Adobe Photoshop 1.0, released on , was a landmark moment that democratized professional-grade digital image editing . Originally developed for the Macintosh platform, it transformed complex tasks that previously required dedicated, high-end hardware into a process accessible on a personal computer. The Origins: From "Display" to Photoshop
| Feature | Description | |---------|-------------| | | MacPaint, TIFF, GIF, PICT, EPS, and native .PSD | | Maximum image size | 4,096 × 4,096 pixels | | Color modes | Bitmap, Grayscale, RGB (no CMYK or Lab) | | Tools | Marquee (rectangular/elliptical), Lasso, Magic Wand (revolutionary at the time), Paintbrush, Pencil, Airbrush, Rubber Stamp (clone tool), Eraser, Line, Paint Bucket, Text (simple), Hand, Zoom | | Filters | Blur, Sharpen, Noise, Edge Detect, Emboss, Solarize, Custom (kernel) filter | | Adjustments | Brightness/Contrast, Levels, Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, Invert | | Layers | ❌ No layers (introduced in Photoshop 3.0, 1994) | | History | ❌ No undo stack (only single Undo) | adobe photoshop 1.0
Photoshop was not originally an Adobe product. In 1987, Ph.D. student Thomas Knoll wrote a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome screen. This program, initially called Display , caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, who worked at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). John saw its potential for image editing. Adobe Photoshop 1