What is Photoshop: Definition and 43 Discussions

Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster graphics editing, but in digital art as a whole. The software's name has thus become a generic trademark, leading to its usage as a verb (e.g. "to photoshop an image", "photoshopping", and "photoshop contest") although Adobe discourages such use. Photoshop can edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models including RGB, CMYK, CIELAB, spot color, and duotone. Photoshop uses its own PSD and PSB file formats to support these features. In addition to raster graphics, Photoshop has limited abilities to edit or render text and vector graphics (especially through clipping path for the latter), as well as 3D graphics and video. Its feature set can be expanded by plug-ins; programs developed and distributed independently of Photoshop that run inside it and offer new or enhanced features.
Photoshop's naming scheme was initially based on version numbers. However, in October 2002 (following the introduction of Creative Suite branding), each new version of Photoshop was designated with "CS" plus a number; e.g., the eighth major version of Photoshop was Photoshop CS and the ninth was Photoshop CS2. Photoshop CS3 through CS6 were also distributed in two different editions: Standard and Extended. With the introduction of the Creative Cloud branding in June 2013 (and in turn, the change of the "CS" suffix to "CC"), Photoshop's licensing scheme was changed to that of software as a service subscription model. Historically, Photoshop was bundled with additional software such as Adobe ImageReady, Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Bridge, Adobe Device Central and Adobe Camera RAW.
Alongside Photoshop, Adobe also develops and publishes Photoshop Elements, Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop Express, Photoshop Fix, Photoshop Sketch and Photoshop Mix. As of November 2019, Adobe has also released a full version of Photoshop for the iPad, and while initially limited, Adobe plans to bring more features to Photoshop for iPad. Collectively, they are branded as "The Adobe Photoshop Family".

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  1. coxcox

    Adobe Photoshop program would not open.

    Greetings. When I tried to start Photoshop CS6 I received error message Could not load actions because an unexpected end-of-file was encountered and the program would not open. Any ideas? How to make photoshop fix? Thanks
  2. Dave Ritche

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  3. E

    Websites that do free photoshop requests?

    Are there any websites that do photoshop/image editing requests for free? I do not own photoshop and my image editing skills with the free software that I have are mediocre at best.So I was hoping that perhaps there is an online community somewhere that professionally photoshops images for...
  4. J

    Design the Most Stable Base for a Rectangle

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  5. davenn

    Processing in Lightroom and Photoshop

    been doing lots of learning with post processing (pp) in Lightroom and Photoshop the first I removed all the colour from around the bird ( a Lorikeet) to make it really stand out The second is as original BG colours 400mm, f5.6, 1/250 sec, camera a Canon 5D3 cheers Dave
  6. E

    How do I enhance low quality JPEG images?

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  7. F

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  8. S

    Having trouble installing photoshop on Windows 7?

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  9. jtbell

    News Postage stamp sells for $9.5 million

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  10. Y

    Old programs cannot be installed after recovery in Win8

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  11. thankz

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  12. H

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  13. Superposed_Cat

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  14. Y

    Older Photoshop won't even load in Win 7

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  15. R

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  16. K

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  17. J

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  18. T

    Can Beauty be described in terms of mathematics?

    This is Dr. Stephen Marquadt. http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1373/stephenmarquardt.jpg When he was a young child, his mother was horribly disfigured in a car crash. So he eventually took the route of becoming a reconstructive plastic surgeon. As a plastic surgeon, he had to work out...
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  20. E

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  21. M

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  22. S

    What are the best tools for creating accurate astronomical figures?

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  23. V

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  24. A

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  25. N

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  26. P

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  27. P

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  28. H

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  29. S

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  30. M

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  31. Saladsamurai

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  32. GeorginaS

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  33. H

    Resize Photos to 600x600 with Adobe Photoshop

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  34. Math Is Hard

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  35. DaveC426913

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  36. glondor

    Photoshop a sunset for me please.

    Hi all. On the drive home the other night I saw ? seen? one of the coolest sunsets I have ever seen. Let me describe it for you. There was a low layer of clouds with a clearing (clear sky) above and then another layer of clouds several thousand feet above. The sun set below (behind) the lower...
  37. honestrosewater

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  38. K

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  39. N

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  40. S

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  41. J

    How much tweaking do super models in photoshop really go through?

    You all know how perfect pictures of super-models are and how they get a little tweaked before going to print. But did you know how much tweaked? http://homepage.mac.com/gapodaca/digital/bikini/index.html Pretty nasty.
  42. A

    Photoshop Help Needed for Nicaragua Trip Picture

    Hey guys; I need a little bit of help. In January I went on a trip to Nicaragua to help with surgery for the people down there who can't afford surgery. Really a great thing we have going down there. Anyway, I got this picture with me and a monkey, but the color in it is horrible. I...
  43. B

    Edit pictures I made with Photoshop

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