Should anyone doubt the influence of entertainment and games on innovation in computing and graphics, Macworld reports that Photoshop had its origins in Star Wars:
The Financial Times today is carrying an interview with Adobe employee 38 and Photoshop evangelist Russell Preston Brown.The report looks at the history of Photoshop- which was developed by Thomas and John Knoll. Thomas was a programmer, while John was in charge of special effects for the first Star Wars film. Brown confirms: "Photoshop is here today because of that movie." Thomas developed software to add effects and painting tools to images at John's request.
As FT explains in its article,
Photoshop is unquestionably the world's leading image manipulation software but, selling at upwards of $850 a time, depending on version and capabilities, it is primarily for the professional photographer, designer and artist.It was developed by two brothers, Thomas and John Knoll, the former an expert programmer, the latter the executive in charge of special effects for the first Star Wars film.
"Photoshop is here today because of that movie," says Mr Brown. "John needed software tools to convert images for special effects and Tom would write the program. Then John would say 'I wish I could paint on the image', so Tom provided painting tools." Thomas Knoll is still contributing to the development of Photoshop today.
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