Adobe Photoshop First

February 19th marked the 25th anniversary of Adobe Photoshop’s first release. To celebrate its birthday, we bring you the very first demo, along with a minute-long compilation animation made up of a host of Photoshop creations. In the second video, you’ll see everyone from Bilbo Baggins to the lovable green Shrek, made from the original working files provided by the artists themselves. 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. 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. Click here to view the first image in this week’s demotivational poster gallery. Continue reading for a viral video showing why moms get nothing done.

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A technology, gadget and video game enthusiast that loves covering the latest industry news. Favorite trade show? Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.