Keith Mackey
Posts: 5
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Oct 2007
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Moving from a PC to a Mac - Observations and request for comments
Posted: 13 Dec 2007 at 14:08 GMT
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I've just migrated to the Mac from my year old 1.6 ghz HP PC laptop with 1 GB ram. My motivation for the move was because If I moved to Vista, I'd have to buy a new full version of PhotoShop CS3 anyway, and might as well move to the Mac at this time to avoid Vista and just buy the whole CS3 package for the Mac.
It has certainly been a mixed bag. I suspect others may be considering the same move, so I thought I would point out a few things from my experience so far. I bought a refurbished MacBookPro with a 15" screen. It came with a 2.2 ghz processor but only had a 120 GB HD. First step was to install a 250 GB drive (easy to do) which at present is the largest laptop drive available. The machine will go up to 4 gb of RAM, but Apple wants an additional $700 to add this much memory. I was able to add it myself for $109. So I have a pretty much full blown machine. It came with the new Leopard operating system which adds a lot of features and works very well. I bought the full Adobe Design Premium CS3 package for the Mac. The Mac takes some getting used to as there are a lot of features that are not obvious or well documented. Keyboard shortcuts for the same command are different between the two platforms which is frustrating and produces errors.
I knew that it would be impossible to leave the Windows platform completely and had not considered the move until Apple came out with the Intel processor to run XP (or Vista) in it's native environment. Apple had released "Boot Camp" as a beta with the previous OS and it is now included with Leopard. Boot Camp allows the machine to boot into a native windows environment. XP seems to run faster and smoother on the Mac than on any PC that I've owned. The problem is the HD is partitioned for the boot camp XP installation and having to reboot to switch the OS is not a practical solution for most uses. Parallels is a software program which runs Windows as a virtual machine from within the Leopard OS and allows sharing of files, drag and drop etc. I am into aerial photography using an RC helicopter and use a flight simulator program to improve my skills. The simulator I use requires Direct X which works in Boot Camp but not in Parallels.
I determined that I could install both Boot Camp and Parallels at the same time using the same copy of XP and have the option of using either. This solved my basic problem. The sim runs great in boot camp. Much better than on my PC. Helicopter models that have always been difficult to fly on the PC now are much easier on the Mac. I also installed Parallels which has just been upgraded within the past few days to 3.0 and is really an amazing program. I use two monitors at home and now run windows on one and the Mac on the other with ability to move stuff around between the two monitors.
As far as the software that we normally use for panos and QTVR, I've discovered a few problems and have found solutions which require a workflow modification for me. Here are some things that I've encountered:
1. PTGui has a Mac version that runs equally well on either OS. Problem is that I normally use both the Autopano and Smartblend plugins which have no Mac version. I've always found that the PTGui blender and Enblend did not do as well as Smartblend. Enblend is available for the Mac. I've done a number of tests using Smartblend on the XP side and Enblend on the Mac side and can't really notice any difference so far, but the jury is still out. A pano of 10000 x 5000 on my old PC would take over an hour, but on the MacBookPro on either platform is finished in about 15 minutes.
2. Pano2QTVR. - No Mac version available. I bought Cubic Converter which is a nice program, but does not seem to be as capable or controllable as Pano2QTVR. It has a few nice features that pano2QTVR lacks, but they don't make up for the missing stuff. My workflow now is to use the Windows side to do everything except the PhotoShop work. Really appreciate any comments to the contrary from those who have used both programs.
3. Nikon Capture NX - ( I shoot mostly with Nikon cameras) The present Mac version is not compatible with Leopard. They are working on a fix, but at the moment, I have to use the Windows version. I use this program mostly to defish the nadir shot. I can use the PhotoShop CS3 Camera Raw plugin to modify a group of .nef shots at the same time which I could not do using CS2.
Bottom line so far is that the Mac is an elegant easy to use system with a lot of innovative features, but it is much more of a "sealed" system than XP and does not permit the level of control or modification that is available on the PC. Since I now have to work cross platform on everything, I'm wondering if I would have been better off just buying Adobe Design CS3 for Windows and not bothering with the Mac. In 6 months I may have a different opinion.
I would really appreciate any comments from more experienced users of both platforms to point out things that i've missed or misunderstood. Suggestions for a better workflow are also solicited.
Keith
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Scott Dreslinski
Posts: 57
Location: Rochester Hills, MI, United States
Registered: 30 Jan 2007
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Re: Moving from a PC to a Mac - Observations and request for comments
Posted: 13 Dec 2007 at 15:57 GMT
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Keith Mackey said: 2. Pano2QTVR. - No Mac version available. I bought Cubic Converter which is a nice program, but does not seem to be as capable or controllable as Pano2QTVR
Just curious what features you think Pano2QTVR has that cubic converter is missing.
I actually like cubic converter better than Pano2QTVR for my workflow.
Thanks,
Scott
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Hans Nyberg
Posts: 856
Location: Denmark
Registered: 28 Aug 2005
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Re: Moving from a PC to a Mac - Observations and request for comments
Posted: 13 Dec 2007 at 16:49 GMT
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I agree absolutely about CubicConverter being better. I find that the way you can export one single cubeface - edit it and import it again very useful.
The only problem with it (and with Pano2VR also) is that it has not support for 16bit all the way.
I just bought Pano2VR for Mac and I have to say that CubicConverter has a much better interface.
If you think about the ability to compress cubefaces different which Pano2QTVR has I would keep away from that. Its not a good idea if you want QTVR to display perfect.
And the advantage in size is minimal.
Just remember to disable the Quicktime Graphics Importer in CC preferences.
Otherwise you probably get wrong colors unless Leopard made some changes.
Why do you use NikonCapture for converting to rectilinear.
You can do that very fast and easy in PTGui. Just make a template for it and it just takes a minute to import and save.
And remember that there is also a Panotools PS Plugin from Kekus.com now updated to Universal.
Smartblend and Enblend are different and have different uses.
Smartblend is for blending difficult images which can not be optimized perfect or which have moving objects in.
For that the CS3 autoblend is fantastic, I find it better than smartblend and it is much faster.
See my review here, www.panoramas.dk/panorama/CS3-autoblending.html
The last Enblend 3 is much faster than PTGui alone.
Especially for 16 bit panoramas you can cut the stitching time to half on an Intel Mac. This is mainly because PTGui does a very slow ColorCorrection which for 16bit takes several minutes per image.
When you export to Enblend it only does the warping.
It has one problem and that is the blending over the zenith. It does not do that and this can give you the typical "star" at the top when blending full 180 degree images from Sigma 8mm or any other full circle fisheye.
Actually Smartblend has this problem also I believe.
I hope I can get the guy who is working on Enblend 3 to get this fixed, the fact is that we have complained about it since 2004.
For Photoshop, I have to say that I have tried it on a couple of occasions on Windows and I find the different ways it works very irritating.
Why Adobe makes different shortcuts for Windows I do not understand and the way it opens always images in full window is disturbing.
Only one thing especially for panorama photographers is a flaw on Mac.
This is the very bad preview in Finder. It may be a little better in Leopard.
If you try to preview a large panorama in Finder it will take ages and even freeze the machine, Its only made for small standard size images.
I just found the solution today.
Photo Mechanic just released a new imagebrowser which is just amazingly fast.
Check it at www.camerabits.com/
Hans
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Keith Mackey
Posts: 5
Location: United States
Registered: 11 Oct 2007
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Re: Moving from a PC to a Mac - Observations and request for comments
Posted: 14 Dec 2007 at 9:18 GMT
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Hans:
Thanks for taking the time for such a thorough response. Let me begin by stipulating that I realize that you have a much higher level of knowledge and experience on these programs (Pano2QTVR vs. CubicConverter) than I and all I can do is point out things noticed in the process of learning CC. I don't mean to be argumentative at all. These comments are also meant to answer Scott's questions. Since I'm new to CC, the features that I have used in Pano2QTVR that I either have not yet discovered or are missing from CC are:
1. The ability to spot the video in pan & FoV while viewing the results of the adjustment and having a one keystroke command to set them when things look about right.
2. The ability to add user data to the file.
3. The ability to add hotspots to link a series of QTVR's
4. The ability to add sprites such as autorotate.
5. The ability to create helper files such as HTML for full screen quicktime presentations.
6. The ability to modify the quality of each cube face individually to tweak the final output size. I know you have stated that you don't care for this feature -
"If you think about the ability to compress cubefaces different which Pano2QTVR has I would keep away from that. Its not a good idea if you want QTVR to display perfect. And the advantage in size is minimal."
but in my experience with Pano2QTVR I have used this function when the zenith/nadir did not have much useful information and have not noticed any quality problems.
Hopefully, there are workarounds for these issues. I just haven't discovered them yet.
I use Nikon Capture to defish my 10.5mm lens because the program has a specific function to do this. I've tried doing it in PTGui as a 100 x100 rectalinear, but the results did not seem to be as good. Can you suggest a better method of setting up a template to do this?
Thanks for pointing out the differences between Enblend and Smartblend. I'll try using Enblend first and can always use Smartblend on the PC side if needed. Your website is very helpful in making the differences obvious. I tried using the blending function in CS3 by outputting PSD layers from PTGui and blending them in CS3. The blending engine did an excellent job on the equirectangular, but when I made it into a QTVR, it had a very obvious line along the meridian where the two sides of the equirectangular joined which made it unusable. Any suggestions as to how to solve this?
You are correct about Smartblend producing a "star" at the zenith also.
Could you explain the use of the Panotools PS Plugin from Kekus.com?
I fully agree with your opinion about the Mac previewer. It is horrible compared to the PC. PhotoMechanic may be a solution, but it is not inexpensive for something that should have been included in the OS.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Keith
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Dave Kennard
Posts: 99
Location: United Kingdom
Registered: 26 Mar 2006
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Re: Moving from a PC to a Mac - Observations and request for comments
Posted: 17 Dec 2007 at 21:44 GMT
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Thanks for the info. It would be interesting if you could do a comparison stitching the same pano in Leopard and XP via bootcamp, to see if PTGUI running on Leopard is much faster than on XP.
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