This is what it was like to work in Photoshop 1.0
Mar 6, 2017
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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The 1990s brought a real revolution in digital technology. Considering that this era brought us digital cameras, broader use of PCs and Internet, we can say that it was revolutionary for photographers, too. And this revolution wouldn’t be complete without the most famous editing tool – Photoshop.
In this demo, one of the inventors of this software, John Knoll, demonstrates what the program was like at its very beginning. Now that the technology is so advanced, it’s interesting to take a peek at Photoshop’s early days.
While I was making my first baby steps, brothers John and Thomas Knoll were making their first steps towards creating history. They officially released Photoshop 1.0 on February 19, 1990. It soon became the major tool for photographers all over the world, although it was initially imagined as a program for special effects. It has gone a long way since the release, as computes, cameras, and the program itself have changed.
In John Knoll’s demo, you can see the use of some tools that existed in Photoshop 1.0, and still exist today. He uses Lasso Tool and Magic Wand, changes the opacity and colors of the selections and so on. He demonstrates the Brush Tool and the soft edges it had, which was quite a novelty at the time.
Today, Adobe Photoshop is available only as a subscription-based service. It has undergone many other changes and, of course, became way more advanced. But certain tools like Eyedropper, the Pencil, the Eraser or the Lasso Tool have remained ever since. It fascinates me to see how well a photo editing program was organized and used such a long time ago, and how far it has gone in a relatively short time.
I was only a baby when Photoshop 1.0 was released, so the first version I used was 7.0. What was the first version you used? Do you remember version 1.0 and did you use it? Share your experiences in the comments, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
[Photoshop: The First Demo via FStoppers]
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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13 responses to “This is what it was like to work in Photoshop 1.0”
I do remember seeing it on a mac at the computer store in the mall here.
I used it, but we called it “MS Paint”. :P
I use GIMP…
Gimp wasn’t around till 5-6 years later
I was using it. Revolutionary app at his time. Only 6 items in the menu ? and noooo layers ?. Provided on a single floppy disk (visible on the upper right of the screenshot). Should have the original floppy somewhere in my cave.
I think I started with 1.5 and kept going from there.
Earliest version I’ve ever used is 2.0, but 5.5 was already out at the time.
Yep! I used PS 1, 2, 3… Around 7, I started skipping versions and just upgraded every two years. Of course I now have the subscription version (and am now retired, just using PS for my travel photos and a composite now and then).
In the earliest days, about all I used it for was designing icons and user interface elements. I was a Mac software developer starting in 1984, on the very first Mac (got mine in May of that year), and made my living doing exclusively Mac software until 2000, when the Mac market collapsed and I moved to multi-platform development — continuing to use PS for a lot of user interface design. (I started software development in 1973 on a PDP 11/05, long before anything like “user interface” was even dreamed of)
Do you have a digital darkroom screen shot? Greyscale only.
I started with 4.0
I remember Adobe Illustrator ’88.
started with 2.0 – as mentioned – no layers, it was a haggle saving marquees and pasting into it – once you let the marquee go, the pasted graphics was set… started out of curiousity of what could be done in this digital darkroom. Now days i mostly use LR instead
I had Photoshop 2, imagine waiting 20 minutes to see an effect, and quickly clicking undo, and the trying again until you got what you wanted 2 days later!?