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- Adobe Photoshop 1999 Free
- Adobe Photoshop 1999 Free
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- Adobe Photoshop 1999 Full
- Adobe Photoshop 5.5 1999 June. Adobe Photoshop 5.5. Adobe Systems launched Adobe Photoshop 5.5. The new version of Photoshop included the Adobe ImageReady 2.0 program designed to work with web graphics. Another new feature of Adobe Photoshop 5.5 was Save for Web, which allowed designers to compress images for the web.
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Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was released on Macintosh and immediately became popular and successful. This wasn’t surprising as Photoshop’s closest competitor, Letraset’s Color Studio, only had half of its features, but cost twice as much as the Adobe product, a whopping $1995. Adobe Photoshop CS2 (also known as Adobe Photoshop 9) Windows XP and 2000 DOWNLOAD Photoshop CS2 9.0.1 patch.
Adobe headquarters in San Jose
Adobe Inc. is an Americancomputer software company headquartered in San Jose, California. In 1982, John Warnock and Charles Geschke left Xerox PARC and established Adobe to develop and sell the PostScriptpage description language.[1]Apple Computer licensed PostScript in 1985 for use in its LaserWriterprinters, which helped spark the desktop publishing revolution.[2] The company has acquired 25 companies, purchased stakes in five, and divested six, most of which were software companies. Of the companies that Adobe has acquired, 18 were based in the United States. Adobe has not released the financial details for most of these mergers and acquisitions.
Adobe's first acquisition was Emerald City Software in March 1990. In August 1994, the company acquired Aldus Corporation, a Seattle-based software company credited with creating the desktop publishing industry with its PageMaker software.[3] The company's products were integrated into Adobe's product line later in the year, and re-branded as Adobe PageMaker and Adobe After Effects;[4] Aldus also owned the TIFF file format, transferring ownership to Adobe.[5] In October 1995, Adobe acquired the desktop publishing software company Frame Technology for US$566 million, and re-branded its FrameMaker software to Adobe FrameMaker.[6] Adobe acquired GoLive Systems in January 1999 and obtained its CyberStudio HTML editor software, releasing it as Adobe GoLive.[7] In May 2003, Adobe acquired Syntrillium Software and its digital audio editor software Cool Edit Pro, and merged it into its product line, re-releasing it as Adobe Audition.[8]
In the 1990s, Adobe purchased a minority stake in four companies, and it purchased a stake in one company in the 2000s. Adobe has also divested six companies, in which parts of the company are sold to another company. All of its divestments were made in the 1990s, with its most recent divestment made in August 1999 when it sold Macromedia Pathware to Lotus Software.
Acquisitions[edit]
Number | Company | Country | Acquired on | Acquired for (USD) | References |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Emerald City Software | United States | March 19, 1990 | -- | [9] |
2 | BluePoint Technologies | United States | June 20, 1990 | -- | [10] |
3 | LaserTools-Language Tech[note 1] | United States | June 1, 1992 | -- | [11] |
4 | OCR Systems | United States | June 29, 1992 | -- | [12] |
5 | Aldus Corporation | United States | August 31, 1994 | $437,676,000 | [13] |
6 | LaserTools | United States | September 9, 1994 | -- | [14] |
7 | Photoshop | United States | 1995 | -- | [15] |
8 | Frame Technology | United States | October 30, 1995 | $566,567,000 | [16] |
9 | Ares Software | United States | May 20, 1996 | -- | [17] |
10 | Sandcastle | United States | March 14, 1997 | $3,500,000 | [18] |
11 | HyWay Ferranti | United States | September 5, 1997 | -- | [19] |
12 | DigiDox | United States | September 16, 1997 | -- | [20] |
13 | GoLive Systems | United States | January 4, 1999 | -- | [21] |
14 | Fotiva | United States | December 5, 2001 | -- | [22] |
15 | Accelio[note 2] | Canada | April 15, 2002 | $72,000,000 | [23] |
16 | Syntrillium Software | United States | May 2003 | -- | [24] |
17 | Yellow Dragon Software-Tech[note 3] | United States | November 10, 2003 | -- | [25] |
18 | Q-Link Technologies, Inc. | United States | May 3, 2004 | -- | [26] |
19 | OKYZ | France | December 7, 2004 | -- | [27] |
20 | Macromedia | United States | December 3, 2005 | $3.573×109 | [28] |
21 | Navisware | United States | December 16, 2005 | -- | [29] |
22 | Trade and Technologies France | France | April 21, 2006 | -- | [30] |
23 | Pixmantec | Denmark | June 26, 2006 | -- | [31] |
24 | InterAKT | Romania | September 5, 2006 | -- | [32] |
25 | Serious Magic Inc. | United States | October 19, 2006 | -- | [33] |
26 | Scene7 | United States | May 31, 2007 | -- | [34] |
27 | Virtual Ubiquity | United States | October 1, 2007 | -- | [35] |
28 | YaWah | Denmark | September 15, 2008 | -- | [36] |
29 | Business Catalyst | Australia | August 31, 2009 | -- | [37] |
30 | Omniture | United States | September 15, 2009 | $1.8×109 | [38] |
31 | Day Software | Switzerland | July 28, 2010 | $240,000,000 | [39] |
32 | Demdex | United States | January 18, 2011 | -- | [40] |
33 | EchoSign | United States | July 18, 2011 | -- | [41] |
34 | Iridas Technology | Germany | September 8, 2011 | -- | [42] |
35 | Nitobi | Canada | October 3, 2011 | -- | [43] |
36 | Typekit | United States | October 3, 2011 | -- | [44] |
37 | Auditude | United States | November 1, 2011 | $120,000,000 | [45] |
38 | Efficient Frontier Technology | United States | November 30, 2011 | -- | [46] |
39 | Behance Inc. | United States | December 21, 2012 | -- | [47] |
40 | Neolane | France | July 23, 2013 | $600,000,000 | [48][49] |
41 | Satellite | United States | July 31, 2013 | -- | |
42 | Aviary | United States | September 22, 2014 | -- | [50] |
43 | Fotolia | United States | January 28, 2015 | $800,000,000 | [51] |
44 | Mixamo | United States | June 1, 2015 | -- | [52] |
45 | Livefyre | United States | May 10, 2016 | -- | [53] |
46 | TubeMogul | United States | November 10, 2016 | $540,000,000 | [54] |
47 | Sayspring | United States | April 16, 2018 | -- | [55] |
48 | Uru | United States | April 29, 2018 | -- | [56] |
49 | Magento | United States | May 21, 2018 | $1.68×109 | [57] |
50 | Marketo | United States | September 20, 2018 | $4.75×109 | [58] |
51 | Allegorithmic | France | January 23, 2019 | -- | [59] |
52 | Workfront | United States | November 9, 2020 | $1.5×109 | [60] |
53 | Frame.io | United States | October 7, 2021 | $1.275×109 | [61] |
Indirect acquisitions[edit]
Adobe also owns the assets of numerous companies, through less direct means, through the mergers or acquisitions of companies later acquired by Adobe.
- Company of Science and Art (CoSA)
- Acquired by Aldus
- Allaire Corporation
- Acquired by Macromedia
- Live Software
- Acquired by Allaire Corporation
- Authorware Inc
- Merged to form Macromedia
- MacroMind
- Merged to form MacroMind-Paracomp
- Paracomp
- Merged to form MacroMind-Paracomp
- Altsys
- Acquired by Macromedia
- MacroMind-Paracomp
- Merged to form Macromedia
- iBand Software
- Acquired by Macromedia
- FutureWave Software
- Acquired by Macromedia
- Andromedia Corporation
- Acquired by Macromedia
- Presedia
- Acquired by Macromedia
- eHelp Corporation
- Acquired by Macromedia
- nHabit.com
- Merged with GoodHome.com (Scene7)
- Engage
- Assets acquired by Scene7
- Cascade
- Acquired by Scene7
- MidSystems
- Acquired by Scene7
- TrueSpectra
- Acquired by Scene7
- Touch Clarity
- Acquired by Omniture
- Visual Sciences, Inc. (formerly WebSideStory)
- Acquired by Omniture
- Offermatica
- Acquired by Omniture
- Mercado
- Acquired by Omniture
- Context Optional
- Acquired by Efficient Frontier
- Wrike***
Stakes[edit]
Date | Company | Business | Country | Value (USD) | References |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
September 21, 1992 | Verity | Computer consulting | United States | -- | [62] |
March 1, 1994 | Crosswise | Applications software | United States | -- | [63] |
April 19, 1995 | Siebel Systems | Application services provider | United States | -- | [64] |
August 8, 1995 | Fractal Design | Graphics software | United States | $2,000,000 | [65] |
March 23, 2007 | Skysoft | Online digital music services | Republic of China | $1,000,000 | [66] |
Divestitures[edit]
Date | Acquirer | Target company | Target business | Acquirer country | Value (USD) | References |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
November 1, 1991 | Paracomp | MacroMind | Software | United States | -- | [67] |
March 28, 1996 | -- | Luminous[note 4] | Graphics software | United States | -- | [68] |
February 5, 1997 | INSO | MasterSoft | Publishing software | United States | $3,000,000 | [69] |
March 24, 1999 | Creative Internet Solutions | ChangeMedia | Internet service provider | United States | -- | [70] |
May 20, 1999 | Calian Technologies Ltd. | Why Interactive | Multi-media company | Canada | $4,360,000 | [71] |
August 30, 1999 | Lotus Development | Macromedia Pathware | Internet software | United States | -- | [72] |
Notes[edit]
- ^Acquired from LaserTools
- ^Acquired from Adobe Systems Canada
- ^Acquired from Yellow Dragon Software
- ^Adobe retained a 19.9% stake in Luminous
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Blitstein, Ryan (2006-10-30). 'How Adobe launched a revolution'. San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^LePage, Rick (2007-09-11). 'Opinion: Adobe's DNA is part of Apple'. Macworld. Archived from the original on 2012-01-04. Retrieved 2008-10-19.
- ^Lewis, Peter H. (1994-03-16). 'Adobe and Aldus Plan a $500 Million Merger'. The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^Lewis, Jay B. (1998-04-13). 'Adobe Makes a Move for the Future Fremont Site'. Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
- ^'Inside Adobe's New Digital Negative Format'. Macworld. 2004-09-30. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Announces Adobe FrameMaker for Windows 95 and NT'. PR Newswire. 1996-06-03.
- ^Cohen, Peter (2008-04-28). 'Adobe Discontinues GoLive'. PC World. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Audition 1.0 sounds like a new program, but this multitrack recorder/editor is the offspring of Syntrillium's Cool Edit Pro 2.1'. PC Magazine. 2003-11-25.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Emerald City Software'. Thomson Financial. Archived from the original on 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires BluePoint Technologies'. Thomson Financial. Archived from the original on 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires LaserTools-Language Tech from LaserTools Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires OCR Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Aldus Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires LaserTools Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Photoshop'. CNET. Archived from the original on 2012-07-14. Retrieved 2010-02-15.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Frame Technology Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Ares Software Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Sandcastle Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires HyWay Ferranti'. Thomson Financial. Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires DigiDox Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires GoLive Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Fotiva Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Accelio Corp from Adobe Systems Canada Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Cool Edit Pro is now Adobe Audition'. Adobe. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Yellow Dragon Software-Tech from Yellow Dragon Software Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Acquires Q-Link Technologies'. Adobe. Archived from the original on 2004-05-07. Retrieved 2004-05-04.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires OKYZ SA'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Macromedia Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Navisware'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Trade and Technologies France'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Pixmantec ApS'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires InterAKT'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Serious Magic Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires Scene7 Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe to Acquire Virtual Ubiquity'. Archived from the original on 2008-09-09. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires YaWah ApS'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Buys Business Catalyst / GoodBarry'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
- ^'Adobe To Acquire Omniture For Approximately $1.8 Billion'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
- ^'Adobe Adds Leading Web Content Management Software to its Portfolio of Solutions to Create, Deliver and Optimize Customer Experiences'. Adobe. Archived from the original on 2010-07-30. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
- ^'Adobe Acquires Demdex – Brings Audience Optimization to $109 Billion Global Online Ad Market'. Omniture. Retrieved 2011-01-28.
- ^'Adobe Acquires EchoSign – Leading Web-based Signature Solution Joins Document Exchange Services Platform'. Adobe. Archived from the original on 2020-08-03. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
- ^'Adobe Acquires IRIDAS Technology Company Extends Leadership in Professional Video with the Acquisition of Premium Tools for Digital Color Grading and Enhancement'. Adobe. Archived from the original on 2011-09-25. Retrieved 2011-09-08.
- ^'Nitobi Enters Into Acquisition Agreement with Adobe'. Adobe. Archived from the original on 2012-02-18. Retrieved 2012-01-20.
- ^'Adobe acquires Typekit'. Typekit. Archived from the original on 2012-02-07. Retrieved 2012-02-10.
- ^'Adobe acquires video ad platform Auditude for $120M (updated)'. November 2011.
- ^'Adobe Acquires Efficient Frontier To Boost Its Digital Marketing Solutions'.
- ^'Adobe Acquired Portfolio Service Behance For More Than $150 Million In Cash And Stock'.
- ^'Adobe Completes Acquisition of Neolane'.
- ^'Adobe to Buy Neolane for $600 Million to Add Marketing Tools'. June 28, 2013 – via www.bloomberg.com.
- ^'Adobe Acquires Photo-Editing Platform Aviary'. Techcrunch.
- ^'Adobe Completes Acquisition of Fotolia'. Adobe Systems.
- ^'Unlocking The Power of 3D for The Creative Community – Adobe Acquires Mixamo'. Adobe Systems.[permanent dead link]
- ^'Adobe Completes Acquisition of Livefyre | Adobe'. 2016-05-10. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
- ^'Adobe is acquiring ad tech company TubeMogul for $540 million'. Business Insider. Retrieved 2016-11-10.
- ^'Adobe Bets on Voice with Sayspring Acquisition'. Retrieved 2018-04-18.
- ^'Adobe acquires Uru, an AI startup that embeds ads in videos'. Retrieved 2018-12-22.
- ^Miller, Ron (2018-05-21). 'Adobe to acquire Magento for $1.68B'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
- ^'Adobe gets its company, snaring Marketo for $4.75 billion'. TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2020-07-01. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
- ^Gagliordi, Natalie (2019-01-23). 'Adobe acquires 3D texture firm Allegorithmic'. ZDNet. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
- ^Miller, Ron (2020-11-09). 'Adobe acquires marketing workflow startup Workfront for $1.5B'. TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-12-23.
- ^'Adobe to Acquire Frame.io'. businesswire. Retrieved 2021-08-19.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires a minority stake in Verity Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Systems Inc acquires a minority stake in Crosswise Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Ventures acquires a minority stake in Siebel Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Ventures acquires a minority stake in Fractal Design Corp'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Adobe Sys Software Ireland Ltd acquires a minority stake in Skysoft Co Ltd'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Paracomp Inc acquires Macromind Inc from Adobe Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Investor Group acquires Luminous Corp(Adobe Systems) from Adobe Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'INSO Corp acquires Adobe Systems-MasterSoft Prods from Adobe Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Creative Internet Solutions acquires ChangeMedia(Allaire Corp) from Adobe Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Calian Technology Ltd acquires Why Interactive Inc from Adobe Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
- ^'Lotus Development Corp(IBM) acquires Macromedia Inc-Pathware Bus from Adobe Systems Inc'. Thomson Financial. Retrieved 2008-10-03.
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_acquisitions_by_Adobe&oldid=1062726503'
Photoshop history can be traced back to 1987, which was the year when Knoll brothers decided to develop a program for viewing grayscale pictures on a monochrome screen that soon became the industry standard.
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Photoshop that was celebrated on February 19th, 2022, I’m going to tell you about how Photoshop, the most popular software for editing graphics, was created.
Brief Photoshop History
It was the year of 1987 when a Michigan Ph.D. student, Thomas Knoll realized that Mac+ (which was the 3rd Mac computer ever released) only had a basic 1-bit black-and-white screen that wasn’t capable of showing grayscale images. He attempted to develop a program to solve that issue, thus setting the foundation for the history of Photoshop.
Thomas also had a brother named John, who was involved in the making of the first Star Wars movie and specialized in VFX. He endorsed his brother’s initiative and proposed to develop it into a full-fledged program for image editing. This means that the answer to “When was Photoshop invented?” is – 1988, however, its original name was Display (soon changed to Image-Pro).
The created program could print rack cards. It entered the market in 1988 and was already packed with a handful of image display functions. The same year the program was rebranded into Photoshop.
The history of Adobe Photoshop began in September 1988, when Adobe and the Knolls agreed to a business deal. The former gained exclusive rights while the developers continued to improve the program, leading to the eventual release of the premiere Photoshop version in 1990.
- Read more about how to buy Photoshop at the cheapest price.
1987. Photoshop: Beginning
The history of Photoshop begins in 1987, in the city of Ann Arbor (state of Michigan), a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, Thomas Knoll wrote a couple of lines of code for displaying information on screens while he was working on his dissertation.
That code allowed showing grayscale images on black-and-white monitors. While that side project wasn’t directly related to his dissertation, it caught Thomas’ attention the most.
At the same time, his older brother John was already working in California for the Industry Light and Magic Company, which specialized in creating visual effects for the Lucasfilm studio. Working on VFX always caused a lot of technical difficulties, part of which was supposed to be solved by Pixar Image computers that cost $135,000.
John received a demo version of the Pixar graphics editor and was highly impressed by it. Pixar allowed users to resize the image, rotate and blur it, perform color correction, and combine two images. It seemed like a miracle back then. John became even more impressed when he saw something similar on his brother’s Mac Plus PC (that cost $2599). The Photoshop inventor named his creation Display.
1987-1988. In-Depth “Display” Development
Having a knack for entrepreneurship, John realized that such an opportunity cannot be missed. It was thanks to his older brother’s business skills that these lines of code become known to the world. John immediately bought the newly released Macintosh II with a color screen. After a minor rework, Display, which previously only worked with black-and-white images, started supporting color screens, gamma correction, and image saving.
Later, Thomas made Display support different file formats and developed a zone selection algorithm. At the same time, the program gains color correction functionality and drawing tools. John also wasn’t wasting time and worked on the concept of connectable modules (plug-ins), becoming the founder of that idea.
Despite all of that, Thomas didn’t share his brother’s optimism and continued to treat his program as a hobby, not dedicating enough time to it. Meanwhile, John was completely captured by that project. He had to convince his brother to continue improving the editor since he became the first user of the program.
Adobe Photoshop Free Download
By focusing on the problem of changing colors only on the selected part of an image, Tom develops an algorithm for soft-edge area selection and color correction features that continue to exist to this day (Levels, Color Balance, Hue, and Saturation), as well as Photoshop tools for drawing. Since that point in 1988 Display no longer was a simple program for viewing images, they renamed it to ImagePro.
- Read more about how to use Adobe Photoshop Online.
![Adobe Adobe](https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/uploaded/old-software/graphic-software/adobe-photoshop/adobe-photoshop-2-5-preview.png)
1988. ImagePro Promotion
John knew perfectly well that this program, along with the functionality embedded in it, will be useful for everyone dealing with image processing, meaning, it could become a source of income. He became even more confident after seeing an advertisement for the PhotoMac image editor, which was doing basically the same things as Display.
At that point, most publishing houses were beginning to use personal computers for work, which significantly simplified the process of creating layouts and image editing. All they needed was a good, convenient graphics editor.
During the demonstration of PhotoMac’s capabilities, John was surprised at how unfinished and limited it was compared to ImagePro. One of their potential investors had an idea of rebranding the program one more time. From that point on, Display and ImagePro ceased to exist as Photoshop was revealed to the world.
During a long search for someone ready to sponsor them, brothers contacted a company that manufactured scanners – Barneyscan. The Barneyscan Company didn’t buy the program but gained rights to share Photoshop with their scanners. They managed to sell 200 such scanners, which was quite good at that time.
- Adobe has excellent Photoshop Student Discounts.
1988-1989. The Start of Cooperation with Adobe
After a certain period of wandering from one company to another, brothers ended up at Adobe. After presenting their program, they didn’t receive any partnership offers until Photoshop wasn’t seen by Adobe’s art director – Russel Brown.
He insisted on immediately purchasing Photoshop. After briefly negotiating the financial and copyright aspects of the deal in September 1988, Knoll brothers signed an agreement that gave Adobe the license to distribute Photoshop as long as they remained the owners of the program and Adobe acted solely as the distributor, paying out royalties to the developers, thus beginning the history of Adobe Photoshop.
Tom and John Knoll began to work on the program with even more dedication, preparing it for the first official release as a separate product. Thomas continued to update the program itself, fix bugs, and improve its appearance. Meanwhile, John started developing plug-ins that were aimed at more convenient product customization, improving its performance, and adding special features of Photoshop.
Adobe employees noticed that fact and even suspected that brothers might try to deceive Adobe. At one point the company was even divided into the supporters of the plugin idea and outspoken haters. However, as the history shows, Photoshop plug-ins became one of the defining features of Photoshop.
- Read more about Adobe Creative Cloud Alternatives.
1990. The Release of Adobe Photoshop 1.0
February 19, 1990, marked the release of the first official version of Photoshop 1.0. In history Photoshop, this date is considered to be the program’s birthday. Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was released on Macintosh and immediately became popular and successful.
This wasn’t surprising as Photoshop’s closest competitor, Letraset’s Color Studio, only had half of its features, but cost twice as much as the Adobe product, a whopping $1995.
Creating a good program isn’t enough, it also has to be properly marketed and advertised. Adobe’s art director showcased the program’s functionality at numerous exhibitions and managed to present Photoshop as a graphics editor for everyone who has a Mac computer. The competitors that promoted ColorStudio did the opposite and positioned their editor as a product for professionals, which severely limited its audience.
When the MacWorld magazine decided to do a comparative test of both products performing real tasks to finally answer which option was the superior one, Fractal Design higher-ups didn’t come up with anything better than sending a regular programmer, who never held a brush in his hands.
Meanwhile, Adobe sent John Knoll who also happened to have decent artistic skills. The result was obvious. Naturally, the readers that had no way of knowing that the test wasn’t completely fair, formed a better opinion about Photoshop.
1990-1992. Team Recruitment and Windows Release
Soon it became obvious that Tom couldn’t continue to support and improve the program alone. From a variety of candidates, they have chosen Mark Hamburg, who previously worked with Bezier curves.
Since Adobe Illustrator, which was also experiencing a period of rapid development, needed a file rasterizer, Mark was a perfect candidate for the job. And once Steven Guttman joined the team and became the Photoshop’s head development manager, they started the tradition of giving all beta versions of the editor a name.
Photoshop’s development for the actively growing OS by Microsoft seemed like a logical next step. Of course, Windows also received this graphics editor, but only in 1992, with the 2.0 version.
However, despite the developers’ best efforts, the Windows version was inferior to Macintosh both feature and performance-wise, since it had to be created from scratch. To mitigate that injustice, the team invited Seetharaman Narayanan. Due to his huge contribution to the improvement of the program, he is now listed third in the list of developers.
1994. Developing the Recognizable Interface of Adobe Programs
Adobe Photoshop 1999 Free
At that time, the company was developing a rather large number of products and each one had its own interface that had little in common with the rest. Even the names of commands that performed the same action were different.
All of that created inconveniences for users, which is why Adobe’s management decides to rework the design of the programs so that the entire product line has the same, easily-recognizable interface with elements designed in the same style. They wooed over Andrei Herasimchuk from Specular Collage to complete that task.
Andrei performed an entire series of psychological experiments and introduced significant adjustments to the “behavior” of most tools.
He initiated a complete rework of the tool panel and some commands got new hotkey combinations. The initial reaction of the graphic designer community was pure shock. However, despite the large scope of changes, users adapted to them rather quickly since the innovations accounted for the nature of human psychology and adhere to our internal logic.
1995-1997. Buying Out All the Competitors and Purchasing Full Rights for Photoshop
At that point in Photoshop history, Adobe had already bought-out their main competitor – Aldus and added their effects for artistic image editing to Photoshop including Artistic (imitates various artistic techniques), Brush Strokes, and Sketch.
Later, Adobe bought out PhotoStyler, x-Res, Picture Publisher and Live Picture, and became the undisputed leader on the raster graphics editor market. A serious portion of book publishing became occupied by Photoshop-oriented literature. There were more and more courses that taught people how to use the program, and video lessons sold on tapes started to appear left and right.
Adobe’s monopoly allowed their management to purchase the remaining program rights from Knoll brothers and finish building a new 12 story office building (which is still called “This is the house that Photoshop built.”)
2022. Photoshop: Our Days
Nowadays, the program is called Photoshop CC and it reached its maximum level of development a couple of years ago. Each new update only adds small conveniences and advanced features of Photoshop aimed at improving the AI. Photoshop itself doesn’t have any equal competitors in the photo retouching, drawing, and web-design markets.
John’s determination and adept business sense and Tom’s programming talent helped the brothers, who invented Photoshop give life to the most popular graphics editor in existence. Obviously, Photoshop wouldn’t be where it is today without the coordinated efforts of all Adobe departments and the management’s talent.
The professionalism of Adobe’s management was crucial for making Photoshop their key product and the main source of income for the company. Its financial turnover exceeds 1.2 billion dollars as Adobe became a true graphics empire that dictates the rules to other players on the market.
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Freebies
If reading Photoshop history inspired you to use it or if you have already been doing image editing in Photoshop for a long time, you’ll find these free actions, overlays, and brushes to be super useful.
Package for Portraits
A useful set of actions for users, who mainly edit portraits. The package includes quick filters for teeth-whitening, eye cleaning, skin and hair retouching, etc.
Adobe Photoshop 1999 Free
- Read more about How to Use Photoshop Actions.
Package for Bokeh
Adobe Photoshop 7.0
Creating a beautiful bokeh can be quite difficult as it requires a great lens and a specific background. If you didn’t manage to do it during the shoot, then you can add a bokeh effect with the help of overlays from this package.
- Check out how to get Adobe Photoshop for free.
Package for Cloud
A beautiful sky in a street photo is 50% of a beautiful background. If you were “lucky” enough to capture clear skies without a single cloud, then the brushes from this package will surely come in handy.
Ann Young
Adobe Photoshop 1999 Full
Hi there, I'm Ann Young - a professional blogger, read more