GUIdebook has an interesting set of screenshots and information about Photoshop. It lists screenshots of various windows and dialogs of all the versions released in the past, for Mac and Windows. Definitely worth a look.
GUIdebook has an interesting set of screenshots and information about Photoshop. It lists screenshots of various windows and dialogs of all the versions released in the past, for Mac and Windows. Definitely worth a look.
The way that Adobe managed to keep Photoshop’s UI consistent through more than a decade is remarkable, and should serve as an example for a lot of people.
If there’s such a thing as “universal killer app” in the software world, Photoshop certainly deserves to take the crown for that.
mispelled, “consistent”…
Or it proves the lack of innovation/originality from the Adobe folks
Is that true that the entire crew who makes the first ham (4096 color in the same time) drawing program (aka photon paint I may badly remember) was hired by Adobe to produce what would be photoshop ?
I saw that on a french magasine (a long time ago)
Is that a rhetorical question? lol
Adobe puts out some fine products Photoshop being IMO the best they offer, Premiere is powerful but Avid blows it away
anyway, i’ve used a few various programs for creating and editing photo content (corel graphis suite, adobe photoshop, gimp, Quark) and photoshop always seems to come out on top
although… i do like the corel graphics suite as well
Not sure about that. It seems to have borrowed more from Deluxe Paint which also had the top-to-bottom palette window.
Adobe puts out some fine products Photoshop being IMO the best they offer, Premiere is powerful but Avid blows it away
Do not forget Illustrator, my personal favorite!
Look! They got it right from the very beginning, making emphasis on colour manipulation (levels and such), that’s why it became de-facto standard. Unlike newer free tools that still need to figure out how to manage colour properly, yet have a useless array of brushes and plugins.
Hey guys,
We could do it for The Gimp too!!!!
short version: Adobe’s stupid and it’s products sucks nowadays.
longer version: Adobe is de facto, it can’t be ignored, but it’s UIs are getting badder and badder.
I am not illustrator user, but i’ve been using Photoshop from it’s 1.xx version to the CS. Ok ver. 1 and 2 were hard to use because all the floating palettes (like colors-palette and so, except the main toolbar) were in menus and when you opened one of them, it locked your screen so you couldn’t do anything except choose color. I think the ver 3 was the best. THAT WAS INTUITIVE UI. In ver 4 they made some big changes like you were forced to use the moving tool (what’s that called) when you could in ver 3 just move your selections with that selection tool you used.
Ver 5 was absolutely stupid release. ver 5.5 shuold be 5.0. When they released history, it was amazing (but buggy), but with that, photoshop slowed down like elephant which bought a lada (car, you know;). In 6 or 6.5 they modified the basic tool options panel and it was very sucky idea. After that i switched to GIMP. In Windows 3.1x Photoshop was slow as hell freezin’ and Windows ver’s multiple-windows-in-one-window sucks as always and nowadays the Carbon version for Mac OS X is stupid and slow (but it can be the whole OSX to blame, they should make total rewrite, no threading and so). It’s a shame when good killer APP gets tormented:/(
Another APP i liked was Cyberstudio (or something like that) Golive. It was good in ’98 but when Adobe bought it, the first version was not too tormented, it was good, but after that many of it’s concepts and clever UI-ideas were tormented – by adobe. IT’s horrible how Adobe “corrected” all the good stuff because of some kind of unification or something too smart for me to understand.
Same goes with Aldus’ Freehand (nowadays Macromedia’s Freehand) When Adobe-Aldus merger happened, Macromedia bought Freehand and made it better, all the way to ver 10 (i think) but the *beepbeepbeep, autocorrection mode started* MX version spoiled the whole Freehand UI!
Fortunately the open source APPs like Inkscape, GIMP and Scribus etc “loan”/steal/will steal the best of these industry’s finest UI but hopefully leaves the crap out.
Probably the Adobe/Macromedia merger will make the UIs suck even more :/(
(whoa. that was long:)
Premiere is the most idiotistic videoAPP. it’s almost as bad as Windows Movie Maker! People can make better and more pro job faster with iMovie than with Premiere.
I really don’t like Illustator, maybe because I am newbie but it seems really complicated, even cropping an image is complicated and selecting the right object is always a nightmare. Unfortunately I use it with both bitmaps and vector objects and I think it’s really poor designed for simple bitmap operations. But I am a newbie so…
“The way that Adobe managed to keep Photoshop’s UI consistent through more than a decade is remarkable, and should serve as an example for a lot of people.”
Hmm yup they added more floating Pallets, like Premiere Pro, After Effects and so on that really get in the way of productivitiy. It’s probably my only little complaint and it’s very little and could be solved with an innovative UI tweek.
“People can make better and more pro job faster with iMovie than with Premiere.”
Partially true. Premiere like Final Cut captures video at a higher quality than iMovie. Premiere Pro’s ability to edit multiple formates on one timeline is very nice coming from a Final Cut Pro user like me. But in terms of ease of used and making animated titles(livetype)Final Cut has it beat.
If Premiere does come back to OS X. Final Cut will have some needed competition again, because I for one would use Premiere Pro for things. It’s a sweet package, I learned it in a few hours and runs very well on wintel processors.
What other systems was photoshop ported to. I seem to remember hearing something about older versions (4 or 5?) having IRIX ports.
Photoshop 3.0 (and only 3.0) was available for IRIX. Illustrator 3.0 was available for NeXTSTEP.
I am an open-source fanatic…
I love linux, I use linux, I even help to develop a linux distro and linux app…
However, I use photoshop for all my pixel artwork.
It have a lot of functionnalities not yet met by gimp (layer effects, etc..)
However, Illustrator is really ugly… I use Inkscape instead, Inkscape really is revolutionnary, you don’t think in term of odd things but in terms of objects, transparencies, trees…
I don’t think photoshop UI is that bad, I love it, and it permit me to work really quickly to produce correct results.
Photoshops UI is not King of the Hill, but all in all the whole user-experience is good.
Sure, I prefer an effective black’n’white UI, that only uses colors/greyscales when really needed…
Since Photoshop is the leader of the pack for a long time, changes don’t come too fast. That’s very common if an app gets market-leader.
For example, Painter had multiple undo a long time before Photoshop, and Painter is fast. Make sure to use an older version on nowadays machines. Really flying.
Another simple, but killer-feature of Painter is: You can move around the working area in fullscreen-mode, even if its zoomed out smaller than the actual screen. Photoshop still can’t do that. Sounds cheap, but for me it’s essential.
heh……. maybe us opensourcers can opush adobe to liscense photoshop as gpl or bsd hehehehe
or not lol
would be cool though lol
Another simple, but killer-feature of Painter is: You can move around the working area in fullscreen-mode, even if its zoomed out smaller than the actual screen. Photoshop still can’t do that. Sounds cheap, but for me it’s essential.
Not sure if I understand what you mean, but I can do it in CS2 (hold Space and drag).
Photoshop pretty much ownz anyone who objects.
That said it’s price also ownz everyone so I guess alternatives like Gimp are very welcome for poeple who don’t have much money and need a image editor for job/work. Those of us you who don’t use it for work can just grab a torrent, but beware those damn releases have the help files always ripped!
Illustrator ownz too but needs better node selection. ‘Nuff said.
and Windows ver’s multiple-windows-in-one-window sucks as always
—————
I’ve used Photoshop quite a bit on both Mac OS and Windows and I prefer how the Windows version keeps everything in its own little window. Just makes more sense to me.
As a graphic designer, and avid open source advocate, i sadly admit that adobe still rules supreme. Its the main reason i switched to OS X (ability to have adobe apps in a *nix env) While gimp is getting better and better, it is no where near as polished as the adobe line. In a production environment where time is my income, you need to have a reliable tool that does exactly what you want, when you need it to.
Photoshop of the future:
http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=241
🙂
Most of the people say thar gimp is bad but they use pirated versions of Photoshop and they don’t kow how to use 20% of the program.
For me Gimp is sufficient.
InDesign.
As a graphic Designer and print specialist I find this app kills anything else I’ve used (Corel, and Quark). I still find it laughable when people try to do page layout in Illistrator with clipping masks around images and convoluted process that just make for sloppy work when InDesign makes it so much easier for you. Not to mention the transparency capabilities and decent colour management.
Still use Illistrator for Vector work but then I just copy and paste straight into InDesign whilst still maintianing editing capabilties. PDF Export kills Illistrators dead. Illistrator pisses me off with it’s colour management and PDF compatability or lack there of.
Anyway, Adobe have some good apps namely Photoshop and Indesign. They have brought to the computing world Post Script and PDF and they don’t strangle you with them unlike MS with their file formats. PDF is a boon for document printing but still not full proof and many “Graphic Designers” are sloppy and have no understanding of the print process so you end up with crap like spot colours in CMYK ready documents or even RGB images. They should make it compulsory for GD’s to spend time in a print house outputting their bloody work before letting them loose on the world.
My 2 cents
just two quick questions…..
i like the idea of gimpshop… in reorganising menus so your used to them…
1
Does the main Gimp devs know what you have done??.. whats been their responce…??
2
personally for me im getting to the point where i prefer gimp over pspro or photoshop… from your background in printing etc.. (which i have none) whats missing in gimp apart from cyrb….. i just take rgb and convert to cyrb at the last step…
*any other topl that can do this*
thanks… (just wanting to learn more)
cyrb = CMYK
>>> just two quick questions…..
i like the idea of gimpshop… in reorganising menus so your used to them…
1 Does the main Gimp devs know what you have done??.. whats been their responce…?? <<<
I think that they know Gimpshop but gimp developers don’t want to make a Photoshop clone but a similar (in features) program.
>> 2 personally for me im getting to the point where i prefer gimp over pspro or photoshop… from your background in printing etc.. (which i have none) whats missing in gimp apart from cyrb….. i just take rgb and convert to cyrb at the last step… <<<
I don’t know how to use advanced features of both Photoshop and Gimp, therefore Gim is sufficient for me (and most of non-graphic professional people)
Photoshop’s price is abusive for an old program like this. In my country you can buy a pirated CD with Photoshop by US$ 3.50 …
However, I use photoshop for all my pixel artwork.
It have a lot of functionnalities not yet met by gimp (layer effects, etc..)
If you’re a little more creative you can easily to things to produce some of the layer styles, but i never really found them that useful when i used Photo$hop
However, Illustrator is really ugly… I use Inkscape instead, Inkscape really is revolutionnary, you don’t think in term of odd things but in terms of objects, transparencies, trees…
And yet a lot of Illustrator users would disagree, i guess you just don’t use very many of illustrator’s advanced features. GIMP provides a better emulation of Photoshop than Inkscape does illustrator, though it’s important to remember that neither is designed as a clone of the adobe toolsets.
As for GIMPShop, it only helps to confuse P$ users further, tools and filters do not behave in the same ways in GIMP and P$, numerous photoshop filters don’t have equivalents, that’s a bigger obstacle than the menu wordings.
Try Pixel image editor, in near future it will be a decent clone of Photoshop and it works in Linux and others also… http://www.kanzelsberger.com
No Pixel32, I can neither run it on NetBSD/SPARC nor adjust it to my needs, not even compile it from source
It’s not Free, inhuman proprietary software 
And it’s not even stable, Free Software is rock-solid because billions of volunteers improve it all the time 
You might also check Photoshopnews.com under Feature Stories which has not only a history of splash screens and tool bars but a written history regarding the early days of Photoshop.
sorry, i have difficulties to explain.
sure, you hold space and click-drag the image, photoshop had it for years. i know.
but in Painter, I can move the image more freely, for example(!) i can move it that way that i can work on the left upper corner of an image, that i moved right to the center of my screen – contrary to photoshop where the left corner is always in the left corner…
another example: photoshop in fullscreen-mode. image zoomed out max, so that you have tiny image in the middle of your screen. background is black. Painter can still move around this image to you fav. position on the screen. Makes sense if you are working with a wacom-pad or similar. Photoshop can’t (at least PS7 which i use)
ahh, my english fails completely – i can’t explain. sorry…
Photoshop can’t (at least PS7 which i use)
We’re saying about the same things then. You can do everything you said in Photoshop CS2. I guess they must’ve added it recently.
I really don’t like Illustator, maybe because I am newbie but it seems really complicated, even cropping an image is complicated
I agree, but Illustrator support of bitmap images is aimed more at using them in compositions, rather than maniuplating them. It’s a bit annoying that you have to switch over to PhotoShop just to crop a bitmap image – but I’m sure Adobe doesn’t mind too much.
and selecting the right object is always a nightmare.
The “lock object” command is your friend – just lock everything but what you’re working on. And Illustrator does have layer support, which you should be using if you’re doing more complicated compositions.
Steep learing curve, yes, but a very powerful piece of software.
koffice’s krita looks promising:
http://koffice.org/krita/