The WebDev Buzz

The Adobe Photoshop was developed by Thomas Knoll and his brother John Knoll.  Its first version (simply called Version 1) was released by the Adobe Systems company in 1990.  Since then, later versions were created and each new version exceeds the features of the previous ones.  The new and exciting innovations made the Adobe Photoshop the most famous program ever created by Adobe Systems.

In the beginning, the Adobe Photoshop program was utilized to manipulate pictures or images captured by a scanner.  But now, this software can be used to put together images for websites.  In fact, many images in the World Wide Web today were produced using the latest Adobe Photoshop versions.

Aside from manipulating images, the Adobe Photoshop is capable of animation, authoring, and media editing.  Together with other programs, such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe ImageReady, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Encore DVD, the Photoshop can do more complicated tasks.  Some of these tasks include the creation of professional standard DVDs, and the production of special effects (such as backgrounds and textures) for movies, television, and the web.

Being a graphics editor preferred by many professionals, the Adobe Photoshop has the ability handle various color models, such as RGB color model, Lab color model, CMYK color model, Grayscale, Bitmap, and Duotone.

Today, the latest Adobe Photoshop version is called Version 9 or “Photoshop CS2”.  There are several radical changes in this newest version.  First, the use of CS in its name implies that the software is part of the new Adobe’s Creative Suite.  The number “2” indicates that this was the second software released after Adobe changed product brands using the CS program.

Another radical change is the absence of the usual Photoshop eye.  The eye was replaced by feathers.  And still another change is the addition of Adobe Camera RAW, which can read files from digital cameras.  This last amazing feature is a plug-in developed by Thomas Knoll.

The Adobe Photoshop, with its progressive developments, has begun to influence the culture of the society.  The altered images brought by this software now appear in the editorial pages of newspapers.  Such images show exaggerated and sometimes facetious alterations.  And often, the Adobe Photoshop is utilized in attaching faces of celebrities onto a nude body.

The Adobe Photoshop also opened the door to a process called “digi-modding” or “virtual tuning”.  Instead of using faces and bodies, the digi-modding uses cars.  The images of cars are altered and the final products, called “photo-manipulated cars”, can be considered as works of art.

The Adobe Photoshop can also be used in a competitive “sport”.  Obviously, the skills of one artist are pitted against those of another.  Such competition is called “Photoshop Tennis”.  What actually happens is that two Photoshop artists pass back and forth a certain Photoshop image file.  Both artists implement changes on the image.  After the agreed number of turns, an independent judge is invited to analyze the image and to choose a winner.

Even with such subtle yet irreversible changes on culture, the Adobe Photoshop’s full potential is not yet fully realized.  In the near future, it can still make a greater impact on the society.