Celebrating 30 Years of Photoshop

Looking back, it’s easy to see that the year 1990 was a turning point in history and culture. It saw the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the internet. It was also when Adobe released version 1.0 of a little program called Photoshop.

It’s hard to overstate the cultural impact that Photoshop has had over the course of three decades as graphic design trends seemed to follow the introduction of new Photoshop features (hello, drop shadow!).

Nowadays Photoshop is simply ubiquitous. It’s in the dictionary as a noun and a verb. It’s used on a daily basis by millions of people in dozens of industries around the world. From artists to advertisers, medical researchers to meme makers, everyone uses Photoshop.

The Photoshop Team Interview

To help celebrate three decades of Photoshop, a panel discussion was held at this year’s CreativePro Week. Over the course of an hour, host David Blatner interviewed key figures on the current Photoshop team at Adobe to get their thoughts and remembrances. It’s a lively and fun talk, with lots of candid reactions, behind-the-scenes details, and laughs. You can check it out here.

Photoshop at CreativePro

Here at CreativePro, folks have been writing about Photoshop since 1999, when Bruce Fraser wrote one of his first “Out of Gamut” articles on how to get the best results from your scanner. Since then, we’ve published hundreds of articles, reviews, tips, and tutorials for Photoshop users. Here’s a list of the top 30 most popular posts of all time:

Top 30 Photoshop Posts at CreativePro

Creating Automatic Crop Marks and Bleed in Photoshop

How to Fill Text With Images in Photoshop

How to Make Amazing Halftone Effects with Photoshop

Turn Color Photos into Duotones in Photoshop

Creating a Retro Comic Book Effect in Photoshop

How to Make a Rippling Flag in Photoshop

Reducing the total ink limit in CMYK images using Photoshop

Add Realistic Artwork to a Wrinkled Surface with Photoshop’s Displacement Map

How to Turn a Photograph Into a Cartoon in Photoshop

How to Make a Rubber Stamp Effect in Photoshop

Photoshop 2020 New Features

Selectively Adjust Color in Photoshop

Know Your Photoshop Distortion Tools

Using Isolate Layers in Photoshop CC

Know Your Photoshop File Sizes

Turning an Image to Pure Black and White in Photoshop

Combine Images Creatively in Photoshop

Photoshop How-To: Trace on Object without the Pen Tool

Save and Export Photoshop Files Effectively

Make an eBlast Promotion with Photoshop and HTML/CSS

Using Photoshop’s Plastic Wrap Filter

How to Create a Burnt Paper Effect in Photoshop

CreativePro Tip of the Week: Find the Size of a Layer in Photoshop

How to Create Seamless Textures in Photoshop

How To Create a Kaleidoscope Pattern in Photoshop

Photoshop How-To: Printing Separations in Color

Five Faster Ways to Get Images Into Photoshop

Creating an Out of Bounds Effect in Photoshop

Generating Image Assets in Photoshop CC

Frequency Separation Retouching in Photoshop

Photoshop Videos

There are millions of Photoshop videos on the internet for your viewing pleasure, including Photoshop creator John Knoll demoing version 1.0, and some great tutorials on the CreativePro YouTube channel. The most popular Photoshop video of all time (with 47 million views and counting) is a spoof that will show you how to turn a supermodel into a slice of pizza.

More Photoshop Fun

Still need more Photoshop? You can find all the nerdy details of each release here, read about the evolution of Photoshop’s look here, and learn all the secret Easter eggs here.

Congratulations and kudos to everyone at Adobe who lent a hand in making this world-changing application. Here’s to the next 30 years of Photoshop!

Editor in Chief of CreativePro. Instructor at LinkedIn Learning with courses on InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, and Affinity Publisher.
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