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Photoshop is everywhere. And while fundamentally it is the standard professional-quality image editor, it’s also a cultural touchstone with a reach that extends to advertising, fashion magazines, television, film, and the news. Lighter versions like Photoshop Elements, Photoshop.com, and even Photoshop Mobile on the iPhone have distilled its power for the masses, and sites like PhotoshopDisasters.blogspot.com chronicle painful misuses for everyone to point at and giggle about. “Photoshop” the verb was even added to Webster’s dictionary in 1992.
In such a Photoshop-saturated society, it’s easy to forget that the software hasn’t been around forever. Since February 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of Photoshop 1.0, now is the perfect time to revisit everything from Adobe’s systematic dismantling of its competition to the way the software was used to make Katie Couric “lose weight.”
We give you every single Photoshop release, plus the effects of Adobe's software on its competition and our culture.
Release: Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, creates a program called Display for his Mac Plus. It can display 256-shade grayscale images on a 1-bit black-and-white screen with dithering.
Release: Display is renamed Photoshop, and the Knoll brothers (Thomas and John, an effects expert at Industrial Light & Magic [ILM]) license the first version to Barneyscan, a slide-scanner manufacturer. Approximately 200 copies of version 0.87 ship bundled with the scanners.
Cultural: The first working version of Photoshop appears at Apple, and the era of Photoshop piracy begins as engineers pass it around amongst themselves and gape in awe.
Release: John Knoll demos Photoshop for Adobe's primary art director Russell Brown and founder John Warnock. Adobe signs a distribution deal with the Knoll brothers.
Release: Photoshop 1.0 ships. It requires an 8MHz processor and 2MB of RAM. The software fits on a single 3.5-inch floppy disk. Key features include color correction, image optimization for output, Curves, Levels, and the Clone tool.
Cultural: Photoshop is used extensively at ILM during postproduction work on The Abyss.
Cultural: ILM continues to use Photoshop to create digital composite shots for movies like The Rocketeer, Hook, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Release: Photoshop 2.0 (code-named Fast Eddy) ships with CMYK support, Duotones, the Path tool, and rasterization of Illustrator files. But the HSB and HSL color modes in 1.0 are gone.
Cultural: John Knoll covertly releases a program to revert Adobe Photoshop's "eye" application icons back to the original "1HR Photo Shop" icon.
Release: Adobe releases an SDK for third-party plug-in development. Later in the year, Aldus (developer of PageMaker) releases the Gallery Effects plug-in package.
Release: Kai Krause releases Kai's Power Tools, a popular plug-in set for Photoshop featuring graphically rich (and often bewildering) visual interfaces.
Release: Photoshop 2.5 (code-named Merlin) ships with 16-bit image support, palettes, Quick Mask, Dodge and Burn tools, and the Variations visual color-correction tool. This is the first Photoshop version available on Windows as well as Mac.
Cultural: Time magazine runs a cover photo of O.J. Simpson that was photoshopped with very dark color correction, creating controversy over how African Americans are portrayed by the media.
Release: Photoshop 3.0 (code-named Tiger Mountain) introduces image layers, often considered the most important feature ever added to the program.
Release: Alien Skin Software delivers the first drop-shadow effect plugin for Photoshop.
Competition: Adobe acquires Aldus, keeping PageMaker on life support by burying Windows-only image editor PhotoStyler.
Competition: HSC Software introduces Live Picture, billed as a next-generation nondestructive image editor, for a whopping introductory price of $3,995.
Competition: HSC Software lowers Live Picture price to $995 in one fell swoop, angering early adopters who paid full price.
Competition: Quark introduces XPosure image-editing software at the Seybold Seminars in Boston. Developed in conjunction with Japanese electronics giant JVC, the product boasts a nondestructive filter featuring "lenses"... but it never ships.
Release: Photoshop 4.0 (code-named Big Electric cat) ships with nondestructive adjustment layers, Actions, macros, grids, guides, the Free Transform tool, and a radically redesigned user interface. Photoshop 4.0 LE (Limited Edition) is bundled with a wide range of image scanners.
Competition: Macromedia ships its xRes image editor, which also features nondestructive image editing. Although it soon became another footnote in image editing hisotry, you can still see a bit of its DNA in Adobe Fireworks.
Next Page: Photoshop Timeline continued >>
Competition: Former Apple CEO John Sculley becomes chairman of Live Picture and tries to salvage Live Picture technology for web applications.
Release: Photoshop 5.0 (code-named Strange Cargo) ships. New features include the History palette and its multiple undos, editable type, layer effects (now called Styles), spot colors, ICC color management, and the Magnetic Lasso tool. CMYK files go to 64-bit (16 bits/channel). The new 3D Transform plug-in is the forerunner to the 3D menu in the current Extended version, and this is also the first Photoshop that supported integrated online updating.
Competition: Live Picture is spotted selling in mail-order catalogs for under $100.
Release: Adobe ImageReady 2 becomes part of Photoshop 5.5, allowing animated GIFs and sliced JPEG images. This release also adds the Extract command (for isolating images from their backgrounds), the Art History Brush, and Save For Web.
Release: Photoshop 6.0 (code-named Venus in Furs) includes vector-based shapes, content layers (solid, gradient, and texture fills), Layer Styles, the Liquefy filter, a tool options bar, layer-based slicing for HTML work, and an extensive interface overhaul.
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Release: Photoshop 7.0 (code-named Liquid Sky) ships with the Healing Brush tool, a revamped brush engine, integrated image browser, custom workspaces, and even a spell checker. It's the last version that runs under OS 9.
Release: Adobe releases the consumer-oriented Photoshop Elements package, which replaces the earlier LE versions of Photoshop that were bundled with many third-party scanners and digitizers.
Release: Photoshop 7.0.1 update includes support for RAW image formats via the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in.
Release: Photoshop CS (code-named Dark Matter), included in all Adobe Creative Suite editions, has layer groups, the Shadow/Highlight and Match Color tools, text on a path, the Lens Blur filter, custom keyboard shortcuts, and JavaScript support. CS is the first version to require activation, have Standard and Extended versions, and a PDF manual.
Cultural: Photoshop CS also includes code to automatically detect attempts to scan currency banknotes, fueling many conspiracy theories.
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Release: Photoshop CS2 (code-named Space Monkey) ships with Bridge (which replaces integrated Browser), Smart Objects, Spot Healing tool, Vanishing Point and Red retouching tools, HDR (high dynamic range; 32 bits per channel) merging abilities, and the Lens Correction filter. A rather significant but subtle addition to CS2 is the ability to select more than one layer at a time.
Release: Adobe releases a public beta of Photoshop Lightroom, an image-management database aimed at professional photographers.
Cultural: Newswire service Reuters is caught in a scandal when it's busted using Photoshop to enhance smoke plumes in an image of Beirut.
Cultural: CBS's official photo of news anchor Katie Couric is photoshopped to shave a few too many pounds off her frame.
Release: Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 ships.
Release: Photoshop CS3 (code-named Red Pill) ships with native Intel processor support, Smart Filters, the ability to import and process video, significant interface revisions, the Black and White conversion tool, far more support for editing images with more than 8 bits/channel, and a seriously improved Clone tool.
Release: Adobe launches the Flash-based Photoshop Express app on Photoshop.com, offering limited image-editing functionality and online storage.
Cultural: Iran's state-run media agency releases a photo of a missile test, altered to add a fourth missile. (The third missile from the right is a clone of the second missile.)
Release: Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 is released, adding 64-bit operation, multiple-monitor support, localized image corrections, and enhanced editing abilities.
Release: Photoshop CS4 (code-named Stonehenge) ships with OpenGL acceleration, Content Aware Scaling, 64-bit support for Windows Vista (but not Mac!), improved RAW image processing, and auto layer-alignment tools.
Release: Adobe makes Photoshop.com available for the iPhone as a free mobile edition, delivering limited image editing on the run.
Release: Adobe launches a public beta of Lightroom 3.0, featuring better grain- and noise-management tools.
Cultural: Photoshop turns 20! China is the traditional gift, but we'd prefer CS5.
Next Page: The Evolution of Photoshop Splash Screens >>
We’re so used to seeing a splash screen every time we open Photoshop that we hardly pause to glance at it any more. But really, the wild, way-out splash screens on the beta versions of Photoshop over the years are a lot more eye-catching. Peep this gallery of the beta splash screens next to their official-release counterparts. (Click to enlarge)
Next Page: Vintage Photoshop Toolbars >>
The photoshop toolbar has evolved over the years too--first to add more tools, then to streamline its appearance and take up less space.
Next Page: Interview -- Photoshop Unmasked >>
Two Adobe power players talk about Photoshop's birth, evolution, and future.
Adobe’s Senior Creative Director Russell Brown and VP of Product Management for Professional Digital Imaging Kevin Connor are two of the brightest stars in the Photoshop galaxy—they’ve rung up 38 years of Adobe experience between them. Brown even won an Emmy in 2008 for his Dr. Brown’s Photoshop Laboratory show on tv.adobe.com. We probed their giant, Photoshop-filled brains with these chin-scratching questions…
Mac|Life: What are your first memories of seeing Photoshop?
Russell Brown: My first viewing of it was when John Knoll gave me a demo in 1989. I recall that he created a soft-edge selection mask and painted into it with a soft-edge brush. Wow! This was downright amazing. Nothing like it was possible on the Macintosh or PC at the time. Technology like this was only available on high-end prepress systems. I knew that what I was seeing was a serious new tool that was going to change my life.
Kevin Connor: Prior to joining Adobe, I was working at a small startup company. We had one copy of Photoshop installed on one of the Macs in the office, and I remember stepping through the menus and tools just to see what they could do. It was probably version 2.5. I also remember a freelance designer we worked with at the time marveling at all that could be accomplished by manipulating color channels.
Mac|Life: Russell, is there a specific Photoshop feature that you can't live without?
RB: That would most definitely have to be layers. Nothing can replace layers. I’m sure that about 90 percent of our users might say the same thing.
Mac|Life: Kevin, how do you see Photoshop evolving over the course of the next decade?
KC: A number of trends will influence that. From a technology standpoint, the big trend is computational photography. Increasingly, software algorithms are being used to derive photographs that could not be directly captured using traditional optics and sensors. Today, this technology can give us seamless panorama photos or wide-angle shots with no distortion, but in the future, it may even give us the ability to manipulate a photograph in three dimensions, adjusting vantage point and focus after the capture. Ultimately, it can also lead to software that is smarter about understanding the contents of a photo and can manipulate it as more than just a collection of pixels.
Another trend that will affect Photoshop’s future is the distribution of workflows across the web and mobile devices. It may not make sense to move all of Photoshop into a web-based application, but certain things may be done better on the web or on the road, and products will start to blur the line between the desktop, the web, and other devices. As we manage these big changes, we also need to continue to evolve the Photoshop interface so that these new capabilities can fit in naturally, while older capabilities can be refreshed and improved. Of course, it’s hard to say yet precisely what you’ll see in five years or 10 years, but these are things we’re already working on today that we expect to influence the product for some time to come.
Mac|Life: Russell, any particular online Photoshop resources you'd recommend to our readers?
RB: Definitely. In fact, here's a list of my favorite websites for Photoshop information:
>> blogs.adobe.com/jnack/
>> www.photoshopuser.com/psuser.htm
>> www.mogo-media.com/welcome-pst.php
>> www.photoshopnews.com
>> www.lynda.com
>> www.russellbrown.com
Mac|Life: Do you think there will ever be a viable competitor to Photoshop?
KC: There’s always competition, but if we do our jobs right, people just don’t notice! I’m being a little facetious, but my point is that Photoshop is a very big target, and companies both big and small have continuously taken aim at it. They just haven’t generally been successful.
