Display! What is it?
The story of Photoshop started in 1987, when one American Ph.D. engineering student of the University of Michigan, Thomas Knoll wrote a graphic applications subroutine on a Macintosh Plus computer.
This software was used to display grayscale images on a monochrome display.
Knoll named it Display. We now consider Display as the unofficial father of our beloved Photoshop.
The very first Photoshop version was released in January 1988.
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics i.e Dot Matrix Data Structure/square grid of pixels photo editor. It was developed and published by Adobe Systems for Mac OS and Windows.
The first version of Photoshop was distributed commercially by scanner company “Barneyscan XP”.
Invention:
The creators of Photoshop was Thomas Knoll and John Knoll. It was created in 1987 since it has become an industry-standard photo editing and graphics design application. They later sold the distribution license to Adobe Systems incorporated in 1988 that was not publicly released. This demo was the primary far-famed copy of Photoshop with any dissemination.
From the very childhood, Thomas Knoll was very keen on Photography. He had his own darkroom for development in his basement. Most of the time he used to work on photos. One day Thomas Knoll was writing a computer program on his Macintosh Plus so that he can display grayscale images on a monochrome display.
This program called Display instantly grabbed the attention of his brother John Knoll who suggested that Thomas should turn it into a full-fledged image editing software. Then both brothers collaborated on the idea. And finally, they coded it and were able to make the first photo editing software(with a little help from their father).
Some Fun Facts:
1. The First Photoshop image was John’s wife on the beach taken from a trip to the Hawaiian Islands.
2. Photoshop 1 was released on the 19th February 1994 Macintosh exclusively.
3. Photoshop naming scheme was initially based on version numbers Adobe published 13 versions before the October 2003 introduction of Creative Suite branding.
4. Adobe gave the source code of the 1990s 1.0.1 version of Photoshop to the Computer History Museum in February 2013.
5. Photoshop is available in 26 languages
6. Thomas and his brother John won an award on Scientific and Engineering Award for the original architecture, design, and development of Photoshop at the 2019 Oscars.
7. Versions were started as Photoshop, Photoshop CS, Photoshop CC
8. All the versions of Photoshop Logo
8. Here you can see all the versions of our favorite Photoshop from beginning to now.
1988 – 1989
Adobe Photoshop 0.63
1989 – 1990
Adobe Photoshop 0.87
1990 – 1991
Adobe Photoshop 1.0
1991 – 1992
1991: Adobe Photoshop 2.0
1992 – 1993
1993: Adobe Photoshop 2.5
1993 – 1994
Adobe Photoshop 3.0
1994 – 1996
Adobe Photoshop 4.0
1996 – 1998
Adobe Photoshop 1998
1998 – 1999
Adobe Photoshop 5.5
1999 – 2000
Adobe Photoshop 6.0
2000 – 2001
Adobe Photoshop Elements
2001 – 2002
Adobe Photoshop 7.0
2002 – 2003
Adobe Photoshop CS
2003 – 2005
Adobe Photoshop CS2
2005 – 2007
Adobe Photoshop CS3
2007 – 2008
Adobe Photoshop CS4
2008 – 2010
Adobe Photoshop CS5
2010 – 2012
Adobe Photoshop CS6
2012 – 2013
Adobe Photoshop CC
2013 – 2014
Adobe Photoshop CC 2014
2014 – 2015
Adobe Photoshop CC 2015
2015 – 2016
Adobe Photoshop CC 2016
2016 – 2017
Adobe Photoshop CC 2017
2017 – 2018
Adobe Photoshop CC 2018
2018 – 2019
Adobe Photoshop CC 2019
2019 – 2020
Adobe Photoshop 2020
2020 – Present
Adobe Photoshop 2021
Conclusion:
Looking back in Photoshop we can see how a simple idea can evolve into a useful and impacting tool and it would not be possible without Knoll’s Display. We would not have our favorite magic photo editing software right!
Undoubtedly, Photoshop is a gem on the crown of Adobe. Its development is closely guarded.
Thomas Knoll is still making his hand dirty on making plugins coding and he will be remembered forever for his awesome work.