Adobe Photoshop is twenty years old today - doesn't time fly?
In typing that, I am transported back to Linotype's Brentford showroom, timeframe circa 1991. It is a Saturday. I am attempting to manipulate some image files for, if I remember correctly, various Bowater businesses. They are off to Germany to do some extensive testing on Heidelberg machines, including the then-revolutionary GTO DI direct imaging press.
I'm trying to get the digital colour files set up correctly, and this involves fixing a skew on one particularly large image file. The machine is a Macintosh IIfx, no doubt with its maximum memory allocation of 128Mb. 128Mb!!! Via a former colleague with a far better memory than mine (thanks Cliff), I am reminded that it may well have had the benefit of a Yarc image processing board too. Despite all this, the IIfx hasn't got a big enough brain to cope with the processing task at hand, and every single change made requires a 15 minute pause while its cogs turn. Watching the glacial movement of the progress bar is excruciating. I truly thought I was going to go insane. This was also before the arrival of clever plug-ins that allowed one to set up the required tasks and then leave a Mac running while heading for the pub. Even then, it was often the case that a machine left processing overnight would crash part-way through its task. Cue much shouting and bad language upon returning to work the next morning.
No wonder the likes of Quantel, Hell, Crosfield and Scitex thought future sales of their high-end graphic workstations would be safe. It didn't turn out that way, of course, Photoshop became more and more sophisticated, computers got faster and faster, and Quantel's subsequent attempt to take Adobe to court for patent infringement failed spectacularly.
Nowadays, the extent of Photoshop's ubiquity is evidenced in its worldwide user base of 10 million. It also has a Facebook group with 400,000 members. It truly has been a transformational tool for our industry. Visit this special 20th anniversary page to indulge in some reminiscing along with Thomas and John Knoll, Steve Guttman et al - it's amusing to hear how they struggled to find an appropriate name for it all those years ago. And of course, it's the ideal excuse to revisit one of my own favourite sources for an instant cheer-up - Photoshop Disasters, the showcase for inept use that demonstrates the dark side of the programme. Check out the recent post featuring an uncharacteristic Apple reflection boo-boo, with the laugh-out-loud tagline: "Apple: can we blame this on Adobe?".
I have also just been reminded by 'im indoors that during a Christmas party game with a bunch of friends a few years back, his answer to the question: "What is the greatest love of your life?" was "Adobe Photoshop". Nuff said.
