Happy Birthday Photoshop

Today is our beloved image editing application’s 20th birthday. Many of us have spent more time with this little app than we have with our own kids. As much as I have loved using Photoshop over the last 20+ years, I look forward to the day that I can retire it. I say this not because I’m tired of Photoshop, but because I’m excited about the future.

Parametric workflows, like those available through Adobe Lightroom, Express Digital Darkroom and Apple Aperture are clearly the way of the future and offer huge productivity advantages over one-image-at-a-time, pixel editing workflows like Photoshop’s. While photographers switch to parametric applications, Photoshop will continue to be an excellent application for non-photographers like designers, architects, 3D professionals, etc.

Happy birthday Photoshop, you have been great. Let’s take a fun ride down memory lane. But let’s not reminisce and look to the past for too long. Let’s stay focused on the future, which for most photographers, lies elsewhere. The future is great – and it’s all parametric.