My 'darkroom' is entirely digital. I switched to the Mac platform when I first set up my design studio in 2001 and have never looked back. I am currently using OSX Leopard and overall, am very happy with it. Initially I bought the 'lamp stand' iMac with 17" screen, then after a year or so upgraded to the 20" screen version. This iMac model was ideal for working on page layouts, design and images as the screens could be tilted easily to enable close viewing. I added a Lacie Firewire external hard drive and even added more memory but it was not long before I outgrew the iMac, needing something with a bit more power.

I chose the Apple Apple Power Mac G5 Tower 2.3Ghz Dual Core Processor  and 23" Apple Cinema HD Flat panel display  as the hub of my digital darkroom. This proved to be a real powerhouse and has been superb. I added more memory, a second hard drive, a wireless keyboard and mouse and have been extremely happy with the machine. It was covered under Apple Care which was a good investment as Apple replaced the memory which developed a fault and then also replaced the motherboard after a subsequent issue. When the cinema screen developed a pinge tinge around the edges of the screen, Apple replaced it with a brand new one without question - with 3 days left under the warranty, I thought that was pretty good. I would most definitely recommend buying Apple and taking the extended Apple Care warranty.

Update: The PowerMac was subsequently replaced by an Intel 15" MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard which has proved a more practical solution for me. When processing images at my desk, it is used with a Logitech diNovo Edge wireless keyboard and Revolution mouse and the Apple Cinema Screen whilst also providing the flexibility of portability when needed such as giving talks and presentations or running workshops or just working away.

I acquired a Wacom Intuos3 A5 Graphics Tablet  to replace a Trust 1200. Although the Trust had an A4 working area, I found that the A5 size working area of the Intuos 3 was more than adequate for digital photography and feel the larger size is probably more suited to graphic designers and illustrators who need the larger work area. For photographic image editing, the smaller size is not an issue.

The Intuos tablet is superb with the facility to set up buttons on each side of the pad for quick access which means you can sit back in your chair and work with a pen and pad instead of being hunched over a keyboard and mouse. For processing photographs in Photoshop and Lightroom, it is ideal and much more intuitive and is also proving very useful for exploring digital photo art - using one of my photographs as a base image and then painting digitally with natural media effects to produce digital watercolour, pastel, guache or oil paintings. This is proving to be an exciting project but has quite a learning curve - I don't have a great deal of time for this at the moment unfortunately but it is something I definitely would like to spend more time exploring.

If you are interested, have a look at Digital Fine Art Printing to find out about the printers I use and Digital Workflow to find out about the software I use and how I developed my workflow.