Freelance Graphic Design Setup
My wife has a BFA in graphic design, and we're looking at getting an iMac that she could use for freelance work. I'd like to do this as cheaply as possible, and I'm a little confused on how to go about it. I'm still in college, so we get the student discounts on the computer and the software, and I'm having a little trouble gathering the will to spend more than two grand on this, but I'm sure that'll be necessary. I just don't want to have invested too much if she decides that freelance is too tough a gig for her.
I'm looking at the low-end iMac ($1149), I'm clear on the design software, but I don't really know what peripherals to get. Does she really need specialized color calibration software and equipment, or will colorsync do? I know our current scanner will work, but do I need a better printer than my $150, 5 year-old Epson? After all, she'll be doing low volume and taking final proofs to a professional printer. I wish I (or she for that matter) understood these things better.
Your help and expertise are very much appreciated.
I'm looking at the low-end iMac ($1149), I'm clear on the design software, but I don't really know what peripherals to get. Does she really need specialized color calibration software and equipment, or will colorsync do? I know our current scanner will work, but do I need a better printer than my $150, 5 year-old Epson? After all, she'll be doing low volume and taking final proofs to a professional printer. I wish I (or she for that matter) understood these things better.
Your help and expertise are very much appreciated.
Comments
The 24" one has an IPS display.
Trouble is, that's $1500. Not to mention, they are all glossy - they have glossy panels inside and a thick glass panel on top. This means that when you do graphics work, there is always a transparent layer hovering over all your work. If you setup your working environment with very low surrounding light, it's possible to get round it but it's just easier with a matte display.
If you want to budget, go for the Mac Mini. If you are ok opening computers up, buy the base model and upgrade the Ram to 4GB. If not, a model with 2GB may suffice. Don't worry about buying refurbs as they are fully tested and arrive pretty much new with a full warranty. For example:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB...mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
Then you just need to buy a decent display. IPS ones are expensive so I'd recommend going for an S-PVA. Some of the Dell Ultrasharp line are S-PVA. They have a 24" for about $480 or something but again on a budget, a 20" panel should suffice so the 2007FP would do:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=320-4687
That is a 4:3 aspect ratio but for design it shouldn't matter much - you are basically just getting more pixels. You can get the widescreen version - the 2007WFP - from 3rd party resellers or ebay. You just won't likely get the 3 year warranty.
These displays also tilt vertically so that you can view images in portrait.
The total for this comes to about $950.
You can get a 24" refurb iMac IPS for $1200:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB...mco=MjE0NDk5Mw
but I would recommend the Mini + 3rd party display as repairs to an iMac outside of warranty are very pricey.
For the printer issue, I think inkjet printers are a bit of a waste of money. We got an A3 printer at work for this and it sucks up ink very quickly. Plus you just don't get good enough output without a lot of messing around with drivers for things like borderless prints and it comes out differently from how you get it back from the professional printers anyway as it depends on the material it is printed on. Waste of time and money IMO so the basics would be ok for a quick preview.
You don't really need to spend a lot of money on professional calibration tools. Just get some advice from the printer you use - they should tell you about bleeds, types of blacks that can be printed (sometimes blacks have to be made up from other colors to come out right) and the whole color profile setup.
32-bit digital images have 8-bits per channel (hence the reason not to use a 6-bit TN panel) and the numbers that are stored in a file are translated into a color space. With different color spaces, the same numbers mean different things. This is why some images get washed out when put online because the online standard uses the S-RGB color space - if you edit in Photoshop's default Adobe RGB, it saves values in the file mapped into that space. When those values are interpreted online by a machine that has no color space management then they get mapped into S-RGB so the image looks wrong.
As I say, different types of print need different workflows. If you do t-shirt prints for example you have a much more strict set of colors that can be reproduced. The printer will let you know what you need and you should get test prints done from them. You can use actual prints from them to adjust your display accordingly.