20 Years of Photoshop

benwiggy writes "Photoshop turned 20 on 10th February 2010. Here's an excellent history, including how the Knoll family created one of the biggest apps of all time. The article also has screenshots of the workspace through the versions."

Comments

So good it's a verb

[pwnies]

Kudos photoshop. You know that you've done well with a piece of software when it turns into a verb.
That said, spread some lovin' over to the linux side of things. Right now that's the only thing that's keeping me from using linux as my main OS (using win7 right now).

Re:So good it's a verb

[lambent]

it's unlikely to ever happen, as that would require a complete rewrite of the entire codebase. there's so much cruft in photoshop, i don't know anyone who would even be willing to say it's even possible.

that being said, i think it probably needs a good overhaul (organic growth over 20 years can't be pretty to maintain), and i'd pay a lot for a solid *NIX port.

Re:So good it's a verb

[Captain Splendid]

This is why I've held on to my copy of PS6. Works great on lower end systems, and still has all of the useful tools.

Re:So good it's a verb

[Bobfrankly1]

This is why I've held on to my copy of PS6. Works great on lower end systems, and still has all of the useful tools.

It's surprising how subjective that statement is. I couldn't even imagine trying to use the brush engine from photoshop 6. I actually tried on a friend's old computer and gave up ten minutes later. PS7 has full vector fonts, which allow lossless resize and transform effects. There's more to be sure, but this is just off the top of my head.

A more accurate statement is that it still has all the tools that *you* find useful.

Nostalgia

[toastar]

Sometimes I really miss photoshop 5.5.

7.0 was also pretty good. Things started to go down hill when they switched to the cs moniker

Re:Gimp?

[maxume]

There is an article about the GIMP every time it farts.

Re:May be a good time to discuss alternatives

[Dumnezeu]

For this, I use Paint.NET on Windows.

Re:May be a good time to discuss alternatives

[kaizendojo]

IrfanView does all that you list (and few other useful things) and is free.

Sort of a weird feeling about it

[TheModelEskimo]

Photoshop instructor here. It's a great app, but really is overkill for most needs. I actually used GIMP to design my Photoshop class websites, since I like some of the GTK conveniences better than Photoshop's relatively primitive widget set (can't hover over a spinner and use the scroll wheel alone to change the value, being one example).

Of course, I don't really advertise GIMP in my classes, but I do give extra credit to students who are willing to give it a try and write a review (they can also choose to try other software, like Aviary).

Anyway, it's nice of Adobe to keep improving Photoshop, but it's amazing how many millions of dollars have gone into this software, and it is still getting a bad rep for tons of crashes, expensive third-party plugins, weird bugs, etc.

Re:Sort of a weird feeling about it

[TheModelEskimo]

Many Photoshop users feel this way; I don't think you're alone in that. There are many features that Photoshop has that are very powerful, like its Type tool, which bears a sharp contrast to GIMP's rudimentary text tool. Even if you compare Photoshop of, say, four versions ago, to GIMP of today, you come away with many features where GIMP falls short.

This shows why feature set alone isn't the main motivator for GIMP users. Some of them are just cheap; some of them want a portable graphics package; some are sick of dealing with licensing and activation pains; some have had bad experiences with Adobe customer support.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think, are full-out artistic types who view the issue of freedom as a vast battlefield upon which commercial interests can become the worst kind of double agents, often actively working to subvert the interests of the wider community in favor of extra profits.

I tend to lean this way myself, having worked on many marketing teams and now owning my own business. I'm more interested in my own mental and spiritual development and its application in the digital domain (tough as the going may be), and less interested in putting Deanna from Marketing in a new Lexus.

That can sound pretty fundamentalist, but many artistic-types really do need the extra room to breathe.

Stupid editor mistakes

[Dun Malg]

In February of 1990, Adobe 1.0 was released.

You'd think that in an article on Photoshop, they wouldn't make the irritating novice mistake of conflating "Adobe" (the company) with "Photoshop" (the product). I expect this from the idiots where I work, where complaints of "my Adobe isn't working!" are common, but from them?

But the File Format Sucks. :)

[weston]

"At this point, I'd like to take a moment to speak to you about the Adobe PSD format. PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad format. Calling it such would be an insult to other bad formats, such as PCX or JPEG..."

And while we're at it, I have to say: Can we please be done with the idea that web mockups should be done in Photoshop? It never was a good tool for designing web layouts. The idea that it ever was is an artifact of its market position and the popularity of certain raster effects at the time the web rose. Illustrator has been a better tool for web layouts for a while, and Fireworks (with a fantastic blend of vector and raster capabilities) is even better, and there are probably half a dozen other vector capable layout tools I'm not aware of that are better...

(Please do not suggest Gimp or PSP. They're bad choices for web layouts for the same reasons Photoshop is.) /soapbox

What version started requiring a mortgage?

[syousef]

A full version of Photoshop CS4 costs more than a cheap second hand car. Elements is cheaper but crippled in ways that make it much less useful even for a casual amateur. You use to be able to get around those restrictions up to Elements 2.0. Now Elements is a very different piece of software (ironically with some unique features of its own). Photoshop is wonderful, but it's a pity it's either inaccessible or pirated for a great many people. It's probably more pirated than Windows.

Re:developers, developers

[mhajicek]

Yeah, I'm in CADCAM. That means Windows.

On Fireworks

[LibertineR]

I generally agree that Fireworks is superior for web mockups. However, I hope they get around to fixing text handling, which is still awful after all these years, which forces me back to Photoshop or Illustrator just to add text parts. In other respects, Fireworks CS4 is pretty amazing; able to spit CSS layouts from slices and all that.

Re:Obligatory XKCD Refence

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'm starting to think Slashdot is just an index for xkcd.

Every Web Designer?

[fm6]

Photoshop has been a part of every web designer's life since they picked up their first mouse.

Say what? Why does a web designer even need a high-end graphics editor? Unless, of course, he's running an art web site. Or he's one of those really inept designers who doesn't understand the difference between print design and web design.