Digital Media | Spotlight: Photography | Inside Aperture | Blogs
The Three Most Important Words in Real Estate
Location, location, location... This mantra holds true when it comes to computers too. For the past five years or so I have been glued to a 15” Apple laptop. It has always been my format of choice and I have been very happy with it. It started with a Titanium G4 Powerbook, and now I am working from an early edition MacBook Pro. On occasion I use an even smaller 13” MacBook, but for the most part I am a laptop guy through and through.
That is, until I purchased a nice big flat panel monitor last week! Since I plan on living in one place for at least the next two years I decided to set up a little office in my new apartment and dig in a bit.
So, I was thinking, why don’t I just get the cheapest widescreen flat-panel I can find at Best Buy and attach it to my laptop. This way I can bring my laptop with me to my studio where I can transfer Aperture projects over to the Mac Pros and Cinema Displays. My thinking, keep it sort of minimal and office-like at home. My thinking, I won’t be doing much actual image editing, and certainly no printing at home, so just get a cheap screen so I can have a little more breathing room.
Well, I went to Best Buy and for $250 I got the cheapest 22” widescreen LCD they had. It’s made by Westinghouse and I grabbed the last one they had at the store. I have to say I didn’t have great hopes for this thing. Really, I just wanted something that would give me some more space to work and that wouldn’t break my bank. Man was I in for a surprise!
This thing is AWESOME!!!! It’s bright, crystal clear and above all, the color doesn’t suck. But more importantly I have been having an absolute blast working with Aperture in dual screen mode. I haven’t even tried to calibrate the monitor yet, and the default profile that the thing came with was pretty far off, but after switching between a few profiles I had on my mac I was able to find something that at least appeared pretty “close.” So close in fact that I may try to create a real profile for it sometime soon.
The monitor only came with a VGA cable, but it does have a separate DVI input. Currently I have it plugged into my laptop via the DVI to VGA adapter, so I am curious to see if there is much of a bump in clarity when I pick up a direct DVI cable.
The screen has a resolution of 1680x1050 and is a little on the contrasty side, but I am sure that can be fixed. Really, it’s such a breath of fresh air to be abale to work in dual screen mode. If you haven’t tried it with Aperture you really should.
On my laptop, which is set up to my left, I have Aperture’s main window running in thumbnail view mode, and on the “big screen” I have the full size version of each image displayed. I also really like working with the three-up mode for editing through a shoot. Put three-up in the laptop screen and the center image full res size on the second display and you can fly through a shoot, culling down images at the speed of light.
For the home office I really wanted something sort of minimal but comfortable, and I think this really nails it. I also picked up an HP Photosmart A620 printer. This little thing prints up to 5x7 photos and works perfectly on my wireless network. I have a larger printer that I use for documents, but I wanted a little dedicated photo printer for making quick proofs. So far it has done a nice job of covering my refrigerator!
So, basic home office for this photographer/writer is as follows: MacBook Pro, 22” Westinghouse screen, Airport Extreme with Time Machine drive attached, little HP printer, and of course, I wouldn’t go anywhere without my Airport Express, wired up to the stereo.
I may add a 13” photo printer, and maybe a nicer keyboard and mouse, but for now this is pretty nice, simple and practical.
What does your home office setup include? Keep in mind that I have access to a pretty nice studio full of Mac Pros and wide format printers and all sorts of fun stuff. But I am still wondering what other people have in their homes, so feel free to comment.
Next week, I will be going over my big plans to re-organize my film archive. Light Impressions just delivered the first set of archival storage boxes, more to come!
Comments (13)
Your desktop wallpaper is Palestinians throwing rocks at an Israeli tank?!?
I use a similar setup.
MacBook Pro for location shooting. ( I shoot portraits and weddings )
Back at base I hook it up to a 18" flat panel and have Aperture set to display high res full screen on the external monitor and menus, thumbs on the laptop monitor. Also have the aperture library on an external 230gb drive backed up to a 2nd fire wire drive. ( until my time machine arrives ! )
Works pretty well for me !!
Love you apartment by the way - lots of space !
Mark
Hi Micah,
What is the "three-up mode for editing"?
What you mean by that and how you set it up?
"dale robertson said:
Your desktop wallpaper is Palestinians throwing rocks at an Israeli tank?!?"
That's in their country. Good photo.
Well seeing as he took the picture I do not think it is all that weird to want to look at a piece of work you are proud of all day.
before this becomes an argument, its part of a portfolio of images of mine that rotate on my desktop....
Hi Micah!
Nice loft! I hope you have some fans for it come summertime. Did you pick up your Oly E-420 yet?
I too use an external display at home with my Apple laptop. I have a Macbook and a 19" Dell LCD. I am just getting into Aperture 2.1. I also have a 24" iMac which I really like.
You'll definitely see a difference using the DVI connection versus the VGA.
A year or so ago, we purchased a bunch of new Dell monitors here at work. Everyone else dutifully plugged theirs into their VGA video cards. Since I bring my (then Powerbook, now MacBook Pro) own computer in to work on, I grabbed a DVI cable and hooked up my monitor. Later that afternoon, my boss is walking around to the offices to tell us something - don't remember what. But he stopped mid-sentence, after staring at my monitor, and asked "Why does your display look so much better than the others?"
That same evening he ordered DVI video cards for the groups desktop computers - so now the whole groups sees Windows in all its warty glory.
Nice. The extra real estate is great. My one problem with Aperture is there's such a wealth of option available for configuration and I'm still trying to find my favorite. :-/
I'm using a 19" 4:3 Dell that's a few years old. It's contrast is good and while it's brightness is fine. However that being said brightness really isn't a factor these days because nearly every monitor is way to bright for proofing.
Just curious where do you keep you HUDs when editing?
Can you report back with calibrated results? I'm curious to know how these 'budget' displays are working out for color. W/o getting too far into the debate of TN-film vs (S-)IPS panels, I'd like to know how they're doing.
Ok, now something odd: The security letters on this site don't seem to work for me the first time - for every comment. But the second time when I get new letters it works. Thank god safari saves text when using the back button!
Michael,
I move my HUDs around as needed. That's the whole point of having HUDs!
Thanks for the nice comments about the apartment. We just moved in here and we love it so far. 2000 sq ft of open floor space with high ceilings. Nice to finally have a base of operations!
-m
Me too. I use a MacBook Pro (15 inch) with a 19 inch widescreen monitor - the cheapest available from HP, which I inherited from my son when he bought an iMac. DVI connection, of course. 'Though I must confess most of the time I lounge on the sofa and make do with the laptop screen.
I only ever use referenced photos in Aperture. The originals are on a USB drive accessed through Airport Extreme Base Station. Yes, yes, it is slow but not unreasonably so. And laptops are supposed to be portable. And you can always connect a network cable to it when desk based. Any views?
Off the point, (i) kudos for the desktop photo, (ii) it always takes me two attempts with the Captcha too
Micah,
Interested to know if your images match on both screens in Aperture 2.1? I should clarify - I work on a pair of calibrated Eizos on a Mac Pro). In Photoshop, images match on both screens. In Aperture 1 through 1.5, there was no issue - in Aperture 2.1, the 'big picture view' is 1/2 stop brighter and makes it hard to work accurately.
Ta for your thoughts
Dude, If that is your apartment - it's the sweetest I've seen in a long while!