Adobe Photoshop celebrates 35 years of creativity

A journey through decades of innovation

1990: In 1990, Adobe Photoshop was born, enabling the first wave of photographers to create with more tools and controls than ever before. Photoshop was introduced by Thomas and John Knoll to provide powerful digital image editing tools to edit and enhance photographs. What started as a niche tool for editing scanned images soon became an essential part of creative workflows.

1989-91: Before its official launch, an early version of Photoshop was used in the visual effects of The Abyss (1989). Co-creator John Knoll, who worked as a visual effects supervisor on the film, utilised Photoshop to help craft the groundbreaking water pseudopod sequence. This marked Photoshop’s first venture into Hollywood, paving the way for its major role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day just a few years later. Photoshop's advanced features, like layers (introduced in 1994) and non-destructive editing, offered filmmakers unprecedented control over visual effects and post-production work.

1994: Photoshop 3.0 introduced Layers, a game-changing feature that allowed users to separate and manipulate different elements of an image independently. This single innovation set a new precedent for digital design workflows.

1995: The introduction of adjustment layers, blend modes, and layer masks transformed how artists edited images, enabling them to make changes to colour, brightness, and contrast without altering the original image.

1998-9: The release of Photoshop 5.0 in 1998, which introduced the history panel and layer effects, marked a turning point in mainstream adoption. These features made complex edits more accessible, fueling Photoshop’s widespread use in advertising, print media, and emerging online content. By the late ’90s, Photoshop had established itself as a widely recognised tool in both professional and creative spaces, shaping digital imagery and pop culture alike.

Evolution through the 2000s

2001: The liquify filter became a favourite among designers and photographers, enabling surreal distortions and precision retouching with ease.

2002: This tool revolutionised photo retouching by seamlessly blending image textures, allowing imperfections to vanish instantly. This brush has been a game-changer for photographers and retouchers ever since.

2003: Photoshop became part of Adobe Creative Suite, integrating seamlessly with tools like Illustrator and InDesign to enhance creative workflows. Additionally, the introduction of Adobe Camera Raw allowed photographers to edit raw files directly in Photoshop, preserving image quality while streamlining the editing process.

2007: Lightroom was launched and becomes an empowering image editing complement for photographers and Photoshop users to make high quality edits and content. A fun fact, by coincidence, Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw also share Photoshop’s February 19th birthday — all three products were launched on that day in different years!

2010: Photoshop introduced content-aware fill, empowering users to conceal or replace unwanted objects from images with unprecedented ease and intelligence. The initial video announcing content-aware fill was one of the first videos on YouTube to go viral.

2018: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Photoshop with a Scientific and Engineering Award, recognising its groundbreaking impact on digital filmmaking and visual effects.

2018: Powered by machine learning, select subject allows users to make precise objects selections with a single click, saving time and effort in complex workflows.

2019: Photoshop brought its best-in-class technology to a tablet, giving creators untethered freedom and flexibility to create on the go.

2023: Photoshop was reimagined for a web browser with a streamlined user experience, focused on empowering newer users with a more intuitive interface.

2023: The launch of generative fill powered by Adobe Firefly — a commercially safe generative imaging model — changed how we can express our creativity and accomplish our goals. Since that introduction, we’ve expanded our suite of powerful generative capabilities, enabling you to ideate rich concepts more quickly, accelerate productivity, and simplify complex tasks.