Another "History of Photoshop"

[Redcrown]

Nothing new here, but it's always fun to review the history that brought us here.

https://dailygalaxy.com/2026/04/knoll-brothers-photoshop-creation-story/

But my favorite from past sources: The first Levels tool produced funky colors, so they discovered and implemented "Hue Shift". That became the default Levels, and Luminosity mode became the original no-hue-shift Levels.

[digitaldog]

But my favorite from past sources: The first Levels tool produced funky colors, so they discovered and implemented "Hue Shift". That became the default Levels, and Luminosity mode became the original no-hue-shift Levels.

Where did you read that?
This is straight from the horse's mouth so to speak:

Thomas Knoll on ACR Curves and Saturation:

 Adobe Camera Raw --
   Color reproduction in digital photography
 
 While developing Camera Raw, I experimented with a pure luminance curve (as Simon suggests). However, based on my testing results, I rejected this algorithm since it produced results that were most often visually worse looking than the tone curve algorithm actually used by Camera Raw (which is a special hue-preserving curve, NOT three independent curves as Simon incorrectly assumed). The saturation effects that Simon considers a defect is actually something that most users actually want.

[digitaldog]

This article is filled with a bit of misinformation like:

Getting a print from Photoshop meant generating four-color film separations and routing them through a commercial press. Producing a single photograph could cost several thousand dollars.

Nope, Kodak XL-7700 dye sub (I paid $10K for one used) was released in 1989. A few "service bureaus," at least in LA, offered prints from Photoshop files.
The first version was 1.0.7 (I bought it at EggHead in May of 1990). I think I paid $699, but maybe the price mentioned is accurate.
Photoshop was called Barnyscan before it became Photoshop, too. I remember the late great Bruce Fraser had a copy and worked with the Knolls.
Yes, Levels was a useful tool, but the Clone Tool was really one that blew the buying public away.
And there was ColorStudio, which was also about the same price as Photoshop, and for a few years, there was quite a rivalry between supporters of each. CS had CMYK long before Photoshop. Like virtually every competitor to Photoshop (Live Picture, Xres, Specular Collage, you name it), they all failed in time.