10.5 boot cd or 10.6.3 boot cd?

If the iMac CD is gray, then it is a machine-specific restore disk. A retail version of 10.6 will work. And you can buy it directly from Apple: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

You can use a retail Mac OS X 10.6.3 DVD. You can't use a Mac OS X 10.6.3 DVD which originally shipped with a Mac; all of these are gray.

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You cannot use a machine specific installer disc on a different model. But you can use a retail Snow Leopard DVD:

You can purchase Snow Leopard through the Apple Store: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard - Apple Store (U.S.). The price is $19.99 plus tax. You will be sent physical media by mail after placing your order.

After you install Snow Leopard you will have to download and install the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo v1.1 to update Snow Leopard to 10.6.8 and give you access to the App Store. Access to the App Store enables you to download Mountain Lion if your computer meets the requirements.

Snow Leopard General Requirements

1. Mac computer with an Intel processor

2. 1GB of memory

3. 5GB of available disk space

4. DVD drive for installation

5. Some features require a compatible Internet service provider;

fees may apply.

6. Some features require Apple’s iCloud services; fees and

terms apply.

Also, you can buy the OEM DVD from Apple, they will ask for the machine's serial number, and provide it for a small fee ($20 range?) only reason for that today would be for its Apple Hardware Test. Maybe some OEM Apple applications it would ship with though they are long out of date – iLife, iWork which can be bought from the Apple Store.

From there, would be good to replace and add new SATA drives (not from Apple!) as well as more memory in most cases, even the grphic card (the OEM 2600XT had a warranty recall/replacement).

You may want to upgrade once you have 10.6.8 (pre-requisite) to get Mountain Lion 10.8.3.

Never post serial numbers. Someone will edit that out later.

You want the ATI 5770 or above. Requires 10.6.5, and if you needed to boot from 10.6.3 DVD Mac OS X you are out of luck. So Clone and keep bootable backup drives and such.

Depends on budget, taste, etc but that will get you going for $249. Anything else will generally be $300-600.

Some editing software is still being written by mice and not all that well optimized for cores, memory and performance.

RAM you can max out.

Add solid state storage for Lightroom, Aperture, even for iPhoto (keep iPhoto on separate drive from your pictures folder for one).

SSD for system

2008 as long as you have 8-core 2.8 that is it. If you have 4-core you could or might go dual processor.

If you install an ATI 5770, then the 10.6.3 DVD does not have the necessary hardware support drivers and will not boot from the DVD.

Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy

http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/

Create an OS X Lion Install disc

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc

How to clone your system:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner

http://www.macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120711_2-MacPro-internal-clone-ba ckup.html

Before you clone, install TRIM Enabler!

And after you clone, run Disk Utility's REPAIR DISK on the SSD -- just to be on the safest side.

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/37852/trim-enabler

OmniDiskSweeper

https://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/

Tri-Backup 6 to synch volumes, folders (and they have a TimeMachine utilty)

http://www.tri-edre.com/english/tribackup.html

Back-In-Time 2: Unleash the power of Time Machine Restore Time Machine data: Time Machine is a great basic backup tool. But the options for locating and restoring data are quite limited. Back-In-Time gives you total flexibility in discovering and recovering your data to any location on your Mac. See more...

A File History backup archive whether TimeMachine which is fine I agree to use CCC as primary but I also like something else or combination, one for system, one for data. And multiple sets. And even then I have needed to go and find a file version or something and glad I had online backup of something besides a once a week clone, which would not have helped me.