Another Apple opinion ---
 

Since, my youth has been wasted surfing, diving, skydiving, and all that crazy stuff that the Air Force put me through. I want to get back into the arts stuff. Most of my talent (if you call that) have been in the "pencil" sketching side of the house. Since, I joined this site the photographers' work has been simply amazing. I picked up a Nikon D80 and still learning to use this camera.:thumbup:

Since, the budget does not justify picking up a Mac Pro tower. Does anyone have an opinion or have an iMac? I was thinking of picking up the 24" 2.8GHz iMac and a pad. I am going to be doing lots of "art stuff" not just processing photographs.

Thank you kindly -

Ps - I am done dealing with PC side of the house, except for work!

The iMac is at 3gz now. Get that one and max out the ram from an outside source. Then get an OWC Mercury elite pro external hard drive and your good to go.

Okay - cool! I will look into that set-up. Have not reseach this iMac, which I usually do before buying, can I stick another monitor? or am I limited to this single monitor?

With that processing power I can run some 3D design work - thanks for the heads up.

Yes you can add another monitor.
This is the greatest resourse for
your additional questions.
http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa
It's not as daunting as it appears

Lots of RAM is the key.

Oh no, you should not have gotten me started on this....

You might even consider a MacBook Pro (just as I did) you can even stick an external monitor on it as you can see on this photo of my workdesk:

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c323/gbyln/Desk01.jpg

The monitor is a 24" ACER (you don't need a Mac monitor w/c is 2x the price). This monitor is color calibrated using that pen-like device between the MacBook and the monitor. You can use 2 monitors simultaneously but for now I find the 24" to be sufficient.

The MacBook Pro has recently been rated by CNet(?) as one of the best desktop replacement notebooks around. This gives you portability if you need it too. Costs just about as much as the iMac.

I use Adobe Lightroom to organize and post-process my photos (Lightroom window is on the screen).

I had a Nikon D70 which I gave to my daughter after I got my D200 last year.

Wow - that's a great set-up. I didn't even think of that! That's why I love this forum! All the possibilities.

crucial for memory :thumbup:
PM me, I may have a discount I can share. ;)

Excellent. It's insane how much Apple and other manufacturers want for RAM "upgrades". I think Apple wanted $160 to go from 1GB to 2GB on my MacBook. I got two sticks of Crucial 1GB's for under $40.

Does your Crucial sweet hookup expire or can I take advantage of that down the road when it's time for a new desktop? :D

Actually, I just have an extra student discount that I have successfully shared in the past... :dunno: