We’d like to welcome our new web editing and admin team, who will be adding more frequent updates to this blog. Watch this space…
Jan 192011
Jun 062010
We thought we’d give you a brief history lesson on Photoshop, starting with the very first iteration released in 1988.
1988
Thomas Knoll writes a small program called ?Display? on his Mac Plus. This program would shortly be known as Photoshop…
1989
Thomas? brother John Knoll (of Industrial Light and Magic) joins in. ?Adobe acquires the license to distribute Photoshop. With Russell Brown onside, development continues, features are added and improvements are made.
1990
Photoshop 1.0 ships!
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Later that year, Photoshop 2.0 (codenamed ?Fast Eddy?) ships and with an expanded coding crew (including Mark Hamburg and Steven Guttman) new features are added: ?B?zier paths (the pen tool), Illustrator file compatibility and support for CMYK colour and Duotones, making Photoshop extremely appealing to design professional and the print market.
1992
A new team (headed by Bryan Lamkin) is brought in to add/create Photoshop support for the PC (previously it was exclusive to Mac OS). Not much in the way of new features for this release and so this iteration is shipped as version 2.5.
1994
Photoshop 3.0 is released, featuring the single most important aspect of Photoshop development: Layers! This feature widened the market to include artists, marketing departments and creative sorts and encouraged a whole new audience to learn Photoshop!
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1996
Photoshop 4 (codenamed: ?Big Electric Cat?) is released. The biggest features added in this version are Adjustment layers and Actions, a feature which is still taught today.
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1998
Photoshop 5 arrives with editable type, a history palette (and multiple undo), a reworked colour management system, and the magnetic lasso. The following year saw the release of Photoshop 5.5. Primarily created to add webdesign support to its awesome arsenal of tools, this version shipped with imageready and added ?save for web? features.
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2000
Photoshop 6 is released. Codenamed ?Venus In Furs?, this version added Vector shapes, a completely overhauled user interface, The ?liquify? filter and layer styles.
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2002
Photoshop 7 (and later 7.0.1) is released. New features in this release included full-vector text, a healing brush, a painting engine and camera raw support.
2003
Photoshop CS (aka Photoshop 8 ) was released.
Adobe’s “Creative Suite” rebranding leads to Photoshop 8′s renaming to Photoshop CS.
Codenamed: ?Dark Matter?, this version updated Camera RAW to version 2 and included a new and improved slice tool. The Shadow/Highlight command was also added and other features included: the ?Match Color? command, the ?Lens Blur? filter, Smart Guides, a real-time histogram, detection and refusal to print scanned images of various banknotes, scripting support and layer groups. The ?Creative Suite? rebranding also resulted multiple Adobe programs offered for a reduced price in the form of different ?Editions?. Adobe Photoshop is included in the majority of Creative Suite editions.
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2005
Photoshop CS2 (aka Photoshop 9) was released.
The most talked-about innovation introduced in this iteration was ?Smart Objects?, which opened up new creative possibilities but behind the scenes there was better memory management (resulting in a ?faster Photoshop?) and modified layer selection. Implementation of HDRI (High dynamic range imaging) support (32 bits per channel floating point), the lens correction feature and the update of Camera Raw to version 3 made Photoshop more appealing to Photographers and media specialists. For everyone else, Adobe added Image warp, vanishing point, smart guides, smart sharpen and for retouching: the red-eye tool and the spot healing brush.
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2007
Photoshop CS3, a faster-launching version of the popular program sporting a revised UI and even more camera raw features was released. This version of Photoshop added auto align and auto blend, mobile device support and improvement to the retouching tools, specifically the cloning and healing brushes. Native support for Intel-based Macs and improved support for Windows Vista was also apparent in Cs3, as were the quick selection tool, and the black & White adjustment layer (with new smart non-destructive filter support). For photographers, ?also better HDR Support (32 bit) with more intuitive layers, brightness and contrast adjustments, and filters and painting for HDR were introduced. There were also improvements to the channel mixer, Curves, the vanishing point filter and of course, the print dialog.
2008
Photoshop CS4, the most recent and 11th release of Adobe Photoshop was released. CS4 added native support for 64-bit processors, better raw image processing and OpenGL display acceleration. For photographers, an improved Photoshop Lightroom workflow, extended depth of field functionality and massive improvements on the colour-correction front were also present. UI enhancements included content aware scaling, smoother zooming, panning and rotation, a masks panel and an adjustments panel, and the most useful tabbed document layout ever! Finally, we have auto blending of images, auto alignment of layers and improved file-management? (and workspaces ) in Bridge CS4.
On the 30th April, Photoshop CS4 Extended was released. An enhanced version of the existing CS4, it added more capabilities for those that work with 3D, as well as scientific imaging.
2010
Photoshop CS5, the latest version of the progam, was released in April. It added new features such as content aware filling, a variety of brush enhancements (including the ability to simulate the physics of the brush) and the Puppet Warp Tool (which allows the user to move items around in an image).
And there you have it; a?brief history of Photoshop. Seeing as you?ve read this far, here?s a nice little Easter Egg for you to try that should work in most (if not all) versions of Photoshop. When using the program, if you click ?Help? and then click ?About Photoshop? while holding the Ctrl key, a cool splash screen will appear instead of the normal one, showing off the program?s codename. We?ve included some examples below to show you what we mean. 
![adobe-cs4-stonehenge[1]](http://www.londontechtraining.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/adobe-cs4-stonehenge1.jpg "adobe-cs4-stonehenge[1]")
![adobe-photoshop-cs5-white-rabbit-full[1]](http://www.londontechtraining.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/adobe-photoshop-cs5-white-rabbit-full1.jpg "adobe-photoshop-cs5-white-rabbit-full[1]")
You can find the dates for our popular indesign training courses and photoshop training courses by clicking on those links or going through the Londontech Training homepage.
Oct 192009
We’ve just upgraded our blog database to the latest version and hope to bring you lots of resources including Photoshop, Illustrator and indesign material. Enjoy the site and don’t forget to check out our courses page.
Although most of our students are adults, we have decided to add a resource section for younger learners as research shows that there is very little available online in terms?worksheets and exercises for children.?These resources are designed to help you understand the methods your child will learn to perform the operations of numeracy & literacy. Children move through these stages at their own speed according to their ability and preferred learning style. Hence, children in?similar year groups at school?may be at very different stages.
There is a continued emphasis on?mental methods?throughout the schooling process?and children are encouraged to estimate first, even when they know more formal methods. This avoids careless mistakes and reliance on method rather than on knowledge. During the early years most?exercises are?based on informal methods or jottings.?Later,?learners will be competent in using the standard methods many of us learned in school. However, since many other methods rely on?pressing the right buttons in the right order?rather than on reasoning and understanding, these resources are aimed at introducing?expanded visual learning methods.
It is important not to confuse children in the earlier stages by introducing the formal method too soon.
?The resources page can be found here