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Adobe Systems is Founded
Founded by two former Xerox employees, Charles Geschke and John Warnock, Adobe was an early pioneer in the software field. Adobe was located in Northern California in what is now known as Silicon Valley. -
Tom Knoll designs "Display"
Tom Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, designed a graphics application that could be used on his computer, a Macintosh Plus. He wanted to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, he called "Display", caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended that Tom turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. -
"Photoshop" is born (Version 0.07)
Tom took a six-month break from his studies to collaborate with his brother on the program. Tom tried to rename the program "ImagePro", but the name was already taken. Later that year, Tom renamed his program "Photoshop" and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner. About 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped this way.
Platform: Macintosh -
Photoshop Version 0.63
Platform: Macintosh -
Photoshop Version 0.87
First version distributed commercially (by the scanner company Barneyscan), though distributed as "Barneyscan XP."
Platform: Macintosh
Codename: Seurat -
Adobe buys Photoshop
Adobe makes a deal and buys Photoshop. The Knoll brothers had called on Supermac and Aldus, but were turned away at both, a move that Aldus would come to seriously regret.
Shortly after, the Knoll brothers struck gold when they won over Adobe management with their product, and formed a licensing partnership with Adobe that was to launch their software and Adobe into the stratosphere.
Platform: Macintosh -
Photoshop Version 1.0
The handling of color slowly improved with each release from Adobe and Photoshop quickly became the industry standard in digital color editing. At the time Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on dedicated high end systems, such as the SciTex, cost around $300 an hour for basic photo retouching.
Platform: Macintosh -
Photoshop Version 2.0
Photoshop added: Paths, CMYK color, Pen
The pen feature was added by a second engineer, Mark Hamburg, that Adobe hired to work on the application. Photoshop 2.0 also required 4 megabytes of RAM to run rather than 2, which really helped program stability.
Codename: Fast Eddie
Platform: Macintosh -
Photoshop Version 2.5
This was the first release for the Windows operating systems.
16-bit file support and palettes were added to this version as well. The initial Windows release had a “memory bug”, a bug which actually saw Mark Hamburg offer to make house calls.
Macintosh Codename: Merlin
Windows Codename: Brimstone -
Photoshop Version 3.0
The big story for Adobe Photoshop 3.0 was layers. Layers were and are a lifesaver for any marginally complex design. Tom Knoll was responsible for their development.
Fun fact: Adobe engineers included Adobe Transient Witticisms (ATW) with this version. They were little Easter Egg funny one-liners that would appear only when you pressed obscure combinations of keys.
Codename: Tiger Mountain
Platform: Macintosh -
Photoshop Version 3.0 for Windows
Photoshop 3.0 was released for Windows. From this point on, the Mac and Windows versions would be released together. Tabbed palettes also had their debut in 3.0. -
Photoshop Version 4.0
Adjustment layers and macros were the two most notable features of Photoshop 4.0. Macros, or actions in Photoshop speak, allow you to map a series of commands to one command. This allows you to perform the same operation in much less time if you have a bunch of images to work on.
The most important change to 4.0 was the unification of the user interface with other Adobe products, a feature which Adobe has stayed consistent with.
Codename: Big Electric Cat -
Photoshop Version 5.0
The two most important features released with 5.0 were editable type and the ability to undo actions multiple times in the “History” palette. The magnetic lasso tool debuted in 5.0, making selecting areas of an image to work on much easier.
Codename: Strange Cargo -
Photoshop Version 5.5
Photoshop 5.5 featured the huge time saver, “Save For Web”. This feature allows those who choose it to save the image in a preset specifically designed for web use which allows the user to adjust image quality to achieve a smaller image. It was also bundled with ImageReady, a standalone program that was purpose-built to edit web graphics. Most of the features of ImageReady were later incorporated into the full version of Photoshop.
Codename: Strange Cargo -
Photoshop Version 6.0
Vector shapes were also added in this release, or the ability to draw vector shapes such as arrows into a bitmap was lauded by users. Text could also now be typed directly onto a picture, rather than being typed first into a text box. Multi-layer functions, Blending Options dialogue, and 6.0 separated the crop tool from the marquee tool.
Codename: Venus in Furs -
Photoshop Version 7.0
It introduced a new file browser that let designers easily pore through folders to find the graphics that they wanted. The brush palette also featured a number of changes, including the new healing brush tool, patch tool, and the ability to create custom brushes. Spell check and a find/replace feature rounded out the updates to the text tool.
Codename: Liquid Sky -
Photoshop Version 7.0.1
Raw 1.x was added as optional. -
Photoshop CS (8.0)
Photoshop CS was the first to employ the CDS (counterfeit deterrence system) which recognized and refused to allow duplication of paper currency. Scripting support for various web languages, including JavaScript, was also new to this release. Layer groups were introduced with this version, which allowed various layers to be grouped together. Also a live histogram.
Codename: Dark Matter -
Photoshop CS2 (9.0)
The red eye removal tool, Vanishing Point tool, and the “Smart Object” feature were introduced. The Smart Object feature allowed the user to scale a layer up without significant loss of quality.
Codename: Space Monkey -
Photoshop CS3 (10.0)
A faster load was probably the most noticeable feature of this 2007 release. It included fine tuning to a number of its existing tools rather than focusing on new ones. This version also saw significant feature updates to Adobe Camera RAW, a Quick Select tool, alterations to core commands like Brightness and Contrast and Black and White conversion.
Codename: Red Pill -
Photoshop CS4 (11,0)
The smoother pan and zoom allowed for fast drill down on the areas of an image that you wanted to look at. The Masks and Adjustments panel was added, making working with masks easier. CS 4 also dealt with edges on masks more effectively and color correction took a huge step forward.
Codename: Stonehenge -
Photoshop CS5 (12.0)
This version added the Puppet Warp Tool, Bristle Tips, Mixer Brush, Automatic Lens Correction, and improved selection and masking controls.
Codename: White Rabbit -
Photoshop CS6 (13.0)
New features include: UI redesign (all new icons and optional dark UI), auto and background saves, content-aware Patch and Move tools, Blur Gallery, Adobe Camera RAW 7, enhanced crop tool, new properties panel, and vector strokes with dotted/dashed strokes.
Codename: Superstition
