The history of PS

[ash24june]

Out of curiosity has Photoshop always had non-destructive abilities or has that been a more recent thing? I first started with CS5, self-taught, so before that time I have no knowledge of how it was.

Thanks!

[davescm]

See here for some history:

Adobe Photoshop version history - Wikipedia

Adjustment layers came in with PS 4.0 and smart objects with CS2

Dave

[jane-e]

Hi ash24june

Layers were introduced in PS 3.0 and text was raster until 5.0 when it became editable. We had one undo and no History panel.

Before 3.0, floating selections were the best we had, and they lasted until you deselected.

Non-destructive editing came in stages.

~ Jane

[Trevor.Dennis]

As Jane has said, Layers came with version 3.0.  I started with version 4, and as basic it would seem to us, it was fantastic at the time.

I came to Photoshop from an Amiga 1000 and Delux Paint (I think version IV) and while I don't remember layers, it was incredible for its time.  It did the sort of three dimensional animations with text, that we associate with After Effects, but at a much lower resolution of course.

Hah!  I just did a double take when looking for screen shots of the UI.  Daniel Silva is one of my favourite authors, but it's not the same person.

[jane-e]

Trevor.Dennis​

Trevor, the thing that jumps out at me in your image is the color! My first Windows computer was a Compaq 286 and my first Mac was an SE/30. Neither had a color monitor — we just worked by the numbers.

Mac SE/30 | Low End Mac

[Silkrooster]

I remember deluxe paint. I was amazed at the color cycling. That was around when 256 colors were being introduced. At that time my monitor displayed 16 colors. Back when it was possible to name the colors. LOL.
As for photoshop, I started with CS2 (officially) but did have a copy of photoshop 5 non-retail version. Back when I was selling computers. Didn't know how to use it or why I would need to. But thought it was cool. If I recall it was around the time when Adobe purchased the rights to Pagemaker. (Sorry for any typo's my memory has an old timers leak)

[jane-e]

Time travel back to Photoshop 1.0 with Terry White:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z5CyX5NEnzk

[Ronald Keller]

Thank you Jane for this link.

I am a Photoshop user since version 2.5 which was the first version for Windows. You can image I watched this video with much interest.

I had more or less forgotten how Spartan the interface was back then. But even so it was a spectacular program and I am glad I bought it even if cost me an arm and a leg at that time...

Thanks again.

Ronald

[Trevor.Dennis]

jane-e  wrote

Time travel back to Photoshop 1.0 with Terry White:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z5CyX5NEnzk

Jane, I loved the video.  I loved the bit where Russell Brown having seen the Knoll brother's presentation, ran into the boss' office and said 'Buy this now!'.  And what a good call that was.  I  was also taken back to the days of floppy disks.  I can't remember how many floppies Photoshop 4 came on, but MS Office came on something like 30 1.44Mb floppies.  When you consider that those floppies were  not desperately reliable in those days, it was a relief to get to the last disk without problems.

I've just done a wee Google, and MS used special high density floppies  for media distribution, with a capacity of 1.68Mb.  I used an application called Turnpike for email and Usenet when I moved to a PC.  It was 10Mb, and took over half an hour to download. You could pretty much hear the individual tones (just about) of the modem!

I can't remember the exact display spec of my Amiga 1000, but I think  it was 16 colours at high res, and 256 colours at the reduced res.   I remeber thinking it pretty damn cool at the time though, and it was incredible being able to overly graphics onto video with a cheap genlock.   I  also  had  a hard drive update in mine.  By heck, they were soooooo ahead of their time!

Getting back to Terry's demo of 1.0, while it had limitations, it must have seemed like magic at the time.  I don't think Russell Brown was easy to impress, and it sounds like he was totally blown away.

[jane-e]

Trevor.Dennis  wrote

jane-e   wrote

Time travel back to Photoshop 1.0 with Terry White:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z5CyX5NEnzk

Jane, I loved the video.

I had not seen Terry’s video before, but I thought to look for it because I’ve seen the one on Illustrator 1.0 so many times.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xv3xl2B6yUs

It makes me laugh to see how to draw a flower, but I remember teaching that very same technique oh-so-many years ago. I’m afraid to give a number for the exact number of years because a former colleague who is an ACP accidentally gave a wrong number in another thread and got blasted for it by an MVP yesterday.

When I was doing some serious Marie Kondo type cleaning a few years ago, I gave my PS 3.0 disks and manuals to a current colleague who is ACP, so they still exist, and maybe he’ll give me visitation rights if I ask.

I started with Word 2.0 and Excel 4.0 and they didn’t become Microsoft Office and ship together until about 6.0 (I think; I’m not looking it up.)

I agree about Russell Brown, and he still impresses me everytime I see him at a conference. He is almost on par with you, Trevor!

ash24june​: thank you so much for asking this question!

[Semaphoric]

The first version I ever got was 3.0, which I was given by Adobe as a replacement for Aldus Photostyler, after Adobe acquired Aldus. I never installed it, though, as I was sent a copy of 4.0 mere days later.

My first graphics software was Tom Hudson's DEGAS for the Atari ST:

    

Tom went on to fame as one of the creators (along with Daniel Silva) of Autodesk's 3DStudio.

[ash24june]

Thanks, everyone! This is all super fascinating. I did read the wikipdia page, before coming here. But I figured I get a better understanding by asking actual users.

Ash24June