Macs are great for photography and music (and design stuff) especially and from my experiences, they are major workhorses. I'm a complete Mac baby now (it's not hard to adjust to no matter the age), but a lot of programs don't run on Macs so I would check that if you are considering a Mac at all, especially since you already have programs you would want to use.

My daughter got a new Dell and hates it to death. We've had old Dells that were the bomb diggity. Probably any computer would work. Just get the fastest processor with the most RAM and the biggest hard drive you can find.

Good luck with your search.