WHAT IS PHOTOSHOP?

Many of you already know the answer to this question. You know what Photoshop does, the various purposes it serves where it fits into the computer design scheme, how much it costs at 15 difference mail order sites, its complete history (from its inception of bit of image code called display to its first shipping version, barneyscan XP, to the present day), and the names of everyone on the development team. You’re the folks who keep me awake at night, because its job of this book to share information on Photoshop that even you didn’t know.

But just as likely you’re parts of the larger group of people who have average sense of what Photoshop does but a little shaky on some of the details. You know the program lets you modify photographs, for example, but how exactly it does this is far from crystal clear .or perhaps you have no idea what Photoshop is. Someone installed the program in your computer, threw this book in your lap and said, “Go!” if one of these scenarios describe you, don’t worry_ we were all beginners at Photoshop once, and we’ll all have ample opportunity to be beginners at something else in the future, let’s get one thing settled for once and for all: just what exactly is Photoshop?

Adobe Photoshop-Photoshop is the name of the software, Adobe systems is the name of the company that develops and sells it-is a professional-level image-editing application. It allows you to create images from whole cloth or, more likely, modify scanned artwork and digital photographs. Photoshop is available for use on computers equipped with either Microsoft Windows or Apple’s Macintosh operating system.

Mind you, Photoshop isn’t just any image-editing application. It’s the most powerful; most ubiquitous image-editing application in the world. Despite hefty competition over the years from more then a hundred programs ranging in price from virtually free to a few thousand dollars a pop; Photoshop the most popular design software in use today. Where professional image editing is concerned. Photoshop’s not just the market leader-it’s the only game in town.

Such a lack of competition is rarely a good thing. But in Photoshop’s case, it has played out remarkably well. The program’s historically lopsided sales advantage has provided Adobe with a clear incentive to reinvest in Photoshop and regularly enhance, and even overhaul, its capabilities. It’s as if each new version of Photoshop is competing with its predecessors for the hearts of the digital art community. Meanwhile, other vendors have had to devote smaller resources to playing catch up. Some, such as Jasc software, with its windows only paint Shop pro, have hung in there and remained commercially viable. But such success stories are few and far between. Although competitors have provided some times amazingly capabilities, the sums of their parts have more often than no fallen well short of Photoshop’s.

As a result, Photoshop rides a self perpetuating wave of the market leadership. It wasn’t always the best image editor. Nor was it the first. But its deceptively straight forward interface combined with a few terrific core functions made it hit from a moment or of its release. More than a dozen years later later-thanks to substantial capital injections from Adobe and highly creative programming on the parts of Photoshop’s engineering staff and its originator Thomas knoll-Photoshop has evolved into the most popular program of its kind.