I'd venture to say you've heard of Photoshop... it's kind of like Kleenex or Chapstick... even if someone isn't actually editing a photo in Adobe Photoshop you're likely to say they're "photoshopping" it. Today I'm going to let you know how Photoshop came about.
Thomas Knoll was a PHD student at the University of Michigan where he was studying Engineering. Thomas had always been interested in photography and, like his father, he had a dark room. Thomas's father, Glen Knoll, was a professor at a local college. Like his son, he was also interested in computers. Glen was one of the first people to get their hands on an Apple II Plus computer and he was allowed to bring it home from work.
In 1987, Thomas wrote a small subroutine for a program on his father's Apple II Plus that allowed him to translate monochromatic images to greyscale on his monitor. After working on the program a little more, Thomas was able to create a number of processes that would apply various effects to his images on the computer screen. Seeing as it was 1987, it was breakthrough technology.
While Thomas was studying at the University of Michigan, John Knoll, his brother, was working on special effects at George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. When he saw what his brother had created on his father's Apple II, he told Thomas that he should turn his program into a fully fledged image editor.
John and Thomas actually began to work together on the application. By utilizing Thomas's programming expertise and John's design experience, the two brothers improved on the initial application and in 1988, released a piece of software called "Image Pro".
The brother's had mild success at first, but after a few others turning down partnerships with the brothers, they ended up selling the initial rights to Adobe. In February, 1990 Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was released.
Following the initial success of Adobe Photoshop 1.0, Adobe Photoshop 2.0 was released in June 1991 along with one of the most notable new features in Adobe Photoshop 2.0, the Paths feature. This allowed users to trim around an object and then save that 'path' for use in the future. and it wasn't until Adobe Photoshop 3.0 that PC users could join in on the fun.
There have been several additions and improvements over the 30 years since Photoshop 1.0 was released. Most, if not all, magazine photos are touched up, as well as loads of photo-editing software and apps following in the footsteps set forth by Adobe.
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