[iMac] Newbie with viewing distance question

[paulfrye]

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