A man invented vibrators because doctors were tired of giving orgasms. How people Photoshopped before Photoshop. 1898: Portraits of Native Americans from 'Buffalo Bill's Wild West' show. Launched in October 2003, it was the Photoshop’s eighth major version. The version was known for better user control. Improved search capabilities and a vigilant Histogram palette that detects even minute changes in the image were other specialties.
Thomas & John Knoll
Thomas Knoll is pictured on the left, on the right is John Knoll.
In the fall of 1987, Thomas Knoll, a doctoral candidate in computer vision, was trying to write–as a diversion from his doctoral–computer code to display grayscale images on a black-white bitmap monitor. Because it wasn’t directly related to his thesis on computer vision, Knoll thought it had limited value at best. The code was called Display. Knoll wrote it on his Mac Plus computer at home. Little did he know that this initial code would be the very beginning of the phenomenon that would be known as Photoshop.
The Display splash screen.
Thomas’ program caught the attention of his brother, John, who worked at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Marin County, California. ILM was the visual effects arm of Lucasfilm, the famous motion picture company founded by George Lucas. With the release of Star Wars, Lucas had proved that really cool special effects, combined with heroic characters and a “shoot-em up script,” could produce a blockbuster motion picture. To that end, John was experimenting with computers to create special effects. He asked his brother Thomas to help him program a computer to process digital image files, and Display was a great starting point. So began their collaboration.
John arranged to purchase a new Macintosh II, the first color-capable model, through his father, a professor at the University of Michigan. Before it was shipped to his brother, Thomas got hold of it and rewrote the code for Display to work in color. In the ensuing months, Thomas and John worked on expanding Display’s capability. At John’s urging, Thomas added the ability to read and write various file formats, while John developed image processing routines that would later become filter plug-ins. Thomas developed the unique capability to create soft-edged selections that would allow local changes. He also developed such features as Levels for adjusting tonality; Color Balance, Hue, and Saturation for adjusting color, and painting capabilities.
In the summer of 1988, John thought they might have the basis of a commercially viable product. Thomas was reluctant: “Do you have any idea how much work it is to write a commercial application?” he asked John. But with his naive optimism, John convinced Thomas it would be worth the effort. “I’ll figure out how to make money with this,” he told his brother. Well, John was right, but so was Thomas. It did take a lot of work.
Thomas changed the name of their software several times. Each time he found one he liked, it had already been taken. ImagePro, and even PhotoHut were considered. Then, during a program demo, he confided to someone that he was having problems naming the program. The confidant suggested PhotoShop, and that became the program’s working name. To this day, neither Thomas nor John know for sure who first said the name “PhotoShop”. Note: in it’s first iteration, the ‘S’ of shop was capitalized. Later the inter cap was removed.
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John started shopping around for a company to invest in Photoshop. Thomas remained in Ann Arbor, Michigan, fine-tuning the program, while John traveled all over Silicon Valley giving program demos including a company named Adobe Systems, Inc. John kept pushing his brother to add new features. John even wrote a simple manual to make the program more understandable.
Finally he succeeded in attracting the attention of somebody–a scanner manufacturer. Barneyscan decided that the program would be of use to people who owned their scanners. A short-term deal was worked out, and the first public iteration of the software was introduced as Barneyscan XP. About 200 copies of the program, now in Version 0.87, were shipped with Barneyscan scanners.
Around this time, John demonstrated the program to engineers at Apple computer. It was a huge hit. They asked John to leave a couple of copies. There followed the first incident of Photoshop pirating. Seems that the Apple engineers shared the program with some friends, a lot of friends!
Subsequently, John returned to Adobe for another demonstration. Russell Brown, Adobe’s primary art director, was blown away by the program. He had just signed an NDA disclosure agreement with Letraset, to view their new image-editing program, ColorStudio. He was convinced that Photoshop was better.
Timing is everything. With a great deal of enthusiasm, Adobe decided to buy the license to distribute Photoshop. It was September 1988 and the Knoll brothers and Fred Mitchell, head of Adobe Acquisitions, made the deal with a handshake. It would be April before the final legal agreements were worked out.
The key phrase in that deal was “license to distribute.” Adobe didn’t completely buy-out the program until years after Photoshop had become a huge success. It was a smart move on the Knolls’ part to work out a royalty agreement based upon distribution. After the legal agreements were signed, Thomas and John started developing a shipping version. Adobe decided to keep the working name “Photoshop”, but not until an exhaustive attempt to find a better name provided nothing better.
Thomas wrote all the code for the application in Ann Arbor, while John developed and wrote plug-ins in California. Some of the Adobe people thought John’s features were gimmicky and didn’t belong in a serious application. They viewed the product as a tool for retouching, not special effects, so John had to find a way to “sneak” them into the program. Those plug-ins have become one of the most powerful aspects of Photoshop.
Between April 1989 and the official release of the program in early 1990, development continued, with no official beta testers. At Adobe, Russell Brown and others worked with the program and made suggestions. Thomas would write and then rewrite the code, while John, Russell, and Fred pushed him to add features. John was particularly good at coaxing Thomas to make improvements.
Finally, in February 1990, Photoshop 1.0 shipped. The rest of course, is Photoshop history. . .
The original Photoshop 1.0 box.
Photoshop 1.0 Disk.
Adobe Photoshop History
The Photoshop 1 splash screen.
Story and images ©2000 by Jeff Schewe–ALL RIGHTS RESERVERED.
This story first appeared in the February 2000 issue of PEI Magazine. You can download a PDF copy of that article from PixelGenius.com: Tips & Techniques
From Google.com to Nintendo 64 -- there's much to attribute to the 1990s.
Things started to resemble today's world in the 1990s: People were using cell phones and had computers in their homes.
Related: 10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1980s
People were exposed to sleek new digital products that foreshadowed many of the gadgets we use today. In 1996, the world said goodbye to VHS and adopted a new technology for watching videos -- the DVD. With the emergence of Google in 1998, people gained the ability to search for nearly anything online. And a person didn’t need to pick up the phone and call a friend over some small news, instead they could send a quick text message.
From Nokia’s first mobile phone to Google.com, a lot happened in the '90s. Check out these 10 inventions you probably didn’t realize were invented in the decade.
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Adobe Photoshop (1990)
Fascinated by technology and art, brothers Thomas and John Knoll noticed the lack of photo-editing features on computers and decided to code some of their own. After years of development in the late 1980s, the Knoll brothers sought investors and eventually caught the attention of Adobe. With Adobe’s investment and help from its staff, Photoshop 1.0 was put on the market in February 1990.
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Linux (1991)
In 1991, Linus Torvalds was in his second year at the University of Helsinki when he began developing the industry-changing open source operating system Linux. He originally set out to build a new operating system for his Intel PC, but Torvalds ended up creating one of biggest platforms for internet companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter.
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Text messaging (1992)
In 1992, Neil Papworth, a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms, successfully sent the first text message to Richard Jarvis, a director at Vodafone. Photo to excel. At the time, mobile phones did not have keyboards, so Papworth typed his message, “Merry Christmas,” on a PC. Nokia’s 1011 (next slide) was the first mobile phone to support SMS text messaging.
Related: 10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1970s
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Nokia 1011 (1994)
Although mobile phones emerged on the market in the 1980s, it wasn’t until 1994 that Nokia released its first cell phone, the Nokia 1011. The device changed the way cell phones were viewed, being the first mass-produced GSM phone. Before the Nokia 1011, mobile phones were larger and clunkier, making them difficult to carry around.
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Sony PlayStation (1994)
On Dec. 3, 1994, Sony released the first PlayStation in Japan. The Playstation, which retailed for 37,000 yen (about $387), skyrocketed in popularity and was considered Sony’s most important product since the Walkman. It launched in the U.S. in September 1995 and saw instant success.
Who Invented Photoshop
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Nintendo 64 (1996)
On June 23, 1996, Nintendo 64 launched in Japan, becoming the first home console to feature an analog stick as its primary control. By September that year, N64 made its way to the U.S. The console was a major breakthrough in the gaming industry, allowing users to aim with precision and control like never before.
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Tickle Me Elmo (1996)
After coming up with the idea to create a stuffed animal that would laugh when someone tickled it, inventor Ron Dubren partnered with engineer Greg Hyman to create a stuffed monkey with laughing technology. Although that toy never saw success, Dubren’s idea lived on. In 1996, toy company Tyco asked to use Dubren’s technology to create a laughing doll of Elmo from Sesame Street. Tickle Me Elmo became one of the most popular children’s toys and was named the most desired toy of the 1996 holiday shopping season. It now lives on TIME’s “All-Time 100 Greatest Toys” list.
Related: 13 Accidental Inventions That Changed the World
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
DVD (1996)
Replacing VHS, DVD (short for “digital video disk”) was developed in 1995 and put on the market in 1996. And accompanying the DVD was the world’s first DVD player, the Toshiba SD-3000. No single company or person can be credited for the invention of the DVD -- variations were created by a number of different tech firms and they each came to agree on one format, thus avoiding a repeat of the VHS and Betamax competition.
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Tamagotchi (1996)Thomas And John Knoll
The Tamagotchi, the original virtual pet, is a childhood staple of the 1990s. Launched in 1996 by Bandai, more the 40 million units were sold worldwide. In a way, the portable handheld device taught kids to be responsible -- from playing with the pet to picking up its poop.
Hire Someone To Edit Photos
10 Things You Didn't Realize Were Invented in the 1990s
Google (1998)When Did Photoshop Come Out
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in 1995 at Stanford University. By 1996, the two were writing a program for a search engine called Backrub -- and after Backrub's success, Brin and Page registered domain name Google.com in 1997. They went on to develop what would be the world’s largest search engine of all time in their friend Susan Wojcicki’s garage, and Google was officially incorporated in September of 1998.
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