Hard to believe this milestone. Personally, I always thought the infamous software made its debut in the late Eighties because of a memory I have from my time at Marquette. While I was taking a basic layout/design course, the lab had a poster on the wall showing all these cool modifications the program did to six people’s faces, namely putting colors and patterns on them, transforming them into masks. In 1989 this was very impressive after what computers did in Tron and the Dire Straits’ video. Somebody asked Professor Brill about our Mac Pluses having this software installed or getting it acquired. Her reply was something to the effect about about how cheap the Journalism department could be. I know that if we found a way to make it part of the basketball team’s budget we’d get it; 20 years later and academic/artistic matters still lose out to sports as the current UT row proves.
Today, Photoshop is practically joined at the hip with Macs. Seriously, I have yet to see a copy (legit or pirated) on a Windows-based PC let alone any graphic designer/artist worth a damn insisting on using a Dell, HP or Sony.
The Guardian published a great piece on the digital airbrush here. If the software were a guitar, then my skill level would be equal to playing scales and doing a great Pete Townshend windmill move.
I’m in the Adobe camp about not using Photoshop as a verb. The general laziness of people turning nouns into verbs makes my skin crawl. It’s right up there with the incorrect usage of “grow” and hyperbolized “impact” by America’s Business Caste.
Here’s a great showcase of disasters made with the Knoll Brothers’ creation. Even Stalin’s flunkies did a better job than Berlusconi’s stooges.