Photoshop has long been an established verb in the English language, with the Merriam-Webster dictionary cementing its place in common vernacular. But once upon a time, there wasn't any Photoshopping anything – no swapping faces, no meme creation, and certainly no baked-in generative AI image generators to do it for us or to argue about. That's because Photoshop didn't exist. Not yet, anyway. It may come as a surprise, but Adobe did not create Photoshop – an '80s college kid by the name of Thomas Knoll did, with some help from his brother, John.
You would be forgiven for thinking that Adobe created Photoshop, as the multinational software giant has become synonymous with many of the de facto creative tools used across multiple industries. Before Adobe was selling costly subscriptions and cloud-based storage plans, it existed as a more humble entity, known as Adobe Systems. In those formative years, Adobe was already laying the foundation to becoming the most dominant name in creative software, and meeting Thomas and John Knoll would be pivotal.
A PhD student decided to write a computer program instead of papers
In the late 1980s, personal computers were becoming more common and ultimately paving the way for digital photo editing. Digital scanners had technically been around since 1957, but users had little to no way of manipulating or adjusting the images being scanned. This wasn't what served as the catalyst for Photoshop, instead it was born out of an attempt to improve early robotics.
Thomas Knoll was a PhD student at the University of Michigan when he initially wrote an algorithm that would find edges of an object within an image, aiming to help robotic arms find and sort items. This algorithm – which still exists in Photoshop today as the Find Edge filter – is partly how Photoshop began life. Thomas was also unhappy that his Apple Mac Plus couldn't display greyscale images with its monochrome monitor – another reason he began writing his own tools. His brother, John, was a motion control camera operator for Industrial Light & Magic. It was around this time that John became interested in Thomas' work, approaching him to create some image tools for a Macintosh computer.
Thomas would go on to write several disparate tools for basic image editing, eventually merging them into one application, aptly titled 'Display.' The Display software grew into a more capable tool, as the Knoll brothers iterated on it. Thomas took care of the programming, turning John's ideas and feedback into features. Soon, the brothers realized that there was nothing else in the market that could rival what Display could do, so they began looking into selling it commercially, just as the nascent desktop publishing market was emerging.
The late 1980s were a transformative time for computing. The Apple Macintosh had introduced a graphical user interface that made computers more accessible to creatives. Meanwhile, companies like Aldus and Adobe were developing PageMaker and PostScript, respectively, enabling desktop publishing. The Knoll brothers saw an opportunity: if they could create a program that allowed users to edit the images they scanned, they could fill a critical gap in the workflow. At the time, scanning a photo was one thing, but making even simple adjustments like cropping, color correction, or retouching required expensive dedicated systems used by professional print shops. Display aimed to bring that power to the average Mac user.
Development was a slow, iterative process. Thomas, the programmer, would write code based on John's wishlist of features. John, with his background in film and visual effects at ILM (Industrial Light & Magic), understood what professional artists needed. ILM had created some of the most iconic visual effects in cinema, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones, and John's experience there gave him insight into image manipulation that was far ahead of its time. He would constantly push Thomas to add new capabilities: the ability to adjust levels, to apply filters, to work with selections. Each addition made the program more powerful. By 1988, Display had evolved into a remarkably full-featured image editor, though it was still a far cry from the Photoshop we know today.
From Barneyscan to Adobe, Photoshop 1.0 was born
Adobe had just been founded a few years earlier, in 1982, and was marketing its PostScript programming language, which enabled the early laser printers of the time to interface with Macintosh computers to print screen layouts. Adobe had also just entered the software market with Adobe Illustrator, which was initially designed for Apple's Macintosh machines. Paired with PageMaker, created by the Aldus Corporation (which Adobe would later go on to buy), this would end up making Apple's Macintosh machines of the '80s some of the most influential tech of the time.
The Knolls had been shopping around the Display software, now called Photoshop after briefly being called ImagePro, but interest was low – even Adobe was initially reluctant to invest in it. Things would soon change after they demoed the product to a California-based scanner manufacturer, Barneyscan, among the first companies in the late '80s to introduce a high-end 24-bit color film scanner. Barneyscan recognized that its users weren't able to do much with an expensive scanner when there was no way to manipulate – or even display, in some cases – the scanned film. A deal was struck with the Knoll brothers that saw the very first incarnation of a commercially distributed Photoshop, which would be called Barneyscan XP.
The Barneyscan XP software would be bundled and distributed with Barneyscan scanners, and was even reconfigured to only work with the scanners. This deal was rather short-lived, as Adobe came around and saw the potential of adding image editing software to its growing list of software. Adobe and the Knoll brothers reached a deal in late 1988, and Adobe Photoshop 1.0 entered the market in 1990. Adobe Photoshop has since become a household name, and when Photoshop can even be used on your mobile phone, it's easy to take its ubiquity for granted.
The transition from a student project to a commercial product involved several key decisions. The name change from Display to Photoshop was suggested by a publisher during a trade show; they felt the name 'Photoshop' conveyed the product's purpose more directly. The Barneyscan deal gave the Knolls crucial revenue and validation, but it was Adobe's acquisition that truly launched the software into the mainstream. Adobe saw that desktop publishing was exploding, and they needed a native image editor to complement Illustrator and PostScript. The acquisition was a perfect fit. Thomas Knoll continued to lead development, and John served as a key creative advisor.
Photoshop 1.0 was released on February 19, 1990, exclusively for the Macintosh. It was a relatively simple program by today's standards, with a limited set of tools and only a few filters. Yet it was revolutionary because it gave artists, photographers, and designers the ability to edit digital images on a personal computer for the first time. The interface was monochrome, and there was no support for layers, history, or adjustment layers – features that would come later. Still, it fulfilled a desperate need. Within a year, Adobe had sold tens of thousands of copies, and Photoshop quickly became the gold standard for digital imaging.
The impact on the industry was profound. Before Photoshop, photo retouching was a painstaking manual process done with airbrushes and chemicals. Digital editing was restricted to high-end systems like the Quantel Paintbox, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Photoshop democratized image editing, putting powerful tools into the hands of anyone with a Macintosh. It enabled the rise of digital photography, web design, and eventually social media. The verb 'to photoshop' entered the lexicon, signifying any kind of digital image manipulation.
The story of Photoshop's creation is a testament to the power of individual initiative and the importance of collaboration. Thomas Knoll, the PhD student who started coding out of frustration and curiosity, and John Knoll, the visual effects artist who saw the potential, together built something that changed the world. Adobe may be the steward of Photoshop today, but it was a college student in the 1980s who truly created it. The roots of the software in robotics and edge detection are a reminder that innovation often comes from unexpected places. As Photoshop continues to evolve with AI and cloud features, its origin story remains a fascinating chapter in the history of technology.
The broader context of the late 1980s also played a role. The personal computer revolution was accelerating, and the desktop publishing boom was creating a demand for sophisticated software. The Macintosh II, released in 1987, supported color displays, which made image editing feasible. Without these advances, Display might have remained a niche hobby. But the convergence of hardware, operating system improvements, and the vision of the Knoll brothers created the perfect conditions for Photoshop to emerge.
Today, Photoshop is used by millions of people worldwide, from professional photographers to casual users. Its features have multiplied exponentially, and it has spawned an entire ecosystem of plugins, tutorials, and communities. Yet at its core, it still contains the same edge-detection algorithm that Thomas Knoll wrote as a graduate student. The 'Find Edges' filter is a direct descendant of that original code, a living link to the software's humble beginnings. Adobe has continued to invest heavily in Photoshop, acquiring it alongside other creative tools, but the founding spirit of innovation remains.
In summary, the creation of Photoshop was not a corporate venture but a grassroots effort by two brothers who saw a need and filled it. Thomas Knoll, the college student, and John Knoll, the ILM artist, together wrote the code that would become the industry standard. Their story is an inspiration to aspiring developers and creators everywhere, proving that sometimes the most impactful inventions start with a simple idea and a lot of hard work.
Source: SlashGear News