From railfan at telus.net Thu Nov 29 21:57:31 2007 From: railfan at telus.net (M.Milligan) Date: Thu Nov 29 21:57:38 2007 Subject: [iMac] Newbie with viewing distance question Message-ID: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> Hello all. I'm new to this list. I've used Mac notebooks for many years now. Soon we're buying an iMac. Our concern is the viewing distance required for the 20" & 24" screens. Is there a minimum viewing distance one should be from the screen? I want to use the iMac for home computing, web browsing & email and also for Photo Shop work on my digpix. Should I max out the ram to 4GB? Is a 20" 2.4GHz clock speed suitable for digital photo correction and related work, or is there that much of a difference with the 2.8GHz? Any help is greatfully accepted. I thank you all in advance. Cheers. Murray From kclemence at ameritech.net Thu Nov 29 22:39:51 2007 From: kclemence at ameritech.net (Keith Clemence) Date: Thu Nov 29 22:43:27 2007 Subject: [iMac] Newbie with viewing distance question In-Reply-To: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> References: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> Message-ID: <2F66178F-806D-46B9-942C-4F846DB77589@ameritech.net> Hi Murray, I own and have worked on both sizes and my personal opinion is that the new 24" model feels considerably larger that the 20". I find myself wanting to distance myself further from the screen and wanting to raise my chair so that it doesn't feel like I am looking up at the screen. It is a beautiful computer and I think you will find the experience very different from the feel of working on a notebook. I am very much an amateur and use my computer much like you wrote that you will. I only do occasional work in Photo Shop, and for that I find the 2.4GHz speed very adequate. If you do extensive work in Photo Shop or edit video, you might want to consider the 2.8GHz, but I personally didn't think the extra cost would have been justified for me for the way I use my computer. If you do decide to add more memory, one can buy it from other vendors than Apple for less than Apple charges. It is very easy to add yourself. I hope that this helps. Keith On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:57 PM, M.Milligan wrote: > Hello all. I'm new to this list. I've used Mac notebooks for many > years now. Soon we're buying an iMac. > > Our concern is the viewing distance required for the 20" & 24" > screens. Is there a minimum viewing distance one should be from the > screen? > > I want to use the iMac for home computing, web browsing & email and > also for Photo Shop work on my digpix. > > Should I max out the ram to 4GB? Is a 20" 2.4GHz clock speed > suitable for digital photo correction and related work, or is there > that much of a difference with the 2.8GHz? > > Any help is greatfully accepted. I thank you all in advance. Cheers. > > Murray > > _______________________________________________ > iMac mailing list > iMac@listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/imac From paulfrye at mac.com Fri Nov 30 00:05:29 2007 From: paulfrye at mac.com (paulfrye) Date: Fri Nov 30 00:05:38 2007 Subject: [iMac] Newbie with viewing distance question In-Reply-To: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> References: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> Message-ID: <2BA678A4-6E0A-49D9-BF58-9AAC94BDBD20@mac.com> On Nov 29, 2007, at 9:57 PM, M.Milligan wrote: > Hello all. I'm new to this list. I've used Mac notebooks for many > years now. Soon we're buying an iMac. > > Our concern is the viewing distance required for the 20" & 24" > screens. Is there a minimum viewing distance one should be from the > screen? > > I want to use the iMac for home computing, web browsing & email and > also for Photo Shop work on my digpix. > > Should I max out the ram to 4GB? Is a 20" 2.4GHz clock speed > suitable for digital photo correction and related work, or is there > that much of a difference with the 2.8GHz? > > Any help is greatfully accepted. I thank you all in advance. Cheers. > > Murray Hi Murray, We have an older iMac G5, but I also own the MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz and I do quite a bit of photo work with it. The MacBook Pro 2.4 and the iMac 2.4 are essentially the same machine. As for your questions, There is no issue being close to the screen. LCDs are not like CRTs and won't irradiate you. They use a thin film LCD screen that is backlit by lights, so whatever distance you want to be is fine. There is a significant difference in quality between the 20" and the 24". This is a well known issue. Apple really cut costs on the 20" screen. For most folks it's fine, but to do photo editing, I would strongly suggest the 24" screen. As for the speed, it really depends on what type of files you are editing. If you are doing large NEF files, then I certainly would suggest going with the 2.8GHz. The faster the better. If you are doing family photos with JPEG, then the 2.4 GHz should be adequate for most of your work. Photoshop is a memory hog so I would certainly suggest all the HP you could get. By all means, max out your memory to 4GB. You can buy memory at a 3rd party location that is much less expensive than the memory that Apple sells and it is very easy to install in the iMac. Hope this helps. Regards, Paul From patdart2 at mac.com Fri Nov 30 04:03:48 2007 From: patdart2 at mac.com (Pat) Date: Fri Nov 30 04:04:00 2007 Subject: [iMac] Newbie with viewing distance question In-Reply-To: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> References: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> Message-ID: <6CD22782-C729-44DE-AF54-788F5AA8B245@mac.com> Hi, there, I have a 20" screen, and don't have a problem with it about viewing distance. But, I'm of the opinion that maxing out the ram and getting the biggest machine you can afford is never a mistake. I'll await others' opinions, PD On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:57 PM, M.Milligan wrote: > Hello all. I'm new to this list. I've used Mac notebooks for many > years now. Soon we're buying an iMac. > > Our concern is the viewing distance required for the 20" & 24" > screens. Is there a minimum viewing distance one should be from the > screen? > > I want to use the iMac for home computing, web browsing & email and > also for Photo Shop work on my digpix. > > Should I max out the ram to 4GB? Is a 20" 2.4GHz clock speed > suitable for digital photo correction and related work, or is there > that much of a difference with the 2.8GHz? > > Any help is greatfully accepted. I thank you all in advance. Cheers. > > Murray > > _______________________________________________ > iMac mailing list > iMac@listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/imac From jwegriffin at mac.com Fri Nov 30 12:50:54 2007 From: jwegriffin at mac.com (John Griffin) Date: Fri Nov 30 12:51:23 2007 Subject: [iMac] Newbie with viewing distance question In-Reply-To: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> References: <1557260c9538471187cdb265b45ee82f@telus.net> Message-ID: I have one of the mid-2006 24" iMacs and find that it is so much easier to work on than any previous Mac I have ever owned. You don't have to use the whole display for everything you are doing. Just allocate various parts of the screen for different tasks. When you want to concentrate on one thing over another, just move it to centre- stage and when done, push it into the wings. There is an excellent free application that I recommend called "Think." It helps in the process or centering and focusing on tasks. Give it a try, you'll love it. Unfortunatley I don't have the URL for it, but if you use VersionTracker or MacUpdate, they can find it for you to download. jg On 30-Nov-07, at 12:57 AM, M.Milligan wrote: > Hello all. I'm new to this list. I've used Mac notebooks for many > years now. Soon we're buying an iMac. > > Our concern is the viewing distance required for the 20" & 24" > screens. Is there a minimum viewing distance one should be from the > screen? > > I want to use the iMac for home computing, web browsing & email and > also for Photo Shop work on my digpix. > > Should I max out the ram to 4GB? Is a 20" 2.4GHz clock speed > suitable for digital photo correction and related work, or is there > that much of a difference with the 2.8GHz? > > Any help is greatfully accepted. I thank you all in advance. Cheers. > > Murray > > _______________________________________________ > iMac mailing list > iMac@listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/imac