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Overview
Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor originally created by Thomas Knoll, a Ph.D. student who began writing the program in 1987 to display grayscale images on a Macintosh Plus. His brother John Knoll, then working at Industrial Light & Magic, encouraged him to expand it into a full image editing application. After a short-lived name change to “ImagePro,” the program was renamed Photoshop, and Adobe purchased the license to distribute it in September 1988. Photoshop 1.0 shipped on February 19, 1990, for Macintosh only, at an initial price of $895.
Since then, Photoshop has been maintained and developed by Adobe Inc. and has become the industry standard for photo editing, digital painting, and image compositing across photography, graphic design, and digital art. It is distributed exclusively through Adobe Creative Cloud, either as a standalone single-app subscription or as part of the multi-app Creative Cloud All Apps plan. Recent versions have added AI-assisted tools such as Generative Fill and Generative Expand, powered by Adobe’s Firefly image-generation models, alongside neural filters built on Adobe Sensei and AI-assisted subject/object selection.
Key Features
- Layer-based editing — Non-destructive editing with layers, masks, and adjustment layers
- Brush engine — Extensive brush customization for digital painting
- Selection tools — Advanced selection tools including subject selection and object selection
- Filters and effects — Extensive library of filters including neural filters powered by Adobe Sensei
- RAW editing — Built-in Camera Raw plugin for processing RAW photos
- Generative AI — Generative Fill and Generative Expand using Adobe Firefly
Use Cases
- Photographers — Photo retouching, color correction, and RAW processing
- Graphic designers — Creating marketing materials, web assets, and composites
- Digital artists — Illustration and matte painting
- Web designers — UI mockups and web graphics
Who It’s For
Photoshop is aimed at professional photographers, graphic designers, digital artists, and anyone who needs advanced image manipulation capabilities. It is available via Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, either as a single-app plan or bundled with other Adobe apps in the All Apps plan.
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