The Definitive Photoshop Timeline

The Definitive Photoshop Timeline

Twenty years ago today, Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was released. And it changed the world as we saw it. Because it lit­er­al­ly edit­ed our vision.

Click on the image to see the high def­i­n­i­tion timeline

Photoshop is the invis­i­ble hand that touch­es every­thing around us. From adver­tis­ing and com­mer­cials to the front page of mag­a­zines and polit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da; going through motion pic­tures and art, Photoshop is every­where, push­ing the lim­its of real­i­ty, and mor­ph­ing the world around us to fit what com­pa­nies want us to believe, buy, and enjoy.

Back in 1987, when Tom and John Knoll cre­at­ed it, noth­ing could have pre­dict­ed the deep impact this tool would have in our lives. At that time, there was pho­to manip­u­la­tion, but it was reserved to a knowl­edge­able few, using airbrushes—which required a lot of expertise—and the first Quantel paint boxes—which required lots of mon­ey and training.

Photoshop—running on the first col­or Macs, accel­er­at­ed by graph­ic cards by Radius and RasterOps—democratized all this. Image edit­ing became accept­ed as a tool, and as the pow­er of the machines increased, every­thing start­ed to become pos­si­ble for every­one. Like the first indus­tri­al oil paint­ings democ­ra­tized art in the 19th century—with Cezanne, Monet, Gauguin, and VanGogh quick­ly tak­ing advan­tage of the new cheap medium—Photoshop became the new inex­pen­sive way to cre­ate new real­i­ties and alter the world sur­round­ing us.

When Photoshop 3.0 intro­duced lay­ers, things got even more dra­mat­ic. Together with tools like clone stamp­ing and warp­ing, Adobe’s image stu­dio became the beau­ti­ful mon­ster that it is today, capa­ble of cre­at­ing the most stun­ning works of art, and the most twist­ed works of marketing.

Happy 20th Anniversary, Photoshop. Here’s a toast for the next 20 won­der­ful and ter­ri­fy­ing years.

Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at ?subject=http://gizmodo.com/5476064/the-definitive-photoshop-timeline">jesus@​gizmodo.​com.

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