[davemcp]

Hi everyone, not contributed to a thread before so not sure what to expect! I figured it might be a good place to start with my current predicament!

I want to use my Mac to edit photos and currently use iPhoto which is great but I'm ready to make the leap to photoshop and lightroom, so... I have copies of Lightroom 1.2? and Photoshop CS2 but they are both for PC. How realistic is it to run these apps in Fusion or Parallels? Maybe for a couple of hours a week? My understanding is that Boot Camp would be quicker but I'd rather not run Windows as a standalone as I love my Mac! With just having a baby, my wife won't let me buy them for Mac so am hoping this is much cheaper option! It's all so complicated....aaargh......please help!!!! I figure the people on here know what you are talking about!

Cheers, I will be waiting with my fingers crossed for a response!

[zarmanto]

davemcp said:

I have copies of Lightroom 1.2? and Photoshop CS2 but they are both for PC. How realistic is it to run these apps in Fusion or Parallels? Maybe for a couple of hours a week?

2D editing in a virtualized Windows installation shouldn't be a problem, technically speaking, assuming your Mac is up to snuff -- but it'll probably still involve shelling out some cash. If you don't already have a license for Windows XP or Vista, then you'll need to buy that. If you aren't willing to put up with Bootcamp for those two hours of work, then you're also going to have to buy a copy of either Fusion or Parallels. And depending upon how much RAM and harddrive space you currently have, you may end up needing to upgrade those as well. ...

You might just want to analyze the overall expense of making the PC version work on your Mac, and then compare that to the cross-grade/upgrade price of getting the Mac version of your Adobe software. (Truthfully, if your wife has already balked at the Adobe software upgrades, then she may not be thrilled at the prospect of these other expenses either.)