The creative power of PC

[Mutie]

Greeting escapists,
I find myself in a bit of a conundrum: For the past four years I have been using a macbook pro which I acquired in order to go to art school. However, in that time I never used the machine to do any kind of digital design or artwork, opting instead to use more traditional methods such as technical drawing and model making. Now my macbook is starting to wane and I think it's time I moved on, and find myself heavily attracted to the world of PC, mainly due to the customisation and gaming aspects. However, I find myself conflicted given the great deal of weight behind the "macs for art" argument...

My question is simple, if I wished to learn digital design programs and bolster my portfolio with these skills, would I be held back by a PC as opposed to investing in a pricey mac? I find myself restricted by my macbook and tire of pandering to Apple's pomp, but also don't want to oust myself from an industry which I struggle to find a place in as is. In short, is there any validity to the "macs for art" argument, or can a custom PC rig be built to an equally useful level?

 

[ohnoitsabear]

A little warning: I don't know much about art stuff, so there is a limit to how much useful information I can give you on this topic. However, I do know a thing or two about computers, so let's see if I can at least attempt to answer your question.

There really isn't anything that makes macs inherently better for art stuff than your run of the mill Windows PC. The wholly practical reason somebody would choose one over the other is because one has a better version of whatever software you want to use for what you're planning on doing.

So then the question becomes what exactly do you want to do with this? Think of exactly the kind of stuff you want to use your computer for, and then look at what software is out there for that use. If your options end up being dramatically better on one system or another, go with that one. If both are relatively even (which I expect would be the case, although see my warning above), then just pick whichever you would prefer.

I hope that is at least semi-helpful.

 

[SnowyGamester]

The only definitive difference between a Mac and a Windows machine is one runs OSX and the other runs Windows. Except when you run Windows on your Mac, or run OSX on your non-Mac, though those are more corner cases. The point being that if the same or equivalent software to what you require is available for Windows there isn't any downside for it being your platform of choice (difference in interface aside). Photoshop is multiplatform so if that's what you tend to use then your choice of platform doesn't matter. Same with GIMP. Though not Paintshop Pro - it's Windows exclusive. Then again OSX has Pixelmator which is a reasonably close equivalent. If there's a piece of specialized software you need that doesn't have a Windows port or close enough equivalent then that's another story. Then again there's always the hackintosh or virtual machine route for those desperate situations.

One thing I will say for Mac computers is that they tend to have really nice displays which lends itself to that kind of work. That being said there are plenty of laptops with good displays and plenty of nice monitors available.

 

[Nukekitten]

Greeting escapists,
I find myself in a bit of a conundrum: For the past four years I have been using a macbook pro which I acquired in order to go to art school. However, in that time I never used the machine to do any kind of digital design or artwork, opting instead to use more traditional methods such as technical drawing and model making. Now my macbook is starting to wane and I think it's time I moved on, and find myself heavily attracted to the world of PC, mainly due to the customisation and gaming aspects. However, I find myself conflicted given the great deal of weight behind the "macs for art" argument...

My question is simple, if I wished to learn digital design programs and bolster my portfolio with these skills, would I be held back by a PC as opposed to investing in a pricey mac? I find myself restricted by my macbook and tire of pandering to Apple's pomp, but also don't want to oust myself from an industry which I struggle to find a place in as is. In short, is there any validity to the "macs for art" argument, or can a custom PC rig be built to an equally useful level?

You probably won't lock yourself out of the industry by having a PC. I have worked with graphics/photography companies as a contractor before while using one. The big differences, at least at the time I was doing things, was in how responsive the system remained under heavy load, and that had more to do with the differences between Windows and OSX than it did with the hardware. Some associated pieces of hardware, like drum scanners, can be difficult to find the right drivers for outside of a certain system - especially if you're buying second hand - but it's not an industry lock out thing there, it's more a bit of a bother than anything else.

 

[Smooth Operator]

The biggest difference is that you pay for Apple to do everything for you, thus you pay more but have a pre-determined tool set always there. With PC you will need to handle the details of tool sets, which for many people is just so incredibly beneath them or rather they don't want to learn a thing or two.

But no there is no limit to PC, as long as you understand to get things yourself and not wait to be served.

 

[Callate]

I use a PC for 3D rendering and music composition; there has never been a lack of software available to me, and many of the tools I use are available on both platforms. The most I would say is that, in my experience, Windows PCs are a little bit more crash-prone. This is probably due as much to the broader array of hardware and software than can go into a PC, versus the more standardized components and software of a Mac.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

In short, is there any validity to the "macs for art" argument, or can a custom PC rig be built to an equally useful level?

That argument hasn't been valid for near 20 years now, ever since MS started allowing graphics hardware and applications to use floating point operations natively. Oh, and the old Mac displays were a breeze to colour calibrate (important for professional colour print work).

As for the industry stuff, only one creative industry has a Mac exclusive suite of programs that are the industry standard and that's film editting stuff. Everything else either has its standard progs on both platforms or leans more toward PCs.

In addition to the massive price to performance ratio favouring PCs they're also far easier and cheaper to stuff with RAM, which is extremely important to digital artists, especially ones addicted to mass layer use or working over scale (which is most of the ones heavily involved with print media).