21 Years of Photoshop

(photo taken from hongkiat.com)

UPDATE:  In the video below both Thomas and John Knoll joke about the different names they had to go through before finally naming their product Photoshop.


According to PC World’s article by Chris Brandrick, Adobe Photoshop celebrated its 21^st anniversary on February 10^th.  Throughout its 21 years, this software has made several improvements to the industry, as well as caused some controversy in the media.

The development of Adobe Photoshop started in 1987 when PhD student, Thomas Knoll, began working on his thesis, detailing the processing of digital images.  His new Apple Mac Plus disappointed him because the monitor could not display black and white images, so he began writing a program to do so. 

Thomas’s brother John Knoll was also working on image processing and after seeing Thomas’s work was impressed.  The brothers decided to form a partnership and soon created a larger and more organized program they named Display.



Adobe's first Photoshop product,
Adobe Photoshop 1.0.
(photo taken from
prodesigntools.com)

 In 1988, the program’s name became ImagePro and its features were growing drastically, more than any other software available at the time.  Barneyscan, a scanner manufacturing company, began bundling the software with their scanner sales.

In September 1988, Adobe took on the ImagePro software and renamed it Photoshop.  Adobe Photoshop 1.0 for Macintosh was finally released to consumers in February 1990, being marketed as a simple tool for everyone to use.

The next Adobe additions included many new features such as CMYK color support in version 2.0, which lead to the adoption by the printing industry, and layers in version 3.0, which persuaded many consumers to try it.  In 1992, version 2.5 was finally released for both Macintosh and Windows.

More features allowed Adobe Photoshop to grow along the way.  With competition that claimed to offer “Photoshop’s power without the price,” the solution was to create a software program that had many of the same functions as Photoshop without the price, Adobe Elements.

The following video is a discussion with some of the masterminds behind the program during Photoshop's 20th Anniversary last year.

For the full video, please click here.  

Throughout the years of Photoshop developments, it has made it easier for artists to create the “perfect person” perception.  But this can also cause a lot of controversy.  A recently published unretouched photograph of Holly Madison, former Playboy Playmate and ex-star of The Girl’s Next Door, in Life and Style Magazine has caused a lot of controversy within the media.  She stated in an Access Hollywood article published March 2, 2011:

This unretouched photograph
of Holly Madison appeared
in Life and Style Magazine.
(photo taken from
realitytea.com)

I have cellulite and had it even when I was at my absolute thinnest. I'm never not going to have cellulite.

She also goes on to say:

I’ve always had a butt, and I want to keep it, cellulite and all. I’m not perfect, but I love my curves.

This is the perspective many women today have trouble with.  They have the perception that photoshopped images have given them and will take extreme measures to get there.  But as Holly Madison states in her article, we should all accept ourselves for who we are and realize that nobody is perfect. 

For a list of other major changes in Adobe’s 12 major releases, please click here.