Celebrating 35 years of creativity, community, and innovation with Adobe Photoshop

Thirty-five years ago, Photoshop 1.0 made its debut, transforming the creative landscape forever and changing how the world approached digital imaging and design. Since then, a global community of talented designers, photographers, and artists has continually pushed the bounds of creativity — challenging and inspiring us to expand Photoshop’s capabilities so they can bring their unique visions to life. To celebrate this anniversary, we’d like to reflect on our rich history and thank you for helping us make Photoshop what it is today.

As we take a walk down memory lane, take a moment to share your creator story and favorite content with us. Join the celebration! Share and tag @Photoshop on Instagram for a chance to be featured with the broader Photoshop community. And for a bit of nostalgia, check out the Photoshop (beta) app welcome screen!

Photoshop’s journey through the decades

1990: The Birth of Photoshop

In 1990, Adobe Photoshop was born, enabling the first wave of photographers to create with more tools and controls than ever before. Photoshop was introduced by Thomas and John Knoll to provide powerful digital image editing tools to edit and enhance photographs. What started as a niche tool for editing scanned images soon became an essential part of creative workflows.

© Jeff Schewe.

1989-91: Photoshop Enters Hollywood

Before its official launch, an early version of Photoshop was used in the visual effects of The Abyss (1989). Co-creator John Knoll, who worked as a visual effects supervisor on the film, utilized Photoshop to help craft the groundbreaking water pseudopod sequence. This marked Photoshop’s first venture into Hollywood, paving the way for its major role in Terminator 2: Judgment Day just a few years later. Photoshop's advanced features, like layers (introduced in 1994) and non-destructive editing, offered filmmakers unprecedented control over visual effects and post-production work.

1994: Layers Revolutionize Digital Design

Photoshop 3.0 introduced Layers, a game-changing feature that allowed users to separate and manipulate different elements of an image independently. This single innovation set a new precedent for digital design workflows.

1995: Non-Destructive Editing becomes the standard

The introduction of Adjustment Layers, Blend Modes, and Layer Masks transformed how artists edited images, enabling them to make changes to color, brightness, and contrast without altering the original image.

© Wayne Palmer.

1998-9: A Household Name

The release of Photoshop 5.0 in 1998, which introduced the History Panel and Layer Effects, marked a turning point in mainstream adoption. These features made complex edits more accessible, fueling Photoshop’s widespread use in advertising, print media, and emerging online content. By the late ‘90s, Photoshop had established itself as a widely recognized tool in both professional and creative spaces, shaping digital imagery and pop culture alike.

Celebrating our first decade together

To our earliest adopters and pioneers, thank you for being brave and bold and seeking new ways to enrich your creative workflows. You saw and embraced Photoshop’s potential from the beginning. Your passion, talent, and creativity and input fueled product development, and evolved Photoshop from a humble editing tool into an industry standard for imaging and design.

Evolution through the 2000s

2001: Liquify Filter Launches

The Liquify Filter became a favorite among designers and photographers, enabling surreal distortions and precision retouching with ease.

2002: The Healing Brush Tool

This tool revolutionized photo retouching by seamlessly blending image textures, allowing imperfections to vanish instantly. This brush has been a game-changer for photographers and retouchers ever since.

2003: The Creative Suite Era and Adobe Camera Raw

Photoshop became part of Adobe Creative Suite, integrating seamlessly with tools like Illustrator and InDesign to enhance creative workflows. Additionally, the introduction of Adobe Camera Raw allowed photographers to edit raw files directly in Photoshop, preserving image quality while streamlining the editing process.

© Russell Preston Brown, Senior Principal Designer (@dr_brown).

2007: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

Lightroom was launched and becomes an empowering image editing complement for photographers and Photoshop users to make high quality edits and content. A fun fact, by coincidence, Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw also share Photoshop’s February 19th birthday — all three products were launched on that day in different years!

2010: Content-Aware Fill

Photoshop introduced Content-Aware Fill, empowering users to conceal or replace unwanted objects from images with unprecedented ease and intelligence. Our initial video announcing Content-Aware Fill was one of the first videos on YouTube to go viral!

2018: Photoshop Receives a Technical Oscar

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Photoshop with a Scientific and Engineering Award, recognizing its groundbreaking impact on digital filmmaking and visual effects.

2018: Select Subject Simplifies Complex Selections

Powered by machine learning, Select Subject allows users to make precise objects selections with a single click, saving time and effort in complex workflows.

© Aaron Nace (@aknacer).

2019: Photoshop on iPad

Photoshop brought its best-in-class technology to a tablet, giving creators untethered freedom and flexibility to create on the go.

2023: Photoshop on the web

Photoshop was reimagined for a web browser with a streamlined user experience, focused on empowering newer users with a more intuitive interface.

2023: Generative Fill and Adobe Firefly

The launch of Generative Fill powered by Adobe Firefly — a commercially safe generative imaging model — changed how we can express our creativity and accomplish our goals. Since that introduction, we’ve expanded our suite of powerful generative capabilities, enabling you to ideate rich concepts more quickly, accelerate productivity, and simplify complex tasks.

© Ted Chin (@tedslittledream).

Welcome to the next era of Photoshop

Photoshop flourished through its teenage years and recent anniversaries thanks to your vibrant creativity, valuable insights, and visionary aspirations. We entered the next era of Photoshop together, working hand-in-hand to develop powerful solutions that inspire today’s biggest imaginations. Thank you for helping us build smarter tools, expand across different devices, and enrich our culture with your inspirational creativity.

Looking ahead: 2025 and beyond

While it was fun to commemorate Photoshop’s 35^th birthday and reflect on how far we’ve come, it’s more exciting to look forward and shape the future of creativity with you, our community. We remain committed to building products that empower you to create anything you can imagine. Your passion and feedback fuel product innovation, so we hope you’ll continue this journey with us. We encourage you to connect with fellow creators online AND offline:

• This week, February 19^th, share your early Photoshop creations on Instagram and tag the @Photoshop handle so we can amplify what you share.
• Join us on April 24^th at MAX London to hear about the newest innovations from Adobe and Photoshop.
• Connect with other creators on our Discord Community, read about the journeys of artists Bella Kotak and Holly Rose Stones, and get the latest updates about Photoshop’s cutting-edge capabilities.

Join the celebration

Photoshop’s story is your story. Whether you’re a graphic designer, photographer, or visual effects artist, your creations have shaped the world and inspired countless others. This anniversary is not just about looking back but also about looking forward — together.

Let’s celebrate 35 years of creativity, collaboration, and community together. Share your Photoshop creations with us on Instagram or TikTok and tag @Photoshop and keep an eye out for even more updates and events throughout the year.

Cheers to the next decade of limitless creativity!