#It never ends . . .
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I went to my downtown self-serve copy shop today to print up some mailers for
my company, Choreo Motion. The copy shop has several self-serve PCs and Macs
for people to use for laser printing, color printing, whatever. They have a
Mac-based DTP service that can output nice, photographic prints from a Kodak
printer.
I asked the DTP assistant about the price of the color prints and whether the
color printer was networked to the PC stations. Here is an approximation of
the conversation:
DTP: No, the Kodak printer is only networked to the Mac stations. There isn't
any software on the PCs that can produce that depth of color. [pointing at
the sample print of a picture of a barn near a pond.]
JEC: Oh, really? What special software on the Mac was used to create this
image?
DTP: It was created at 300 dpi at 16.7 million colors using Adobe Photoshop.
Of course, Photoshop is also available on the PC, but PCs just don't cut it.
JEC: That's very interesting. By the way, here is what I do . . . [handing
him a sample of the flyer which describes Choreo Motion and bulleted text of
its services, including animation and photorealistic rendering services.]
DTP: Oh? You do all this stuff on a PC? You should really consider buying a
Quadra or a Power Mac. The software is so much better. You should be using
Infini-D and Pixar's Typestry.
JEC: My software works fine. I can create images in a 48 bit color space,
which are then analytically anti-aliased down to 24 bits for the best possible
image. I'm not aware of this degree of functionality in the programs you
mentioned.
DTP: Well, the floating-point power of the new PowerMacs really blows anything
else away — even those SGI systems. I have friends who have said that their
renderings were reduced from seven hours down to just fifteen minutes!
JEC: My PCs render fast enough for my needs. If I really need render power, I
can always send my files to a service bureau with 100 networked PCs to get my
rendering done over night. Besides, I plan to stick with whatever platform my
software uses.
DTP: Well, when you buy another computer, I beg you to buy a PowerMac. Of
course, you'll have to run your software in emulation, so it will be a bit
slower, but it will run. Hey, why don't you bring by some samples of your work
some time?
JEC: Maybe I will . . . sometime.
I guess its a natural side-effect of working with PCs — heck, the guy never
even asked me _what_ software program I was using! I was hoping he would so
that I could say "just the software that has the largest market share in
animation".
— James E. Coulter — Choreo Motion —