Software upgrades question

chadmanchadman
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I am making the jump to either a G-4 Powerbook (probably) or a G-5, depending on the software situation and upgrade costs. I will be running OSX Panther, I assume and will need to upgrade QuarkXPress, Photoshop and Illustrator. Currently I am in the relative dark ages with Quark v4.1, Photoshop v5.5 and Illustrator v8.0.1.



In shopping online, I am hopeful that I can just purchase the Quark v6.0 upgrade (from v4) for $319, the Photoshop CS upgrade for $169 and the Illustrator CS upgrade for $169 - and not have to buy the full new packages which will run considerably more. Having not upgraded for some time, I am wondering if what I want to do is possible. If it is, I can probably go with the Powerbook option, which is what I prefer, otherwise, I will have to go with the G-5.



Portability is a big plus for me as I can work at home and on the road, but I have to work within my approved budget and if I have to buy the full software packages I will not be able to go the Powerbook route. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Why not take the chance you have and upgrade Photoshop to Adobe's Creative Suite that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for $549? Unless you are tied to a lot of old work in Quark I would strongly recommend making the switch. If I remember right the only requirement is a "Pervious version" of Photoshop... so you could be in luck there. If you are coming from Windows you might have to contact Adobe for a key to let you in... but they were very willing the last time I called them.



    On the notebook vs. desktop thing... the desktop will be a lot faster... so keep that in your calculations, along with a good chunk of extra RAM...
  • Reply 2 of 3
    chadmanchadman Posts: 6member
    Thanks for the thoughtful reply, some good points in there. I am extremely tied to QuarkXPress, as are all the people I work with that provide services for me (freelancer, three printers, other associates), so there is no draw to Indesign from that perspective. And plenty of reasons NOT to go to it. If I am able to simply upgrade the programs (I am calling this AM, should have done that before anyway) then it would be just a bit more - and I have to have Quark on top of that.



    One problem a close friend of mine has had with Creative Suite (the Illustrator part of it) is that others that do not have CS are unable to work with his Illustrator files...open them, etc. Is this a real problem? Is it a newer version problem? Scares me a little, although I generally don't want others messing with my files anyway.



    I was looking at the 17" Powerbook which features 512 MB of RAM and the 1.5 GHz processor. So the RAM would be fine (from what I know about running Panther successfully) and I would only be getting the 1.8 GHz version of the G5 anyway due to budget constraints and having to buy all the software if I cannot upgrade. Looking hard at the Dual 1.8 version, though...that might be nice. I am coming from a MAC...MAC for life...lol.



    Thanks again for the reply.
  • Reply 3 of 3
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    Sorry to hear about your being tied to Quark... InDesign really is better, but if you are tied to it... Oh... minor note: you do have to make sure that if you are using Quark 6 that everyone else you are trading with is also using 6, it will read Quark 5 files, but not well (you will have to go in and touch up things). It will not read Quark 4 files.



    InDesign is exactly the opposite, it will read 4 but not 5 (and there is still touching up to do).



    You should consider whether the other people in your workflow can work with PDF's. If they can it saves a whole lot of hassle as it "locks down" the files as they leave you (big print houses have tools to make the changes they need for trapping, etc), and gets rid of all of the nasty for issues that are the bane of any printer. If you can go the PDF route, then you can go InDesign.



    On the Illustrator side, the new files are not readable by older versions of Illustrator, but it does have an "export" to the older file format. The new format is also tucked inside a PDF format, so any program that can read PDF's can read the new format (Illustrator hides the editing data in an optional field inside the PDF... so there is no loss of functionality). Older Illustrator versions can read the newer format as a PDF (but not edit it in that form).



    And the RAM front... get as much as you can afford. 512 is barely enough (I would consider it a minimum for graphics work... more is better). Apple does charge a premium for RAM that it installs, so buy from a reputable third part vendor (dealram is a good locator).



    And the short form of Macintosh is Mac, not MAC. MAC is short for Machine Address Control (number), a part of the Ethernet standard, and is on all ethernet devices (including Windows computers).
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