Tutorials • 10 Years of Photoshop • Lighting

Tutorials • 10 Years of Photoshop • LightingFebruary 2000

www.peimag.com • $4

The Knoll Brothers

Creators of The

Photoshop World

hotoshop is the best sellingpixel editing program on

the planet. It is thestandard of many industries

and has been a huge revenuesource for Adobe Systems Inc.But Photoshop’s beginningswere humble, and if it weren’tfor a tendency to procrastinate

by a certain University of Michigangraduate student, Photoshop mightnever have been developed.

Back in the fall of 1987, ThomasKnoll, a doctoral candidate in com-puter vision, was trying to writeprogramming code to display gray-scale computer images on a black-and-white bitmap monitor. The codewas called Display. Knoll wrote iton his Mac Plus computer at home

as a diversion from his doctoralwork. Because it wasn’t directlyrelated to his thesis, Knoll thoughtit had limited value at best.

Little did he know that this initialcode would be the very beginning

of the phenomenon that would beknown as Photoshop.

Knoll’s program caught theattention of his brother, John, whoworked at Industrial Light andMagic (ILM) in Marin County,California. ILM was the visual effectsarm of Lucasfilm, the famousmotion picture company foundedby George Lucas. With the releaseof Star Wars, Lucas had proved thatreally cool special effects, combinedwith heroic characters and a“shoot-em up script,” could

produce a blockbuster motionpicture. To that end, John wasexperimenting with computers tocreate special effects. He asked hisbrother Thomas to help him programa computer to process digital imagefiles, and Display was a great startingpoint. So began their collaboration.

John arranged to purchase a newMacintosh II, the first color-capablemodel, through his father, a professorat the University of Michigan. Beforeit was shipped to his brother, Thomasgot hold of it and rewrote the codefor Display to work in color.

In the ensuing months, Thomasand John worked on expandingDisplay’s capability. At John’surging, Thomas added the abilityto read and write various fileformats, while John developedimage processing routines thatwould later become filter plug-ins.Thomas developed the uniquecapability to create soft-edged

1 • PEI • FEBRUARY 2000

The Birth of a Killer Application

Thomas Knoll

John Knoll

selections that would allow localchanges. He also developed suchfeatures as Levels for adjustingtonality; Color Balance, Hue, andSaturation for adjusting color, andpainting capabilities.

In the summer of 1988, Johnthought they might have the basisof a commercially viable product.Thomas was reluctant: “Do youhave any idea how much work it isto write a commercial application?”he asked John. But with his naiveoptimism, John convinced Thomasit would be worth the effort. “I’llfigure out how to make moneywith this,” he told his brother. Well,John was right, but so was Thomas.It did take a lot of work.

hen John saw an ad inMacWeek for anotherpixel imaging appli-cation, PhotoMac, hebecame concerned. Hewent to the SIGGRAPHConference (SpecialInterest Group for the

Computer Graphics division of theAssociation for ComputingMachinery) to investigate the newapplication. “We’ve got nothing toworry about here,” he told Thomas.PhotoMac lacked some of the major features of the Knolls’product. In fact, John was stunnedby how poorly its features wereimplemented.

Thomas changed the name oftheir software several times. Eachtime he found one he liked, it hadalready been taken. Then, during a

program demo, he confided tosomeone that he was havingproblems naming the program. Theconfidant suggested Photoshop,and that became the program’sworking name.

John started shopping aroundfor a company to invest inPhotoshop. He called on SuperMac,but financial troubles there precludedany deal. Aldus was already workingon something inhouse. AlthoughAdobe was interested, nothingcould immediately be settled.

Thomas remained in Ann Arbor,Michigan, fine-tuning the program,while John traveled all over SiliconValley giving program demos. Hekept pushing his brother to addnew features. John even wrote asimple manual to make theprogram more understandable.

Finally he succeeded in attractingthe attention of a scanner manufac-turer. Barneyscan decided that theprogram would be of use to peoplewho owned their scanners. A short-term deal was worked out, and thefirst public iteration of the softwarewas introduced as Barneyscan XP.About 200 copies of the program,now in Version 0.87, were shippedwith scanners.

Around this time, John demon-strated the program to engineers atApple computer. It was a huge hit.They asked John to leave a coupleof copies. There followed the firstincident of Photoshop pirating.Seems that the engineers shared theprogram with some friends.

Subsequently, John returned toAdobe for another demonstration.Russell Brown, Adobe’s primary artdirector, was blown away by theprogram. He had just signed a non-

disclosure agreement with Letraset,to view their new image editingprogram, ColorStudio. He was con-vinced that Photoshop was better.

Timing is everything. With agreat deal of enthusiasm, Adobedecided to buy the license todistribute Photoshop. It wasSeptember 1988 and the Knollbrothers and Fred Mitchell, head ofAdobe Acquisitions, made the dealwith a handshake. It would beApril before the final legalagreements were worked out.

The key phrase in that deal was“license to distribute.” Adobe didn’tcompletely buy-out the programuntil years after Photoshop hadbecome a huge success. It was asmart move on theKnolls’ part to workout a royalty agreementbased upon distribution.

After the legal agree-ments were signed,Thomas and Johnstarted developing ashipping version.Adobe decided to keepthe working namePhotoshop. Thomaswrote all the code forthe application in Ann

PEI • FEBRUARY 2000 • 2

Russell Brown

Photoshop 0.87 Splash Screen

Display 0.07 Splash Screen

John Knoll’s earlyPhotoshop icons.

Arbor, while John developed andwrote plug-ins in California. Someof the Adobe people thought John’sfeatures were gimmicky and didn’tbelong in a serious application.They viewed the product as a toolfor retouching, not special effects,so John had to find a way to “sneak”them into the program. Those plug-ins have become one of the mostpowerful aspects of Photoshop.

Between April 1989 and theofficial release of the program earlyin 1990, development continued, withno official beta testers. At Adobe,Russell Brown and others workedwith the program and made sugges-tions. Thomas would write andthen rewrite the code, while John,Russell, and Fred pushed him toadd features. John was particularlygood at coaxing Thomas to makeimprovements. Finally, in February1990, Photoshop 1.0 shipped.

here were some earlybugs in the program, and

most people ended up usingVersion 1.0.7. Despite that,Photoshop was a hit, beatingthe competition—mostnotably ColorStudio—withits well-written code andeasy-to-use interface. Photo-

shop had features that the otherslacked, and the timing of the releasewas excellent: Just as the desktop

publishing revolution was heatingup, Photoshop was there to takeadvantage of the growth. (Of course,you had to own an Apple computer.)

Adobe also had a secret weapon:Russell Brown. His first public

demo of Photoshop probably tookplace at the Mac Summit in SantaBarbara in 1990. He had a knack formaking Photoshop seem easy andlots of fun, producing humorousdemos that showcased Photoshop’sfeatures. People who attended thedemos spread the word about thisreally cool new product.

Yet, clearly, Photoshop 1.0 neededmore work. While Photoshop waseasier to use, ColorStudio, whichwas developed by Fractal Design,had some advanced features Photo-shop did not. However, much to itsdisadvantage, Letraset had positionedColorStudio in a vertical market,selling it as a specialized tool forspecialized uses.

Adobe, on the other hand,positioned Photoshop as an easy-to-use tool for anybody with a Mac.MacWorld even published a shoot-out in an article about Photoshopand ColorStudio. John Knoll,working in Photoshop, and MarcZimmer, of Fractal Design, workingin ColorStudio, produced a seriesof retouching and compositingtasks. Photoshop was seen as thewinner, although Zimmer com-plained that the test wasn’t fair—John was an artist while Zimmerwas “just a programmer.” With thedevelopment and release ofPhotoshop 2.0, Adobe was clearlybecoming the industry standard.

Thomas Knoll had been the entireengineering staff. Adobe needed

additional engineers. They hiredMark Hamburg, also a graduate ofthe University of Michigan, whohad interviewed at Adobe the samemonth Photoshop 1.0 shipped.Mark had worked at Ashton Tate,where he implemented Bezier Pathsfor Full Write. Paths was a featureAdobe wanted to add to Photoshop2.0, and the company pegged Markas the Path Man for Version 2.0.

Working with Thomas in AnnArbor, Mark began development ofVersion 2.0 in Mountain View(Adobe’s first home). The majorfeatures of 2.0 were to be a raster-izer for Illustrator files (Adobe’svector-based application), supportfor CMYK color, Duotones, and thePen tool. Hamburg said his firstreal contribution to Photoshop wasto suggest raising the minimumRAM allocation from 2- to 4MB.Apparently, this little allocationbump greatly aided the stabilityand performance of the program.

Steven Guttman, now CEO ofHalfbrain.com, became Photoshop’sfirst full-fledged product manager


Mark Hamburg

Adobe Photoshop 1.0 shipped on a single 800k disk.

Photoshop 2.0.1 Splash Screen


and began the tradition of giving code names to the beta versions.Version 2.0, Fast Eddy, was sup-posedly named for a character inthe movie The Hustler (maybe alsofor the speedy development cycle).Photoshop 2.0 shipped in June 1991.

Adding CMYK support toVersion 2.0 made the printing indus-try sit up and take notice. Photo-shop 2.0 fueled the desktop publish-ing revolution by putting separationcapabilities in the hands of Photo-shop users. Sales started to skyrocket.Development continued and addi-tional engineers were hired, includingKevin Johnston. Development ofthe next version wouldn’t be easy.

Adobe had decided that aWindows version should be devel-oped along with the Mac version.Guttman split product manage-ment into two teams. The Mac teamwas headed by Jeff Parker, theWindows team by Bryan Lamkin.The development progressed

slowly, and required a total rewriteof Thomas Knoll’s original code.

The Windows version of Photo-shop was like a completely separateprogram. The Mac version bore thecode name Merlin; the Windowsversion, Brimstone. Adobe wouldlater rue its decision to number thenext version Photoshop 2.5. Whymarketing chose not to label itVersion 3.0 remains unclear. Ingeneral, software versions labeled .5do not sell well because they are per-ceived as mere maintenance releases.

Important new features wereadded, notably palettes and 16-bitfile support. In general, though,Version 2.5 is most noteworthy forbeing the first Windows version.

dobe Photoshop for Windowshad a competitor: AldusPhotoStyler. Windowsusers could now runPhotoshop, but the list ofnew features was short.There was also immediate

feedback from the market thatsomething was really wrong withthe memory handling.

Tech Support tried to trackdown the problem; Hamburg wasso determined to fix it that heactually offered to make housecalls. When the “memory bug” wasfinally located and squashed, theprimary viable version became 2.5.1.This version was significant for beingthe first application tuned to workwith Power PC chips, Apple’s fasternew chip architecture. Zalman Stern

was the primary writer of the PowerPC accelerator code, which wasimplemented as a plug-in.

Even before 2.5 had been com-pleted, work began on Version 3.0,code named Tiger Mountain. Thisnext version was to incorporate amajor new feature Thomas wasworking on called Layers.

Meanwhile, Thomas workedwith Hamburg and Johnston onother early 3.0 features, with thehelp of a few specialized engineers.Stern created optimizations for the Power Mac, while SeethaNarayanan worked on bringing theWindows version on par with theMac version.

Photoshop 3.0 was the firstversion I had the opportunity tobeta test. I had some experience asa beta tester for a program calledLive Picture, which some userstouted as a “real-life PhotoshopKiller.” Adobe was concerned thatLive Picture would offer seriouscompetition. Live Picture’s Layersfeature allowed the user to stackmultiple elements, while keepingthem discretely separate. Layerswould prove to be a verysignificant feature.

Meanwhile, rumors of Photo-shop’s new features began to leakto the media. There wasspeculation that the Photoshopengineers had copied the Layersfeature from Live Picture, when in


Bryan Lamkin

Steven Guttman

Seetha Narayanan


truth, Thomas had worked on theconcept long before he ever heardof Live Picture. To him, the layersconcept was merely a convenientmethod of keeping objects separateduring image editing.

Photoshop 3.0 shipped for theMac at the end of September 1994,the Windows version shipped inNovember. It was an instant hitwith users and the press.

ersion 3.0 was not withoutits tribulations. Before itshipped, Jeff Parker took asabbatical from Adobe,leaving 3.0 bereft of a Macversion product manager.John Leddy stepped in to takeover the position. During thebeta process, there was friction

between engineering and qualityassurance (Q&A). Many features inPhotoshop 3.0 were barely docu-mented or not documented at all.In fact, there was speculation thatBrown had engineers includeundocumented features so he couldwow the crowds at demos. WhileRussell did indeed beg, plead, andfinagle for new features, the lack ofdocumentation was not aconspiracy, but a breakdown incommunication among variousdepartments at Adobe.

The Bass-O-Matic episode,however, was merely the result ofan engineer having some fun.While several stories are floatingaround about the origins of Bass-O-Matic (a reference to a Dan Akryodskit on Saturday Night Live), all I cansay is what I know for sure: Attimes during early beta testing, thewords “Bass-O-Matic” wouldmysteriously appear in a menu.When I returned for a look in themenu, the words would disappear.

Matt Brown, one of Adobe’s besttech support guys, came up with aremarkable explanation for thisanomaly. He said that Bass-O-Matic

was a scheme to pare down theranks of Version 3.0 beta testers. If abeta tester didn’t report at least oneBass-O-Matic sighting, said Matt,then obviously he wasn’t using theprogram, and he would be droppedfrom the beta program. At the timeit sounded like brilliant explanation!

There was a more serious glitchdiscovered after Version 3.0shipped. Somehow, the betaexpiration code had escaped notice.Version 3.0 was recalled. Version3.0.1 started shipping immediately.Unfortunately for those users whodid not return their software, theprogram expired on January 1,1995. While the vast majority ofusers were aware of the problem,and Adobe did its best to replace3.0 CDs, some users panicked. Allit took was updating the installed3.0 version with the 3.0.1 updateralready widely available throughonline services.

Unfortunately for Adobe, asimilar situation occurred February1, 1995, when the Japanese versionalso suffered a beta copy expirationwarning. A quick 3.0.3 updaterfixed the problem, but there wereserious repercussions. Someengineers left Adobe.

These incidents were mildlyembarrassing, but they didn’tdiminish the enthusiasm that usershad for Version 3.0, especially theLayers feature. This was theversion with an Adobe TransientWitticism (ATW)—a little some-thing “extra” that programmers

wrote into the applications. Theywere usually well hidden unlessyou knew the obscure key strokesnecessary to reveal them (Seesidebar on page 23). Such ATWsare basically humorous one-linersmade up by the engineering staff.

n many ways, Photoshop 3.0(and all five upgrades) was adefinitive product. Manypeople, both within Adobe andon the outside, wondered whatcould top 3.0. Though there wasnow a considerably larger engi-neering staff (Sean Parent fromApple and Marc Pawliger from

IBM came onboard in the laterstages of 3.0 development), the ideaof developing another version ofPhotoshop wavered. Photoshopengineers became distracted byother projects. Thomas wasbeginning the stressful and time-consuming project of building anew home; Hamburg beganworking on an object-orientedprogramming application; Johnstonand a couple of other engineers leftAdobe or started new projects.

Development seemed boggeddown when Lamkin decided tojump start it. With encouragementfrom Hamburg, he hired aninterface designer to rework theentire user interface of Photoshop.The goal was for all Adobe productsto have a similar appearance andbehavior logic. Hamburg waspersuaded to return to the Photo-shop engineering team, which tookon the task of “revving” Photoshopyet again.

There were some real surpriseslurking for unsuspecting Photoshopusers. First, Andrei Herasimchuk,the new interface designer, startedmaking radical recommendationsfor the key commands andbehavior logic of Photoshop.Herasimchuk came from a smallNew England software company



that had come out with a Photo-shop companion product, SpecularCollage. Even before 3.0 acquiredLayers, Specular had developed aproxy system of loading Photoshopfiles, stacking them as layers,collaging multiple files, and addingfilter effects. Herasimchuk wasinstrumental in developing Collage.

With Lamkin’s blessings andencouragement from Hamburg,Herasimchuk undertook someradical surgery on Photoshop.Other engineers worked on othernew features: Parent developedActions; Jason Bartell worked onAdjustment Layers (originallyscheduled for a later version); andPawliger worked on Grids &Guides. Hamburg worked on FreeTransform and screen caching, aperformance enhancement thatoriginated with Thomas. This wasthe start of Photoshop 4.0, codenamed Big Electric Cat.

I was introduced to the alphaversion of Photoshop 4.0 on a trip

to the West Coast. Herasimchukinvited me to the Adobe officesin Mountain View to participate in what he called “UsabilityTesting.” It was more like apsychological test.

I was stationed at a computerwith a video camera aimed at me,told to launch the program, and leftto explore it. They wouldn’t tell memuch of anything, but they did askquestions. I was supposed to intu-itively grasp the changes, of whichthere were many. Most of themseemed to have a definite logic. Iwas one of three people given analpha version to “play” with, and Istarted e-mailing off my opinionsand reactions.

Somewhere along the line, thefull impact of the proposed changeshit me: Users were going to facemajor behavioral differences in theway Photoshop worked. I startedgetting nervous that I had too muchresponsibility and that maybe theengineers should re-evaluate thechanges. My cold feet came too lateto have any impact, which as timehas shown, was fortunate.

When the first beta copies cameout, there was an uproar from thebeta testers. “Why was such-and-such (insert your favorite keycommand here) being changed?”Some users rebelled. By the timethe beta process was over, mosttesters had adjusted to the changes,but the media had picked up on thecontroversy. The news groups andonline services such as CompuServeand AOL were flooded withcomplaints by frustrated users whofelt the changes made no sense. Atthe time that Photoshop 4.0shipped in November 1996, thegeneral reaction among users was,“Why did you break Photoshop?”

Finally, as they learned thechanges and began to understandthe improvements in logic andbehaviors, the controversy died


Evolution of the Photoshop Toolbar

0.87 Alpha

2.5 3.04.0

5.0 5.5

1.0 2.0

Andrei Herasimchuk

Photoshop 4.0. Splash Screen

away. Photoshop 4.0 was a hugefinancial success for Adobe and avindication of sorts for theengineers who took a risk inmaking radical changes.

rom the time Photoshop firstappeared on the market, tothe shipping of Version 4.0,some rather remarkablethings took place in theindustry. The desktoppublishing revolution

forever changed the prepressand printing industries, mostlyfor the better. Adobe boughtAldus and killed PhotoStyler.

Macromedia ended up with FreeHand in the deal, Illustrator’s maincompetitor. They tried to createanother Photoshop competitor, x-Res, but it died. On the Windowsside, Picture Publisher began tolose its market share.

Meanwhile, a little startupcompany called HSC started sellingPhotoshop plug-ins, changed itsname to MetaTools, and wentpublic. It bought up Specular andthen merged with Fractal Design,again changing its name, this timeto MetaCreations. Its image editingproduct, Live Picture, has since died.

The World Wide Web surged asa technology. Just last month, Meta-Creations released its productengineers and put their products onthe auction block, retaining only theWeb streaming products. Apple beganto lose market share, but was stilltouted as the first choice for graphicsand multimedia content creation.

Remarkably, throughout all ofthese changes, Photoshop continuedto grow and prosper. The installeduser base is in the millions (with aratio of unregistered to registeredusers at perhaps 5-10/1). Entirecottage industries have developedand prospered by supplyingPhotoshop plug-ins and add-ons.The number of books written about

Photoshop has topped 100. Acouple of years ago, well afterPhotoshop had become a success,Adobe entered negotiations withthe Knoll brothers to finally buy outall rights to Photoshop. It cost Adobea bundle, but it was worth it.

Photoshop 5.0 was in develop-ment well before Version 4.0shipped. I remember glancing at awhite board in Sean Parent’s officeon the 10th floor of Adobe’s newcorporate offices in San Jose (theysay it’s the building that Photoshopbuilt, kind of like Thomas’s house,but with more floors). It was fall1996, during the Version 4.0 launchparty. On the white board was a listof possible features for the nextrelease. Most of them have made itinto the program.

In spring 1997, there was littlenews coming from Adobe.Illustrator 7.0 had shipped, andwhile the Mac version was notsignificantly different, the Windowsversion of Illustrator jumped fromVersion 4.0 to 7.0. That summerHerasimchuk e-mailed that thingswere starting to heat up at Adobe.He asked me to create the beta

splash screen for Strange Cargo, thecode name for Version 5.0.

At the Orlando PhotoshopConference in September 1997,Herasimchuk and Katja Rimmi (theprimary interface designer ofPhotoshop 5.0) met with several ofthe alpha testers who would beworking with the engineers on theVersion 5.0 feature development.We sat around discussing some ofthe plans that were taking shape.Herasimchuk hinted that there wasgoing to be a new feature thatwould “blow me away.” That featurewould be called the History Palette.

The History Palette was Ham-burg’s vision of implementing amultiple undo feature in Photoshop.But instead of a traditional scheme,he wanted it to be an elegant andpowerful feature.

Rumor has it that Hamburg wasinfluenced by my blending technique—the way I worked between“states” (my term for an imagefile’s condition at a particular stageof manipulation). Prior to Photo-shop 5.0, there were four suchstates. My technique used theSaved state and the Snapshot statein manipulating the current state.This was the concept Mark used indeveloping his vision of theHistory feature. Instead of a plainvanilla multi-undo, which wouldhave been cool on its own, Markused the concept to enhance thepower and usability of the feature.



Katja Rimmi

Adobe Headquarters

Easter Eggs are little bits of applicationcode modification that allow certain

hidden functionality to be seen or heard.Usually, the functionality is no more thanthe application programmer’s idea of funand games. On occasion, programmershave been known to slip in hidden features,too, as a kind of secret signature. Withsome notable exceptions, Easter Eggs dono harm. I’m not sure when Easter Eggsmade their first appearance in Photoshop,but I do know that even Version 1.0

shipped with the secret Knoll Softwaresplash screen, which originally containedthe address and phone number (longsince obsolete) of John Knoll’s softwarecompany.

Photoshop 2.0 was code named Merlinby Photoshop’s first product manager,Steve Guttman. In Version 2.5, the Macversion was code named Fast Eddie, and

the Windows version, Brimstone.Photoshop 2.5 had a Hidden Filter menufor all the Distortion plug-ins, an extra bitof functionality designed by John Knoll. Itwas accessed by holding down the optionkey and navigating to About Plug-ins inthe Apple Menu.

Mark Hamberg code named Version3.0 Tiger Mountain, a reference to arecording by Brian Eno. From thatversion on, the platforms had the samecode names.

Version 3.0 saw the introduction ofAdobe Transient Witticisms (ATW)—one-liners supposedly uttered by theengineers during development. To seethe 3.0 ATWs, go to the alternate screen(Option>About Photoshop) and let thecredits run in their entirety. While holdingthe option key, click in the area justabove the credits. Among the ATWs is alist titled “Top Ten Signs the EngineeringTeam Has Been Working Too Hard.”

Mark Hamburg code named Version4.0 Big Electric Cat, for a song by AdrianBelew. The splash screen was created byJoseph Kelter, of Bad Cat Design. In theMac version, when users clicked on thekitty’s nose, an Easter Egg manifested asan electronic burp. According toHamburg, “How do you make the kitty

burp?” is one of the most frequentlyasked questions about Version 4.0.

In 1997, I was asked to create thealternate screen for Version 5.0 by MarcPawliger—an honor, albeit an unpaidone. Hamburg named this versionStrange Cargo, a reference to a work bytechno artist William Orbit. There aretwo extra Easter eggs in this version,accessible from the alternate screen. Iwas sworn to secrecy, but the cat mustbe out of the bag by this time. Go to thealternate screen and immediately type“B-U-R-P.” (Excuse me!) Now type inthe kitty’s name, Sorry—I still can’tdivulge that, but it can be found in the5.0 ATWs (Hint: “___LIVES!”).

In homage to Photoshop’s history,Version 5.0 has another Easter Egg.“Merlin Lives!” resides in a hiddenOption>Layer Options key command.Version 5.5, which has the samealternate screen as 5.0, did not get a code name, and has but a handful ofadditional ATWs.

The code name for the next version of Photoshop? Well, I can’t comment on that, but I’m willing to bet it’s amusical reference, and that it’s stored in Mark Hamburg’s ubiquitous AppleNewton PDA.


Of Easter Eggs & Code NamesBy Jeff Schewe

When I received the first alphaversion of Strange Cargo with theHistory feature, I was stunned.Mark had implemented a perfectapproach to multiple undos (atleast from my point of view). Iimmediately started to put thefeature through its paces. It wasgoing to be a powerful one.

A few weeks later, I receivedanother alpha version, with yetanother aspect in the Historyfeature: non-linear History. Wow!this was getting deep. Tounderstand non-linear History, ithelps to be a sci-fi fan. Non-linearHistory means that you can stepback in time and branch out to anew timeline without killing offthose future events that havealready happened. Needless to say,Version 5.0 was looking like amajor upgrade.

Every new alpha disk thatarrived had more features hookedup and working. It gets to be a bitlike an Easter egg hunt. Youdevelop a pattern of checking outeach menu item and tool for newgoodies. There’s always surprises—occasionally bad ones.

Take the Clone tool, for example.I’ve been told that a certain authorhad made a case to Hamburgabout why the behavior changefrom Version 2.5 to 3.0 was amistake. This unnamed author (hisfirst name is Deke) convincedHamburg to change the behaviorback to the way it was in 2.5, sothe Clone Brush would notproduce a “hall-of-mirrors” effect.The change wasn’t as bad as it wasunexpected.

Then there were the Pen Toolbehavior changes—required inAdobe’s new policy of cross-application tool behavior unifica-tion. Herasimchuk had struckagain. But the mild annoyancescaused by these relatively minorchanges were more than compen-

sated for by the impressively vastarray of new features.

ne big new feature caught alot of users by surprise:Color Management. Tosome it was a Holy Grail.To others, it was a con-spiracy to screw up their

lives. I think the color man-agement tools in Photoshop

5.0 are great. For the first time,users can do the majority of colormanagement duties right inPhotoshop, instead of using anexpensive third-party tool. However,Adobe did make a couple of errorsin judgement. For example, thedefault behavior to convert thecolors of users’ files when openinghas proved to be a mistake.

Additionally, the engineers didsomething to the way dot gain isimplemented. Apparently therewas a slight error in the wayPhotoshop originally calculated dotgain, dating back to Version 2.0. Theengineers decided to correct theerror, but there was no documen-tation directly relating to the change,and this caused problems for users.Some members of the press pro-claimed Photoshop 5.0 a failure.Adobe addressed these two problemsand created an update that includeda wizard to walk people throughsetting up color preferences. Theupdate shipped as Version 5.0.2. Andto think Herasimchuk was worriedthat nobody would notice ColorManagement as a new feature!

Other things were happening inthe imagingindustry.AppleComputer,whichmanyindustrypunditshad writtenoff for dead,


Joe Ault,SoftwareEngineer,Generalist(utility infielder)

Scott Byer,SeniorSoftwareEngineer,UNIX version,Windowsperformancetuning,magnetic tools

Chris Cox,SoftwareEngineer,

Bit twiddlerand code

performancetweaker.

Author: Chris’sPhotoshop

Filters

Josh Freeman,SoftwareEngineer,Plug-in support

Jason Bartell,SoftwareEngineer,

AdjustmentLayers, New

Hue/Saturation,Levels and

Curvesenhancements

Jeff Chien,SoftwareEngineer,

UNIX version,PDF, and EPS

parsers

Kevin Conner,currentPhotoshopProductManager,responsible forPhotoshop LE

came back to life with the release ofthe iMac. The resurgence of Applecaught much of the industry bysurprise. Then there was the“Asian Flu,” the crash in the Asianfinancial markets that had adverseeffects on many high-tech companies.Adobe did not come throughunscathed. When Photoshop 5.0shipped in May 1998, Adobe’sstock was about $51 per share. Bythe summer, Adobe’s stock hadtumbled, ending up at about $25the week before SeyBold SanFrancisco in September.

During that summer, Adobewent through major corporaterestructuring and laid off manypeople. Some employees left beforebeing laid off, notably, John Leddy,who left for MetaCreations. Mean-while, an Adobe competitor didsomething foolish—the companybegan a semi-official attempt at anunfriendly takeover of Adobe. WhyQuark executives thought theycould pull off a hostile takeover ofAdobe is unclear, but the timingwas terrible for Adobe.

Against the backdrop of all thiscontroversy, and to the surprise ofmany, the decision to ship yetanother Photoshop Version .5 releasewas made. Not only did it come justover a year after the shipping ofPhotoshop 5.0, but it also hadImage Ready 2.0 as a bundledextension. The list of features newwith 5.5 was not long, but it didfinally address a major area that 5.0had missed: the World Wide Web.

Photoshop 5.5 has been very suc-cessful, Adobe has come back, andwith the release of InDesign (Adobe’s“Quark Killer”), the outlook is posi-tive. So much so that Adobe’s stockhas surged from $25 a share tomore than $75, even after splittingtwo-for-one.

To say that Photoshop’s 10-yearhistory is a phenomenon is a vastunderstatement. No single piece of

graphics software has changed somany industries.

Will another piece of softwarecome along to knock Photoshopfrom the top seller list? I doubt it.The elves at Adobe are surely hardat work developing yet anotherversion of Photoshop withtremendous new features andperhaps a controversy or two.

Photoshop has become big busi-ness. The company’s revenues are$1 billion a year. Yet throughoutPhotoshop’s history, one thingremains clear. Photoshop came outat the right place at the right time. Itcontinues to be a well-crafted pieceof software developed by sometruly gifted software engineers.

Thanks, Thomas Knoll, for pro-crastinating on your doctoral thesis.By the way, he never did finish histhesis. He still lives in Ann Arbor,Michigan, in relative obscurity, withhis wife and kids in the 10,000+square-foot house that Photoshopbuilt. He still works for Adobe on acontract basis and he still “playsaround” with Photoshop. JohnKnoll is no longer directly involvedwith Photoshop development. But heis rumored to still use it in his workat Industrial Light & Magic. �

Jeff Schewe, a 46-year-old Chicagonative, a feature consultant and alphatester for Adobe Photoshop, is thismonth’s cover artist.


Akiko Sherry,SoftwareEngineer,responsible foreditable type in5.0 and lots ofJapanesefeatures

Sean Parent,SoftwareEngineer,Actions, FileInfo, Mac OSenhancements

Kevin Johnston,former Software

Engineer,calculations andnumerous other

featuresNo. 3 Photoshop

engineer, now with

Halfbrain.com

Marc Pawliger,Engineering

Manager,Grids & Guides,Measure Tool,

Alignment,Color Samplers,

Generalist.UNIX version

CharlesMcBrian,Software

Engineer, OLEautomation

support

Greg Gilley, VPof WebApplications,Seniorengineering

John Leddy,formerPhotoshopProductManager


I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people both at Adobe andthose outside of Adobe who made this article possible. I particularly want to thankThomas and John Knoll, Russell Brown and Mark Hamburg who were willing totake the time to let me interview them about Photoshop’s beginnings. Thanks tothe engineering and marketing staff who took the time to let me shoot their por-traits. I also want to thank Marc Pawliger for reviewing the article and helpingstraighten out the details, and Andrei Herasimchuk for helping coordinate the por-trait shootings. I also want to thank the editorial staff at PEI Magazine for a defteditorial touch and to Elmo Sapwater who convinced me to give the story to PEI.

The dedicated and talented people who work on Photoshop are a small and tightknit group that resembles a real family. People come and go, but they all deserve aplace in Photoshop’s history. There are many people outside of Adobe that shouldalso share a place-from David Biedney and Bert Monroy who wrote the firstPhotoshop book to Kai Krause who turned Photoshop “chops” into a virtual mod-ern day religion.

I have learned at the feet of some great people. Thanks to Bill Niffenegger forfirst introducing me to the industry and Matt Brown for giving me my first intro-duction to Adobe. I also want to thank the many people in the industry who’vebeen good friends; Bruce Fraser, Deke McClelland, Stephan Johnson, SteveBroback, Andrew Rodney-all have gone out of their way to be helpful to me.

Thanks guys!

The text and photographs contained in this article are all copyrighted byJeff Schewe ©2000 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No copying, reproduction or duplication is permitted without the express permission of Jeff Schewe.

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Tutorials • 10 Years of Photoshop • Lighting

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