Fine Art Printing & Post Processing

[douvidl]

Question:
My iMac is going out of warranty and I am considering a new rig for heavy photo editing and fine art printing.  I  am considering the high end mac mini and the thunderbird monitor.  Do you have any recommendations?  Any special video card?
Thanks
David

[Alan Goldhammer]

You can save a lot of money buying a Win7 computer (w ATI Radeon video card) and a NEC monitor with Spectraview to calibrate.

[mac_paolo]

Question:
My iMac is going out of warranty and I am considering a new rig for heavy photo editing and fine art printing.  I  am considering the high end mac mini and the thunderbird monitor.  Do you have any recommendations?  Any special video card?
Thanks
David

Actually it's thunderbolt. Thunderbird is the Mozilla Foundation email client
I'd suggest you to wait for the next processor bump for the Mac Mini or wait for the next Mac Pro generation.
It's an architectural evolution, not a mere frequency upgrade.
As for today I'd go for the maximum Mini with a high end display. I won't get the Thunderbolt display, however.
It's a great display but not so suitable for photographic purposes.
NEC would be a better choice

Goldhammer: the switch of a platform shouldn't be trigger by a percentage of speed. There could be a LOT of license-driven reasons not to do so.
Lightroom let you switch between the two, but it's an exception.

[Bill Koenig]

+1 to what Al said.
My next PC, I will build my own, and get the most bang for my $ buck $

[Thomas Krüger]

Build your own machine - http://www.anandtech.com/tag/guides
 - and add a NEC monitor with Spectraview.

[tived]

Mac Mini and Heavy Photoshop work....hmmmm....thats a bit of a contradiction.

IMHO if you are wanting to do heavy photoshop work on a Mac, you probably need to look at atleast the high speced iMac and if you are doing really heavy work then a MacPro....or you could get a PC with similar or better specs.

....but not a Mac Mini!

Best of luck with your venture

Henrik

[Alan Goldhammer]

Build your own machine - http://www.anandtech.com/tag/guides
 - and add a NEC monitor with Spectraview.

These are very straight forward directions for the DIY builder:  http://www.mysuperpc.com/build.shtml

[deejjjaaaa]

in this case just build a hackintosh, PC hardware + OSX... best of the both worlds

[chez]

These are very straight forward directions for the DIY builder:  http://www.mysuperpc.com/build.shtml

The place where I got my PC from charged me only $50 to fully assemble and test out the PC including loading up the OS. Why in the world would I even entertain building myself?

[Alan Goldhammer]

The place where I got my PC from charged me only $50 to fully assemble and test out the PC including loading up the OS. Why in the world would I even entertain building myself?

Because it's fun, doesn't take a long time, and you now know how to replace any component or upgrade it by yourself.

[chez]

Because it's fun, doesn't take a long time, and you now know how to replace any component or upgrade it by yourself.

Not what I consider being fun. I'd much rather have a nice glass of wine next to a warm fireplace and dive into a good novel. I guess to each their own.