Adobe's 2003 "
Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS6 is the
13th major release of Adobe Photoshop. The CS rebranding also resulted in Adobe offering numerous software packages containing multiple Adobe programs for a reduced price. Adobe Photoshop is released in two editions:
Adobe Photoshop, and
Adobe Photoshop Extended, with the Extended having extra 3D image creation, motion graphics editing, and advanced image analysis features.
[5] Adobe Photoshop Extended is included in all of Adobe's Creative Suite offerings except Design Standard, which includes the Adobe Photoshop edition.
Adobe distributes Photoshop in both Windows and Macintosh versions.
[edit]Early history
In 1987,
Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the
University of Michigan began writing a program on his
Macintosh Plus to display
grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother
John Knoll, an
Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended that Thomas turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six-month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program. Thomas renamed the program ImagePro, but the name was already taken.
[8] Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a
slide scanner; a "total of about 200 copies of Photoshop were shipped" this way.
[9]
During this time, John traveled to
Silicon Valley and gave a demonstration of the program to engineers at
Apple and
Russell Brown, art director at
Adobe. Both showings were successful, and Adobe decided to purchase the license to distribute in September 1988.
[8] While John worked on
plug-ins in California, Thomas remained in
Ann Arbor writing code.
Photoshop 1.0 was released in 1990 for Macintosh exclusively.
[10] The Barneyscan version included advanced color editing features that were stripped from the first Adobe shipped version. The handling of color slowly improved with each release from Adobe and Photoshop quickly became the industry standard in digital color editing. At the time Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on dedicated high end systems, such as the SciTex, cost around $300 an hour for basic photo retouching.
[edit]File format
Photoshop files have default file extension as
.PSD, which stands for "Photoshop Document." A PSD file stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with
masks,
color spaces,
ICC profiles, CMYK Mode (used for commercial printing), transparency, text,
alpha channels and
spot colors,
clipping paths, and
duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .JPG or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. A PSD file has a maximum height and width of 30,000 pixels, and a length limit of 3 Gigabytes.
Photoshop files sometimes have the file extension
.PSB, which stands for "Photoshop Big" (also known as "large document format"). A PSB file extends the PSD file format, increasing the maximum height and width to 300,000 pixels and the length limit to around 4
Exabytes. The dimension limit was apparently chosen arbitrarily by Adobe, not based on computer arithmetic constraints (it is not close to a power of two, as is 30,000) but for ease of software testing. PSD and PSB formats are documented.
[11]
Because of Photoshop's popularity (and due to its quality programming), PSD files are widely used and supported to some extent by most competing software. The .PSD file format can be exported to and from Adobe's other apps like
Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe Premiere Pro, and
After Effects, to make professional standard DVDs and provide
non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the web. Photoshop's primary strength is as a
pixel-based image editor, unlike
vector-based image editors. Photoshop also enables vector graphics editing through its Paths, Pen tools, Shape tools, Shape Layers, Type tools, Import command, and Smart Object functions. These tools and commands are convenient to combine pixel-based and vector-based images in one Photoshop document, because it may not be necessary to use more than one program. To create very complex vector graphics with numerous shapes and colors, it may be easier to use software that was created primarily for that purpose, such as
Adobe Illustrator or
CorelDRAW. Photoshop's non-destructive Smart Objects can also import complex vector shapes.
[12]
[edit]Language availabilities
Photoshop is available in more than 20 languages. These are the following:
- Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Also Arabic and Hebrew as of Photoshop CS6.[13]
[edit]Plugins
Photoshop functionality can be extended by add-on programs called
Photoshop plugins (or plug-ins). Adobe creates some plugins, such as Adobe Camera Raw, but third-party companies develop most plugins, according to Adobe's specifications. Some are free and some are commercial software. Most plugins work with only Photoshop or Photoshop-compatible hosts, but a few can also be run as standalone applications.
There are various types of plugins, such as filter, export, import, selection, color correction, and automation. The most popular plugins are the filter plugins (also known as a
8bf plugins), available under the Filter menu in Photoshop. Filter plugins can either modify the current image or create content. Below are some popular types of plugins, and some well-known companies associated with them:
- Color correction plugins (Alien Skin Software,[14] Nik Software,[15] OnOne Software,[16] Topaz Labs Software,[17] The Plugin Site,[18] etc.)
- Special effects plugins (Alien Skin Software, Auto FX Software,[19] AV Bros.,[20] Flaming Pear Software,[21] etc.)
- 3D effects plugins (Andromeda Software,[22] Strata,[23] etc.)
Adobe Camera Raw (also known as ACR and Camera Raw) is a special plugin, supplied free by Adobe, used primarily to read and process
raw image files so that the resultant images can be processed by Photoshop.
[24] It can also be used from within
Adobe Bridge.
Upon loading Photoshop, a sidebar with a variety of tools with multiple image-editing functions appears to the left of the screen. These tools typically fall under the categories of
drawing;
painting;
measuring and navigation;
selection;
typing; and
retouching.
[25] Some tools contain a small triangle in the bottom right of the toolbox icon. These can be expanded to reveal similar tools.
[26] While newer versions of Photoshop are updated to include new tools and features, several recurring tools that exist in most versions are discussed below.
[edit]Pen Tool
Photoshop includes a few versions of the
pen tool. The pen tool creates precise paths that can be manipulated using anchor points.
[25] The
freeform pen tool allows the user to draw paths freehand, and with the
magnetic pen tool, the drawn path attaches closely to outlines of objects in an image, which is useful for isolating them from a background.
[27]
[edit]Measuring and navigation
The
eyedropper tool selects a color from an area of the image that is clicked, and samples it for future use.
[25] The
hand tool navigates an image by moving it in any direction, and the
zoom tool enlarges the part of an image that is clicked on, allowing for a closer view.
[25]
[edit]Selection
[edit]Cropping
The
crop tool can be used to select a particular area of an image and discard the portions outside of the chosen section. This tool assists in creating a focus point on an image and excluding unnecessary or excess space.
[28] Cropping allows enhancement of a photo’s composition while decreasing the file size. The "crop" tool is in the tools palette, which is located on the right side of the document. By placing the cursor over the image, the user can drag the cursor to the desired area. Once the Enter key is pressed, the area outside of the rectangle will be cropped. The area outside of the rectangle is the discarded data, which allows for the file size to be decreased.
[29]
[edit]Slicing
The
"slice" and
slice select tools, like the crop tool, are used in isolating parts of images. The slice tool can be used to divide an image into different sections, and these separate parts can be used as pieces of a web page design once HTML and CSS are applied.
[30] The slice select tool allows sliced sections of an image to be adjusted and shifted.
Once an area of an image is highlighted, the
move tool can be used to manually relocate the selected piece to anywhere on the canvas.
[25]
[edit]Marquee
The
marquee tool can make selections that are single row, single column, rectangular and elliptical.
[25] An area that has been selected can be edited without affecting the rest of the image. This tool can also crop an image; it allows for better control. In contrast to the
crop tool, the "marquee" tool allows for more adjustments to the selected area before cropping. The only
marquee tool that does not allow cropping is the elliptical. Although the single row and column
marquee tools allow for cropping, they are not ideal, because they only crop a line. The
rectangular marquee tool is the preferred option. Once the tool has been selected, dragging the tool across the desired area will select it. The selected area will be outlined by dotted lines, referred to as “marching ants”. These dotted lines are called “marching ants”, because the dashes look like ants marching around the selected area. To set a specific size or ratio, the tool option bar provides these settings. Before making a selecting an area, the desired size or ratio must be set by adjusting the width and height. Any changes such as color, filters, location, etc. should be made before cropping. To crop the selection, the user must go to image tab and select crop.
[31]
The
lasso tool is similar to the "marquee" tool, however, the user can make a custom selection by drawing it freehand.
[25] There are three options for the "lasso" tool – regular, polygonal, and magnetic. The regular "lasso" tool allows the user to have drawing capabilities. Photoshop will complete the selection once the mouse button is released. The user may also complete the selection by connecting the end point to the starting point. The “marching ants” will indicate if a selection has been made. The "polygonal lasso" tool will only draw straight lines, which makes it an ideal choice for images with many straight lines. Unlike the regular "lasso" tool, the user must continually click around the image to outline the shape. To complete the selection, the user must connect the end point to the starting point just like the regular lasso tool. "Magnetic lasso" tool is considered the smart tool. It can do the same as the other two, but it can also detect the edges of an image once the user selects a starting point. It detects by examining the color pixels as the cursor move over the desired area. A pixel is the smallest element in an image. Closing the selection is the same as the other two, which should also should display the “marching ants” once the selection has been closed.
[32]
[edit]Quick Selection
The
quick selection tool selects areas based on edges, similarly to the
magnetic lasso tool. The difference between this tool and the
lasso tool is that there is no starting and ending point. Since there isn’t a starting and ending point, the selected area can be added on to as much as possible without starting over. By dragging the cursor over the desired area, the
quick selection tool detects the edges of the image. The “marching ants” allow the user to know what is currently being selected. Once the user is done, the selected area can be edited without affecting the rest of the image.
[33]
[edit]Magic Wand
The
magic wand tool selects areas based on pixels. The user only needs to click once, and this tool will detect pixels that are very similar to each other. If the
eyedropper tool is selected in the options bar, then the magic wand can determine the value needed to evaluate the pixels; this is based on the sample size setting in the
eyedropper tool. When the image requires more than a few clicks, this tool becomes a disadvantage. The user must decide what settings to use or if the image is right for this tool.
[34]
The
eraser tool does exactly what it’s called. It erases an image based on the layer it is on. If the user is on the text layer, then any text that the tool is dragged across will be erased. The erased area will convert the pixels to transparent, unless it is the background layer. The size and style of the eraser can be selected in the options bar. This tool is unique in that it can take the form of the paintbrush and pencil tools. In addition to the straight eraser tool, there are two more available options – background eraser and magic eraser. The
background eraser deletes any part of the image that is on the edge of an object. This tool is often used to extract objects from the background. The
magic eraser tool deletes based on similar colored pixels. It is very similar to the
magic wand tool. This tool is ideal for deleting areas with the same color or tone that contrasts with the rest of the image.
[35]
Photoshop also provides tools for adding and editing text. The
type tools create an area where text can be entered, and the
type mask tools create a selection area that has the shape of text.
[25] The type tool creates vector-based text, so symbols, letters and numbers in various fonts and colors can be re-sized while maintaining the same quality.
[edit]Retouching
There are several tools that are used for retouching, manipulating and adjusting photos, such as the
clone stamp,
eraser,
burn,
dodge,
smudge and
blur tools.
[25] The clone stamp tool samples a selected portion of an image, and duplicates it over another area using a brush that can be adjusted in size, flow and opacity.
[25] The smudge tool, when dragged across part of an image, stretches and smudges pixels as if they are real paint, and the blur tool softens portions of an image by lowering the amount of detail within the adjusted area.
[36] The eraser tool removes pixels from an image, and the
magic eraser tool selects areas of solid color and erases them.
[25] The burn and dodge tools, which are derived from traditional methods of adjusting the exposure on printed photos, have opposite effects; the burn tool darkens selected areas, and the dodge tool lightens them.
[36]
[edit]Content-aware
Content-awareness is a useful aspect of Photoshop where image editing is done automatically and intelligently. It comes in two forms,
content-aware scaling, and content-aware filling, in which elements in a background automatically recompose according to the areas a user of the program decides to fill or scale. More specifically, content-aware scaling works by rescaling an image and causing its content to adapt to the new dimensions and preserving important areas of it. Content-aware filling functions by matching tone, color, and noise of an area of the image that contained an object or detail in which the user decides to remove.
[37]
[edit]Healing tools
With improvement retouching tools like the
Clone Stamp tool and
Healing Brush tool, imperfections of an image can easily be removed. These tools essentially function by locating a source point (or multiple source points) that can be scaled or rotated in order to cover an imperfection or unwanted detail in a specific area of an image.
[37]
The
clone stamp tool allows its user to replace one part of an image with another. If part of an original image is damaged, the damaged area can be restored by cloning a similar area from another image or within the current image. This tool works great for removing unwanted blemishes, such as acne and wrinkles, in a photograph. To sample an image, the user must hold down the Alt key (Windows) or the Option key (Mac) then click on the area. Once the sample area has been cloned, the user can drag the clone key to the desired area. An interesting feature about this tool is that it doesn’t just sample within the size of the clone stamp, but it samples everything around it. The user can use this tool like a paintbrush to cover the desired area. Also, the user can clone in multiple areas without having to re-sample.
[38]
[edit]Puppet warp
Similar to the content-aware tool, the
puppet warp tool reveals Photoshop’s intelligence by allowing a user to reposition an object in an image such as a flower or arm. This is done by using points that outline the structure of an object and easily repositioning in the wanted orientation.
[37]
[edit]Video Editing
In
Adobe CS5 Extended edition, video editing is comprehensive and efficient with a broad compatibility of video file formats such as
MOV,
AVI,
MPEG-4, and
FLV formats and easy workflow. Using simple combination of keys video layers can easily be modified, with other features such as adding text and the creation of animations using single images.
[39]
With the Extended version of Photoshop CS5, 2D elements of an artwork can easily become three-dimensional with the click of a button. Extrusions of texts, an available library of materials for three-dimensional, and even wrapping two-dimensional images around 3D geometry are all possible with this version of Photoshop. Realism can also be added to an image using the 3D features of Photoshop such as animating image-based lights and
depth of field.
[39]
[edit]Mobile integration
Third-party plugins have also been added to the most recent version of Photoshop where technologies such as the
iPad have integrated the software with different types of applications. Applications like the
Adobe Eazel painting app allows the user to easily create paintings with their fingertips and use an array of different paint from dry to wet in order to create rich color blending.
[37]
[edit]Camera Raw
With the Camera Raw plug-in,
RAW images can be processed without the use of
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, along with other image file formats such as
JPEGs,
TIFFs, or
PNGs. The plug-in allows users to remove noise without the side-effect of over-sharpening, add grain, and even perform
post-crop vignetting.
[39]
[edit]Techniques
Extraction of foreground and manipulation of both foreground (artistic filter) and background (blur)
A widely used technique is extraction. By this technique a part of the image, normally the foreground, such as a person, is isolated from the rest of the image and put on a new background. Alternatively both background and the extracted foreground can be manipulated and put back together as shown on the example. To make the extraction a line must be drawn around the foreground figure to select it. Several tools can be used for this process such as the lasso tool; however, in this case the filter-extraction tool has been used. The latter is normally the preferred tool for extracting figures with hair or fur.
[citation needed]
[edit]Cultural impact
Photoshop and derivatives such as
Photoshopped (or just
Shopped) have become verbs that are sometimes used to refer to images edited by Photoshop,
[40] or any image manipulating program. Such derivatives are discouraged by Adobe
[41] because, in order to maintain validity and protect the trademark from becoming
generic, trademarks must be used as
proper nouns.
A landscape photo composited and manipulated in Photoshop.
[edit]Graphic design
Photoshop has been a useful tool for graphic designers to create artwork conveniently and aesthetically. For example, design studios can use Photoshop in order to visualize their take on an initial concept and then move onto different media to complete the concept.
[edit]Magazines
Before any type of print media is published, whether it is a magazine, newspaper, or even novel it is likely the case that Photoshop has been used to enhance and clean up the imagery on many if not all of the pages. Magazines use Photoshop and many of its tools in order to enhance the imagery and text in their publications. Many Health and Beauty Magazines employ in-house designers to retouch photos of models to enhance their beauty. They add finishing touches to the imagery by using tools that balance color and add drop shadows, among other edits.
[42]
[edit]Photoshop disasters
A poorly Photoshopped image of actor
Scott Bakula and a random man posing for a photograph.
For the purpose of fun, some websites publish so-called
Photoshop disasters, that is, pictures that contain obvious Photoshop mistakes. Those mistakes range from missing limbs to overdone photo retouching on fashion models.
[43][44]
[edit]Photoshop contest
A Photoshop contest (or "photochop contest") is an
online game in which someone posts an
image, and other people manipulate the image using a
raster graphics editor such as Photoshop.
CS6 Creative Cloud Crop tool options bar A. Aspect Ratio menu B. Swap Width and Height values C. Overlay Options 
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