Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editor (with some text and vector graphics capabilities) developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the market leader for commercial bitmap image manipulation, and probably the most well-known piece of software produced by Adobe Systems. It is usually referred to simply as Photoshop . Photoshop is currently only available for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows; versions up to Photoshop 7 can also be used with other operating systems such as Linux using software such as CrossOver Office. Past versions of the program were ported to the Silicon Graphics IRIX platform, but official support for this port was dropped after version 3.

=Features=

Although primarily designed to edit images for paper-based printing, Photoshop is used increasingly to produce images for the World Wide Web. Recent versions bundle a related application, Adobe ImageReady, to provide a more specialized set of tools for this purpose. Photoshop also has strong links with software for media editing, animation and authoring. It works with Adobe ImageReady, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects & Adobe Encore DVD to make professional standard DVDs, provide non-linear editing and special effects services such as backgrounds, textures and so on for television, film and the web. Photoshop s native file format (PSD or PDD) can be exported to and from Adobe ImageReady, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Encore DVD. Photoshop CS broadly supports making menus and buttons for DVDs. For PSD or PDD files exported as a menu or button, it only needs to have layers, nested in layer sets with a cueing format and Adobe Encore DVD reads them as buttons or menus. PSD or PDD is a widely accepted file format. Competing bitmap image editing programs (such as Macromedia Fireworks, Corel Photo-Paint, Pixel32, WinImages, GIMP, Jasc Paintshop Pro etc.) can import and edit layered PSD or PDD files.

Photoshop can deal with a number of different color spaces:

sRGB color space (white point=D65) - RGB in photoshop

Lab color space (white point=D50) - Lab in photoshop

CMYK color model

Grayscale

The most recent version, as of 2005, is version 9. This iteration of the program is marketed as Photoshop CS2 . CS reflects its integration with Adobe Creative Suite and a number 2 because it is the second version released since Adobe rebranded their products under the CS umbrella. In an effort to break away from previous versions of the application and to reinforce its belonging with the new line of products, Photoshop even dropped one classic graphic feature from its packaging: the Photoshop eye, which was present in different manifestations from versions 3 to 7. Photoshop CS versions now use feathers as a form of identification. The latest version comes with Adobe Camera RAW , a Plugin developed by Thomas Knoll which can read several Camera raw file formats from various Digital camera and import them directly into Photoshop. A preliminary version of the RAW plugin was also available for Photoshop 7.0.1 as a $99 United states dollar optional purchase.

While Photoshop is the industry standard image editing program for professional raster graphics, and practically monopolises the high-end market, its price has led to a number of List of bitmap graphics editors gaining market share in the low-end and mid-range markets; some, such as the GIMP, are completely free. To compete in this market, and to counter unusually high rates of copyright infringement of software of their professional products, Adobe have introduced a low-end program called Photoshop Elements, which is a cut-down Photoshop with many professional features removed, for under $100 US; this is aimed firmly at the consumer market, since the feature cuts make it unsuitable for prepress work.

Strangely, Photoshop does not seem to natively support the many Image Arithmetics that Jasc Paintshop Pro and some other bitmap editors do. However, this can be corrected by installing a free plugin called Filter Factory, which is distributed on all Photoshop installation CDs above version 3.0.

=Cultural impact=

The term in all these varieties have become a favourite pastime for many professional and amateur users of the software.

The term is sometimes used with a derogatory intent by artists to refer to images that have been retouched instead of originally produced. A common issue amongst users of all skill levels is the ability to avoid in one s work what is referred to as the Photoshop look (although such an issue is intrinsic to many graphics programs).

In recent times, Photoshop has been used for altering and drawing vehicles, usually cars, in a process known as digi-modding , photoshopping or virtual-tuning . About twenty websites of this sort have been established in recent years. The rate of expansion of this new type of art is huge. Although the websites that provide a base for people to showoff their chops are fairly new, Photo-manipulated cars have been in automotive magazines for years.

=Development=

The brothers Thomas Knoll and John Knoll began development on Photoshop in 1987. Version 1 was released by Adobe in 1990. The program was intended from the start as a tool for manipulating images that were digitized by a scanner (computing), which was a rare and expensive device in those days.

==Release history==

=Alternatives=

There are many other bitmap-graphics editors available, but none have come close to Photoshop s popularity among professionals. The most popular competitors in other markets are the open source GIMP, which has a large and vocal following, and the commercial packages Macromedia Fireworks, Corel Photo-Paint, and Paint Shop Pro. Less well-known alternatives include GIMPshop (a version of GIMP with a more Photoshop-like interface), the open source Paint.NET, and the commercial Pixel32, which is available on more platforms than the other commercial offerings.

=See also=

*Digital Negative Specification *Photoshop tennis *Photoshop contest

*List of bitmap graphics editors *Comparison of bitmap graphics editors

==Related terms==

*2D computer graphics *Color *Color theory *Digital image *Digital watermark *Gamut *Graphics file format

=External links=

==Official websites==

*[http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/ Official Page] *[http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/cameraraw.html Adobe Camera RAW]

==Other websites==

*[http://www.storyphoto.com/multimedia/multimedia_photoshop.html A history of Photoshop written on the application s tenth anniversary] *[http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/Adobe_Photoshop/All/ Over 7,000 Adobe Photoshop Tutorials] *[http://www.worth1000.com/ Photoshop parody site] *[http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/ Photoshop related resources directory] *[http://www.photoshopuser.com/ National Association of Photoshop Professionals] *[http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm Tutorials on Photoshop for Digital Photography] *[http://www.photoshopsupport.com/ PhotoshopSupport.com - Resource Site] *[http://www.photoshopcafe.com/ Photoshop Cafe] *[http://www.aresluna.org/guidebook/apps/photoshop/ Screenshots from almost every version of Photoshop] *[http://www.fotofects.com FotoFects] *[http://www.photoshopninja.com Photoshop Ninja - An ever growing blog of expert tips and tricks] *[http://www.myjanee.com/ps.htm myJanee.com Photoshop Tutorials & Resources]