[alt-photo] Mac upgrade choices for digital photo files

[Dianna Rust]

I need to upgrade my Mac and am not sure what would work best, given budget
considerations.   For years I have used a (now vintage) Mac G4, which is
getting too old, too full and far, far too slow.

Photographically I need to be able to bring in a scanned image, which could
be from an 8 x 10 or 11 x 14 negative.  I will be using Photoshop  to make
enlarged digital negatives that will be in the region of 16 x 20 at about
360 dpi.  However, I may occasionally want to try making a file that would
enlarge an image to, say 36" x 48" at 360 dpi, so I can have a high end
printer make me a digital image.   This would not be often and not many.

I have looked at the Pro Macs and could stretch my budget to about $2,000+,
while sticking with a very large Apple monitor I already have (the old
kind!).  My other thought is whether I could use an iMac for my purposes.
I do already have one or two fairly large capacity external hard drives that
I store my images on.

There¹s also the question of whether I could work with a Power Book.   I¹d
have to hook that up to a large monitor, mouse etc, though it would be a
little cheaper than a desk computer.  I¹m not, however, very likely to use
it other than at my desk.

Does anyone have any suggestions/thoughts, please.  Thank you.

Dianna