Adobe Photoshop

Thomas Knoll began developing the initial program, named Display, in 1987 while a graduate student at the University of Michigan. His brother John Knoll, working at Industrial Light & Magic, suggested expanding the code into a full-fledged image editor. The first commercial version arrived in February 1990 for the Macintosh platform before expanding to Windows and other systems.

The software operates as a raster graphics editor designed for professional photo editing and digital art creation. Users manipulate bitmap files using layers, masks, and alpha compositing to build complex scenes without permanently altering original data. It supports text, vector shapes via clipping paths, basic 3D models, and video sequences within its interface.

Adobe Inc. maintains the application through a subscription model known as Creative Cloud rather than selling perpetual licenses. Recent updates have introduced AI-powered tools like Generative Fill powered by Adobe Firefly alongside standard brush sets and filters. The proprietary PSD and PSB file formats allow artists to preserve every edit, layer, and effect for future modification. [edit]