Brief Photoshop Timeline
1987 Thomas Knoll begins writing graphics subroutines on a Mac Plus.
1987 Thomas teams up with his brother John and combines these subroutines into an app. called "Display."
1988 Refined version of Display becomes "ImagePro."
1989 BarneyScan licenses the application to bundle with their slide scanner. About 200 copies are shipped.
1989 Adobe strikes a deal to license what becomes known as Photoshop. They begin 10 months of product development.
1990 Photoshop 1.0 ships in February.
1990 Version 2.0, code name "Fast Eddy," ships in the fall.
1993 Version 2.5.1 is released. One of the first apps to run native on a PowerPC chip. Also first release of Windows version (April, 93).
1994 Version 3.0 ships with the "Layers" capability.
1996 Version 4.0 ships. Controversial key commands are changed.
1998 Version 5.0, which includes the "History"palette, ships.
1999 Version 5.5 ships: the first true "web ready" version of the app.
The story of one of the original "killer apps" begins in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA) with a college professor named Glenn Knoll. Glenn was a photo enthusiast who maintained a darkroom in the family basement. He was also a technology aficionado intrigued by the emergence of the personal computer. His two sons, Thomas and John, inherited their father's inquisitive nature. And the vision for future greatness began with their exposure to Glenn's basement darkroom and with the Apple II Plus that he brought home for research projects.
"Photography was a hobby of mine in high school," explained Thomas in an interview for the Michigan Engineer. "In dad's darkroom, I learned how to make black-and-white and color prints, how to balance color and contrast."
While Thomas learned about image manipulation in the basement darkroom, John was attracted to the odd-shaped box known as a personal computer that his dad had brought home. "The first real computer I ever actually sat down and used was in 1978.