Thomas Knoll wrote a subroutine for a program to translate monochrome images on his monitor to grayscale. His brother was working at Industrial Light and Magic. Thomas Knoll adopted his father’s photography habit throughout high school, while his brother, John Knoll, purchased one of the first Macs available to the public.įast forward to 1987: Thomas Knoll was a PHD student studying Engineering at the University of Michigan. He had a darkroom in his basement, and an Apple II Plus that he was allowed to bring home from work. Glen Knoll was a college professor with two sons and two hobbies computers and photography. Thomas Knoll, the PHD student, is still heavily involved with Photoshop years later. One of the most impressive things about the company is the fact that one gifted family, consisting of an engineering prof, a PHD engineering student, and a talented special effects whiz working at Industrial Light and Magic came up with the core idea of Photoshop. Please join us in thanking the Knolls and Adobe for making all of our lives more awesome, every day. Some of the minor details are fun too, such as the one-liner Easter Eggs that Photoshop developers hid in some versions and the fact that the most current versions of Adobe Photoshop CS are equipped with anti-counterfeiting measures for multiple world currencies.

To mark this anniversary, we’ve come up with an article that takes you through the evolution of Photoshop from its modest beginnings as a bundled program sold with scanners to its current version.įor each version and major feature listed, we couldn’t help but think “ did Photoshop ever exist without that feature?”. On February 10 th, 2010, Photoshop turns twenty. Photoshop has been a part of every web designer’s life since they picked up their first mouse.

Photoshop current version