What is Photoshop?

Photoshop, which is the abbreviation of Adobe Photoshop, is a graphics editing software developed and published by Adobe System. The software is distributed by Adobe in Windows and Macintosh version. The software has two types of editions which are Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop Extended. The extended edition contains extra 3D image creation, motion graphics editing, and advanced image analysis features. Alongside with Photoshop and Photoshop Extended, “The Adobe Photoshop Family” is formed after the publication of Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Lightroom. Adobe Photoshop Express, a free web-based image editing tool to edit photos directly on blogs and social networking sites is released by Adobe in year 2008 while in year 2011, a version was released for the Android operating system and the iOS operating system.

Since the invention of Photoshop, this software popularity has increasing continuously along with the changing from Adobe Photoshop 1.0 to 7.0 until Adobe Photoshop CS1 to CS6 in 2012. In today’s world, Adobe Photoshop has become the most popular graphics editing software and completely seizes the market. Deke McClelland stated in Photoshop 3 Bible that “Some estimates say that Photoshop sales exceed those of all of its competitors combined.” This is because after several generations of development, Adobe Photoshop has the most intuitive user interface, the most complete set of tools, and the largest number of reference either in analogue or digital form.

Photoshop main functions include photo editing, website design, and the creation of elements for any type of project. Its comprehensive functions make it become the primary choice of many designers when come to photo editing, website design or even layout designing although there are other better software for those tasks such as Illustrator and InDesign. As the Adobe Creative Suite is an expensive package, many designers may start with Photoshop and expand their choice of software later. Once a designer masters the Photoshop tools, creativity and imagination determine what can be created.

References:

• Wikipedia. (2001) Adobe Photoshop. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop. [Accessed 21 July 2013] Annotation: This website is useful for me as it have all comprehensive information and some history about Photoshop. 

• Extropia. Introduction to Adobe Photoshop. Available at: http://www.extropia.com/tutorials/photoshop/what_is_photoshop.html. [Accessed 21 July 2013] Annotation: This website is helpful as they have summarize the function of Photoshop very well.

• WiseGEEK. What is Adobe Photoshop?. Available at: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-adobe-photoshop.htm. [Accessed 21 July 2013] Annotation: This website basically have some introduction about what is Photoshop and help me in creating my introduction.

• Miller, E. Adobe Photoshop. Available at: http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/recommendedsoftware/fr/photoshop.htm. [Accessed 21 July 2013] Annotation: Same as other website stated above, this website provide enough information for me to understand what is Photoshop and its functions.

• Powerweavestudio. PhotoshopEvolution. Available at: http://www.powerweavestudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/PhotoshopEvolution.jpg. [Accessed 21 July 2013] Annotation: This is the evolution picture I found at this website, helping me to show the evolution of Photoshop through these years.