m2 and contrast ratio should be around 200:1(iMac 450cd/m2 and 1000:1) – no wonder prints come out too dark!
Older iMacs (and Mac screens in general) were of very dubious quality and horrible to calibrate so it may be just that.
The newest retina displays are MUCH better though still not ideal in a number of respects.
In my view, people obsess too much about tech specs such as screen resolution and too little about colour accuracy and consistency and the ease and accuracy with which a monitor can be fully calibrated and profiled – hence the web is awash with complaints about colour being ‘wrong’ on the web or in print. The colour is only wrong because it hasn’t been managed correctly.
However, if you are getting colour casts, the calibration of your monitor, if you have carried it out correctly, may be absolutely fine. There are a number of possible culprits where colour casts are concerned. Here are three of the most common ones.
First port of call may be your print driver settings.
These should be ‘Photoshop manages colour’ or ‘Printer manages colour’ but not both.
Double colour management will lead to this kind of problem.
Another reason may be a profile mismatch – in other words is your colour managemant workflow set up correctly so that your (correct) source profile is converted to the correct printer profile (for the specific printer/ink/combination you are using) and that both your source and printer profile (soft proof) are being displayed through the correct monitor profile? If not, all bets are off.
Finally it could be something as simple (but not obvious) as clogged nozzles in yout inkjet printer. Perhaps not sufficiently clogged to produce banding but enough to produce a cast.Try printing a nozzle check pattern.
Yes, you are right, the iMac is wide gamut but it’s gamut is DCI-P3 – a colour space mimicking the colour range of projected motion picture film. It’s pretty much the same size as AdobeRGB but somewhat skewed in the reference CIE colour model relative to AdobeRGB.
It’s probably an indicator of the direction of travel Apple is taking. Videographers happy, photographers not so much.
iMac users might need/want to change their colour space settings to take account of this as AdobeRGB has colours that DCI-P3 cannot display (pricipally some blues and greens) and vice-versa.
You can however preview a JPEG’s ‘sRGB appearance’ on the iMac if your workflow is colour managed and all image files are tagged correctly. The software should convert the source profile into the monitor profile and display it correctly. If not, all bets are off as (from what I have read so far), the new iMac has no sRGB colour emulation mode to fall back on.
Alternatively, you could use the “Save for Web” dialogue in Photoshop which allows a preview simulation of your image tagged sRGB in your chosen browser.
As for the target audience, if, as is mostly the case, their monitors are uncalibrated, then what they see will be as inexact and haphazard as ever it was!
I’m considering an iMac and curious about color spaces. I use a PC now and will often open a tab in google chrome. I then drop my image in chrome and this will show me how the image will appear on the web. Can this technique be utilized successfully on a Mac?
Art,
This is interesting and thanks for pointing this out. I print all the time. I make my own prints using my Canon Pixma Pro 10 and when I need larger prints (24×36 and up) I use Nations Photo Lab, I have never had a problem with color.
I bought a 27″ iMac Retina (late 2014) here in France just before the new ones were announced a couple of months ago (saved me a few hundred Euros to go with inventory the store wanted to get rid of in anticipation of the new models). The machine replaced an early 2008 Mac Pro with dual Xeon 2.8 GHz 4-core processors and an aging 23″ cinema display from 2006. The iMac has 16 GBs of RAM, an i7 4.0 GHz CPU, the better of the two video card options, and a 1 TB Fusion drive. Running DxO Optics Pro, PhotoShop, and Aperture, the machine is actually noticeably faster than the MacPro it replaced. The temperature very rarely gets high enough for the fan to become audible, but it does happen.
This computer is an amazing deal, especially considering the display that it comes with. Processing photos on this machine is a joy. For storage, I bought an OWC Thunderbay 4 unit into which I placed the four drives that used to be in the Mac Pro, among which a 480 GB SSD that used to be the Mac Pro’s boot drive. At first, I wanted to keep that as the boot drive, but I found that the Fusion drive is plenty fast and apparently boots from its SSD portion. Now I use the old SSD as as temporary work storage for Photoshop and other applications.
I couldn’t be happier with my setup and can’t recommend this machine enough. By the way, a common misconception is that on a 5K display, everything (text, icons, etc.) would be minuscule. The way Apple implements things by default, the 5120×2880 pixels are displayed as 2560×1440, making things the same size as on a non-Retina 27″ iMac. However, everything is much, much sharper because the pixel density is much higher. Yes, you can change the default settings and display a true 5120×2880 pixels, but then things really do get very, very small.
Your experience very much mirrors mine with the exception of GPU use in LR. I have not found a case where it was beneficial. I bought my iMac 3 months ago, top line everything as I tend to keep my machines as long as they will go and I try to make them future proof – but that video card does not agree with LR well and GPU is now disabled (for the better).
I also went the route of buying the minimal memory to save about$400 but B&H also offers a memory installation service for a few $ if anybody is worried about doing it themselves (it is real easy but having somebody else do it removes all worries)
Hi. Thanks for a great article. What about choosing a 21.5″ ? Is it enough for raw image work in Lightroom? Which configuration would be enough? Thanks!
I made the switch from Windows to Mac in 2012. My dislike of Windows 8 was the driver for this. I bought a Mac mini, Dell U2412M and LaCie P’9233 external drive. I’m very happy with this combo. OSX is nice. On balance I would say it’s a better OS than Windows 7 and 8. It’s not light years ahead, but it is definitely better in my view. The integration between the hardware and software makes for a better user experience. No manufacturer-installed bloatware to remove, etc. Time Machine is so useful. I still run a Windows 7 laptop for some things, and also a Chromebook for lightweight browsing. I’m not sure about Apple’s decision to release a new OSX version every 12 months. The jury’s out on that I think. I’m on 10.8 Mountain Lion, and even though the OS upgrades are now free, I haven’t done so because I’m still running LR4 and DxO OP 8, and both would need to be upgraded for 10.11 El Capitan. I’ll upgrade them at some point, and then move to the latest OSX. I’m also considering buying Affinity Photo which looks like a very competent alternative to Photoshop.
Hi Ritchie,
Nice setup, sounds like it’s working.
Why I am replying is with regard to the annual OSX upgrade. In general, I like to upgrade as new versions of OSX come out. I did that several times with past MacBooks with little trouble. Unfortunately, the last two OSX versions -Yosemite and El Capitan – wreaked havoc on my web development environment and nothing but a clean install would resolve the issues. Because of this, I urge caution on non-technical users (I don’t know if that’s you) when upgrading because it looks like a clean install is needed each time. Just be aware of the prerequisites required to do that. This is especially important with regard to your backup.
In a strange way, by “requiring” a clean install it makes me even more aware of my backups and software compatibility and may actually cause fewer issues in the long run. So, it’s not a big deal as long as you know what to expect.
Potential purchasers of iMac Retina 4K / 5K machines should be aware that the display uses the DCI P3 colour space. This has some implications for photographers. Thom Hogan has an article about this. Google “another new color space bythom” and you’ll see it.
Good to know that! I wass interested in the 5k model. I will take a closer look on this subject.
I’m starting to feel like an old man who bought his first Macintosh Iici in the late 80s, since then I’ve owned a PowerMac 7200, Quadra, G3, G4, G5… now I use a 27-inch iMac and a MacBook Pro. Sadly, I can honestly say that since Apple has become primarily a mobile device company, it no longer makes OS X and professional desktop computing a priority like it used to, in fact compatibility between OS X computers and iOS devices has been a frustrating experience as though Apple has evolved into two separate companies with the later responsible for a poor user interface that is antithetical to what made Apple a great company in the first place. The good news is that the technology and software has got to the point where we’re truly living in a golden age of digital imaging.
Great article!
However, regarding the point of easily upgradeable RAM on the iMac, such is NOT the case for the 21.5″. It does not have the same panel as the 27″.
I recently bought late 2015 27″ iMac retina model with 1GB Fusion Drive. Unfortunately it only has 24GB SSD which isn’t enough for anything except system files. I’m planning to upgrade it and install 256GB PCIe SSD. I also ordered 16GB of crucial DDR3 memory because 8GB isn’t really enough for PS and LR.
Screen is just great, I haven’t faced any color issues yet. As I understand OS X contains calibrated profile so it behave as sRGB screen until you actually open image containing wide gammut information. However Windows doesn’t handle it such well so there can be issues.
Thank you so much for sharing your brilliant idea … do you have any article on how to buy an apple laptop for photography? Thank you again.
That’s pretty much my setup. I ordered the new 27 inch iMac. i7 with the 8 GB of ram. However, I upgraded my memory to 32GB from OWC for about $300.00. Using the Samsung T1 portable harddrive too (love that thing) – just wished the connecting cable was a bit longer.
Thank you.
But what is the PC system that you use Mr Nasim? Just wondering!
“Personally, I find the most value in the last option at $2,699”.. which is exactly what I bought last month, and I couldn’t have been happier.
My suggestion for those who also have a laptop is to buy the Samsung SSD indeed, and put the Lightroom catalogue plus the latest photos there, so that they can work on the photos both on the go and on the imac taking advantage of the SSD speed.
I think you left out the best config: MacMini with an NEC monitor. Great performance, great price.
Just a couple of small things: The current Skylake processor can use 64 gigs of ram and the MacPro can use 128, both are available through OWC. I use the 27″ late 2014 model fully specked with 3TB fusion drive (not recommended, get the SSD) and use it daily for LR and Premier. I now keep every thing except programs on an external SSD RAID, much faster than the fusion drive for video and LR. I couldn’t be happier with the overall performance. El Capitan…. Well that is another subject all together.
27″ iMac 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7 32 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB with 512GB SSD and 10 TB or external Thunderbolt storage. That’s my setup.
Hello Nasim:
When I initially moved from Windows to OSX I had an iMac. What I didn’t like about the iMac was that, while the all-in-one design is great I once had a problem with the screen and missed the convenience of just easily switching out the monitor. I also found that some of the design benefit was negated by my attached external drives … so I got a 2010 Mac Pro. Love the ease of switching out memory, hard drives, graphics cards and it allows me to attach the monitor of my choice (which I can more easily adjust than the iMac monitor) … while I like OSX, once my MacPro is on its last legs I’ve been thinking that I might go back to Windows b/c I can get a computer that leaves me with the monitor of my choice, which is very, very impt. to me.
The benchmark comparison between the iMac and the Mac Pro are not of much interest to me, mainly because the Mac Pro is not something I would consider purchasing. I am looking for comparison data between PC and Mac systems for running LR. LR is very slow so it is of great interest to know how systems handle LR tasks that can be excruciating. Benchmarks on building 1:1 previews would be interesting and easy to measure. How quickly LR changes high res images is also an aggravation and has a big impact on productivity. Harder to measure but something that makes a big difference in getting work done. I would be curious to know how your Skylake PC hardware system that is the subject of a prior article compares with a new iMac on some of these basic LR productivity benchmarks. It would be a great service if you could devise a set of LR benchmark tests and present data on them for different systems. Maybe they would be benchmarks that others could run on their own systems for comparison. Without quantitative benchmark data on photographic operations it is hard to know whether an alternate system offers much to photographers.
David, that’s a great idea, but there are some potential problems – one would have to make two exactly same builds with the same processors, memory, etc. to be able to tell which one is faster. I currently have no plans to build a PC, but once the Skylake versions of iMacs are freely available, perhaps I could convince someone to let me build a PC with exactly the same specs for a detailed comparison :) That would be a fun one to check out!
It would be interesting to see a comparison exact same builds running Windows and OS X, but that is not really what would be most valuable to me not what I was suggesting. I am thinking that a suite of benchmark LR/PS tests would allow comparison of a wide range of configurations, PC and Mac, for a wide range of system costs. If the benchmarks are for the type of operations that we as photographers need to run to be productive it would be a great service in making decisions about upgrading our systems. It could quantify the benefit of fast multicore CPU’s, fast SSD’s, powerful GPU’s, etc. It may also be helpful in deciding whether Mac or PC systems best fit our needs and budgets. I can think of a lot of issues that would need to be carefully addressed in setting up a set of benchmarks tests in order for the data to be reliable and the comparisons to useful. It may be that if you can set up a suite of benchmark tests the readers of your web site can run the benchmarks on their systems and report the results. If the benchmarks are well designed that would help answer a lot of questions about how much various investments would improve the user experience with LR and PS. All the other issues you address about service, support, viruses, etc, etc, are still up to the user to consider, but at least we would have better data on LR/PS operation. I believe such data is needed since LR is such a slow program. I find it pretty unresponsive and I have read many posts on various web sites that big investments in fast systems have minimal payoff in improving the user experience and productivity. You have mentioned several times that Adobe does a poor job of structuring LR and PS to use multicore processors and multiple threads. I also see that they are touting the use of the GPU to speed up LR, but I read that the results are not very impressive and sometimes counter-productive. I would like to see some reliable data rather that a compendium of rumors. Maybe some benchmarks will help.
Excellent idea.
Could you tell us if 30 bit workflow is an option with the iMac and the apple screen or am I barking up the wrong tree, since I think you said Mac’s don’t have that capability?
Up until very recently 10 bit output was not possible on Mac.
However with the advent of El Capitan things are looking up.
But there’s more to it than just having an OS that supports 10 bit – there is a whole chain that must be fully implemented for 10 bit to work as follows:
Your digital image file (must be at least 10 bit) – the operating system (El Capitan) must support 10 bit input – The software must support 10 bit (this means CS6/CC with Open GL rendering) – the graphics card (NVIDIA QUADRO Series with correct drivers activated ) – Monitor LUT (at least 10 bit but preferably 12,16 or 16bit 3D for optimum gradation) – Display Panel Depth (true 10bit) – Display Port connections.
Only if all these are in place will true 10 bit support be possible. A lot of people think they are getting 10 bit output because their video card or monitor nominally supports it – however they are deluding themselves.
You may have gathered that this will not be cheap especially if you go for a NEC PA or EIZO CG series monitor. These have 16bit 3D LUTs and are the ultimate in accuracy and smoothness of colour reproduction.
Somewhat less costly, the latest 4K and 5K iMacs support 10bit but aren’t in anywhere the same league as the big boys of the graphics world.
Nasim–thank you for a very informative article. By the way, for those concerned about heat in an iMac, I want you to know that I have been running my 2009 24″ iMac quite hard (6-8 hours a day) and so far I have not yet encountered any problems. Just make sure that you have ample ventilation surrounding the unit.
I have read very carefully and I decided to take a WINDOWS PC :)
There is some information here about the latest 5K iMac:
http://macperformanceguide.com/topics/topic-IMac.html
summary
The latest IMac seems to have a really gorgeous 5K screen that can show 14.2 MP and has a good color gamut -has superfast ( 2000MB/sec) memory , is able to have 64 gig of RAM and uses a 4core I7 processor that in real life is as fast for photoshop as an 8core macpro Xeon system of 7000€ without a screen.
So there is no need for macpro’s anymore especially since they don’t store PCI lanes and Harddisks anymore.
Great Article. In my home redecoration is underway and soon my new iMac will arrive. My big worry is how to transfer images from Lightroom 4.4 onto the new machine and possibly a new drive like the Samsung SSD? Nasim, could this be an article?
Happy New Year to all at PL and readers, Michael
Hi! Thanks for all That Information. I think i7 is the futureproof Choice, but would you go for the 395x graphic unit for cs6, LR6 or capture one? Or better spent the 300bucks in RAM?
You think the Performance of a new iMac will be noticable faster, than a 2012 Mac mini i7?
Tanks,
Jack
I just purchased an iMac 21.5inch 4K retina 3.1 Ghz quad core Intel core i5 8GB 1TB. Its still in the box i want to know if it is good for editing photos or if i should return it and get a different one? I really wanted the 27 inch but it honestly isn’t in the budget right now…. help!!!
Thanks for this article. It answered many questions I’ve been researching for the past few days.
Hi…
It is a great review! One question…How do you handle the monitor calibration?
Do you do monitor calibration for this imac 27inches?
Or, is it ok not to do calibration?
Thanks in advance
Sung Choi
If you are doing photographic editing it is never OK not to calibrate your monitor.
The iMac is a great value machine but its screen is not great for demanding photographic applications.
It does not have hardware calibration (relies on adjusting the graphics card’s output for this), is too shiny and cannot have its brightness turned down far enough for photographic editing (especially print) without running into problems.
If you look at response 7 under comments there is a link to a debate between Nasim and Betty that is very technical
Thanks for this article Nasim. My question as a photographer is about colour calibration. I currently use a Spyder calibrator on a Samsung 24″ monitor with my mid-2012 MacBook Pro. Looking to upgrade to a new 27″ 5K iMac but can you calibrate the iMac screens?
David,
Yes, you can calibrate the iMac screens as well. I have mine calibrated with the i1Display pro device.
November 21, 2016
Hi Nasim, a little late “to the party” so to speak, but in December 2015 when you wrote this informative article, my MacPro 2008 tower was still chugging along fine.
However, last week, my beloved MacPro 2008 unit died and went to Apple Heaven to be with my previous G4.
Thus, I’m in the situation that I will soon need a new replacement and upon searching the internet I came across this December 2015 article of yours. Since I currently use a two mintor system I was not actually thinking of an iMac but since
I read your article perhaps the high end iMac unit should be something I should consider. The latest Mac Pro cylinder seems to be old in the tooth (2013) whereas the latest iMac 27″ 2015 seems to offer enough power to run two 24″ montors besides the iMac 5K retina screen.
My quandary at this juncture however is do I buy the “top of the line 27″ iMac” now or is there a possibility that the iMacs will be refreshed in “early 2017”?
My question to you Nasim is this, is your December 2015 article recommendations still valid one year later (almost) or have you newer thoughts on this subject.
I enjoy your web site and the many great articles posted there by you and the other contributors.
Don J J C
I have the same question. My very loved 2009 MacPro appears to have gasped its last today. I found this article but since no one has responded to your question …..tap-tap-tap….is this thing on???
Roberta, please see my response to Don above.
Happy holidays!
Don,
I apologize for a late reply. Although it is definitely time for Apple to refresh its iMac line and we should see the newer models in Q1/Q2 of 2017, I would still not hesitate to recommend the late 2015 models, because they are very solid machines, especially those that are currently on sale. I would not go with the top of the line model though, as the price/value ratio quickly deteriorates towards the top and those models won’t likely have any good sales on them.
Hope this helps!
Thanks Nasim! No apology needed just a bit on edge after experiencing the Mac Pro death today. I think I am going with a refurbished of one of your recommended models from Apple. Looking at one with a bit more storage space and most likely will add Apple Care for insurance. I’ve never gone the refurbished route but a good friend only buys his Macs that way and swears by it. Hope it works out for me because the new just isn’t in the budget right now and this one means a really big savings. If the iMac tests out okay I’ll upgrade the RAM as you suggest. I have a nice NEC Multisync monitor (wide gamut) with it’s own Xrite calibration device that I was using with the MacPro can I hook it up to the iMac? Would I want to do that?
Appreciate this site so much,
Roberta
Dear Roberta and Don
First condolences on the passing of your Mac Pros.
Like you, I recently retired my old, but much upgraded, 2008 Mac Pro 3,1 as I needed to replace my (equally old) Eizo CG301W monitor and wanted Eizo’s latest and greatest Eizo CG318-4K and go to full 4K 10-bit colour display. Also, the 2008 Mac Pro will not play with OSX Sierra. So it was the end of the line.
I looked at the more modern cylinder Mac Pros and although they are excellent, for me they fall down through the lack of internal drives. I use all 4 internal drives (System, Photos, Photos Backup and System BackUp/Time Machine plus an External to back up the back ups!)
So here’s what I did.
I bought a refurbished 2010 Mac Pro 5,1 6-core with the (special order at the time) 3.46Hz processor. Most photographic applications do not use many processor cores so speed is king here and this is reckoned be the best of the bunch for photographic purposes.
I added an NVIDIA GTX980Ti 6GB graphics card modified with a flashed Mac BIOS from MacVidCards. I only mention them by name as their upgrade is completely reliable and accepts all driver updates just like a native card. There are a lot of pirated cards out there for which the same cannot be said. This GPU provides a proper boot screen on start up and will run 2x4K monitors or 1x5K monitor. It also supports 10 bit display and works seamlessly with both Lightroom and Photoshop. A powerful card.
Next, I put in an Angelbird Wings MX2 1TB M.2 SSD in the PCIe slot as my main system/applications drive. This is bootable and bypasses the SATA bottleneck (can produce speeds up to about 900MB/s).
Bays 1 and 2 house 2x1TB Angelbird SSDs in RAIDO array as my main Photo Storage. Again RAIDO partially overcomes the limitations imposed by the SATA by doubling the effective read/write speed. RAIDO is said to be risky but as I see it, if a drive fails it fails. Keep good backups.
Angelbird SSDs have Mac TRIM support natively enabled so no messing with third party software.
It’s a German company so very solid.
Bay 3 is a 2TB 7200 SATA drive for Photo BackUp.
Bay 4 is a 3TB 7200 SATA drive partitioned into a cloned bootable System BackUp and Time Machine.
A G-Tech 4TB 7200 SATA external drive backs up the back ups!
To top it off, I installed 48GB RAM in triple array.
Black Magic Speed Test gives me 700MB/s write and 735MB/s read speeds. Not bad for a seven year old Mac.
So now the Eizo outputs 99% AdobeRGB in UHD 4K at 60Hz and in 10 bit colour and both Lightroom and Photoshop edits are near instantaneous.
Hope this gives you a few ideas and helps a little in your decision making. I am a little anal about colour so the iMac does not quite cut it for me – too bright, too shiny and incapable of proper hardware calibration and of course it is virtually impossible to upgrade without scrapping the old and buying a new one.
Betty,
I am totally blown away by your knowledge and ability to do all of this. I bow to you! Seriously, I am not being sarcastic or anything when I say that because I am totally impressed. I know tackling a project such as you have done is way over my head. I am a little concerned about the shiny and brightness of the iMac screen but will have 14 days to check out the refurbished iMac and if it will not work for me I can drive it down to the Apple Store in a city not too far from me and return it. I am at the age when I think twice about buying green bananas and dealing with the bulk and weight of the Mac Pro has become a bit difficult for me. I live in an area where dust, lots of dust, is a constant problem so the frequent need to move all of my equipment around to clean and try to stay on top of the dust is getting to be too a bit much. Streamlined also may fit in with my current plan to downsize and eliminate excess in my life. However, after reading what you have to say I have a few concerns because I’ve been printing more lately. My NEC Multisync monitor calibrates itself independently so I am wondering if I can use it in conjunction with the iMac as check when I want to print. I have it calibrated several different ways and can switch between the profiles and I feel that the printing I have done has been pretty darn accurate. I am not a pro just a hobby photographer so much of what I do consists of various little projects that bring me joy as well as restoration of old family photos. That said, I have become a bit more critical about printing and have come to enjoy the challenge of doing it myself. Thanks for the great information.
Roberta
Thanks for the kind words. However, like you, I am just an enthusiast, not a pro, and my knowledge, such as it is, is born out of necessity and wanting to get the best bang for my buck. I love Mac in all its forms and the old Mac Pro tower in particular as it is so configurable to almost any spec and has so much storage built in.
The ‘recipe’ above can be adapted up or down according to budget and will work reliably.
I believe a well spec’d iMac will support two or more screens so I see no reason why running the NEC in tandem should not work. You could soft proof on the NEC for printing and do everything else on the iMac. Having them side by side may even enable you to tweak the iMac’s software calibration/profile to more closely resemble the NEC’s more accurate hardware calibrated output.
Hi all.
After reading this article and all of the comments, I’m actually still a bit confused.
My girlfriend is a photographer and I’d like to buy her a new iMac, the 27″ 5k Retina.
Now, since I’m not a super rich person, looking at the apple store, I was thinking of going with the first model,
but change the configuration to 16GB Ram and switch the ATA drive for a Fusion Drive.
This is about as much as I can spend.
Would this be a good setup as she will be using Photoshop and Lightroom a lot?
Thanks in advance.
Nasim,
It would be great if you could update this for the new Kaby Lake mid-2017 iMacs.
Thanks,
Mike Hammon
It is now 2017. Which iMac would you recommend for photography editing in photoshop and LR CC. Is it true PS does not take full advantage of more than 2 processors? can you please share the very best option, the best option, and the good option for the above needs? thanks
Hey, I am upping my photography game over the last couple of months, I currently have a late 2012 21.5 imac. I am looking at upgrading, I recently got given 2 x lg 34inch curve monitors that are going to be my centre point (providing everything works out). I am wondering should I get the new imac a macbook pro and connect monitors to that or the mac pro. I know mac pro is old but I ideally would like to use the 2 monitor setup which wouldn’t really work with an imac.
Let me know your thoughts.
Thanks