First Version of Photoshop

All designers have one tool in common, Photoshop. No matter what incarnation you are using it still packs a hell of a punch and time saving when working with any kind of design. I must say that since I started using computers I have never come across a more useful software that you really can use for your daily work. However, these things you might know but do you know about the two brothers who first programmed the software? Chances are that you have seen their last name in several occasions.

First off and a given in the start-up credits of Photoshop itself. They are the first ones in the list so if you are using Photoshop and you haven’t seen it yet I would call it lame and disrespectful. Haha, after all, it’s because of their dedication and work that you probably even get clients today. Anyways, their work started back in the 80’s and has soon been the industry standard for over 30 years. I would call that one of the biggest software impacts since the launch of the personal computer. And now I guess you want to know what they look like. Well, here they are!

Thomas Knoll

Thomas, the brother who still works at Adobe as a supervisor for the project Photoshop. Thomas created the predecessor to Photoshop back in 1986 together with his brother John Knoll. The software wasn’t called Photoshop back then. It was called “Display” and was released on Apple back in 1987. The software was a huge success and Adobe later decided to home in on the success by acquiring the software for the software park. In 1990 the first “real” Photoshop was released called Photohop 1.0.

John Knoll

Still helping out with Photoshop at Adobe John is also very active in the movie effects business and has several HUGE blockbuster under his belt. Working at “Industrial Light and Magic” (ILM), a department at LucasFilm that specialises in special effects, he is usually seen as the “Visual Effects Supervisor” and has been delivering effects for movies like “Pirates of The Caribbean” (All of them!), “Star Wars” (All three new ones) and “Mission Impossible” back in 1996.

Is there anything these guys doesn’t know about imaging and animation? The success they both carry is more then most people see in their lifetimes. These two fellows are the reason most of us designers even get clients. Take a bow.