Photoshop turns 20

For all you Photoshop enthusiasts, your photo editing program of choice turns 20. The following news link outlines some of the festivities along with some interesting history regarding the program.

The Photomonk

I've been using it since v3.0 - about 16 of those years? Just about getting the hang of it now...

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Joining the Q

So I hear, and I am sure that your bank account is considerable lighter with all the upgrades.

The Photomonk

Nope. Stuck on V5 and never seen the need to upgrade further - it does everything I've ever wanted to do (except process RAW files - digital cameras were almost unheard of back then. Still, that's what Pentax Photo Lab's for ).

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Joining the Q

Then you are a rarity my friend. Most I know have to have the latest and greatest version with all the plug-ins their bank account can afford.

The Photomonk

I used to look through the computer mags and drool over all the latest plug-ins but I could never justify them. Instead I spent so long learning how to do everything in V5 I couldn't bear the thought of re-learning it all over again.

A big advantage of using an old release is that it absolutely flies on a modern PC. As long as it keeps running on newer OS's I'll keep using it.

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Joining the Q

Oh, I know that feeling!

The Photomonk

Been using it since 2.5 ('92). My fav version was 6 but as I have to handle other people's work, I've had to upgrade. For several years I stuck with 6 and let my team convert the new files but I've finally caved in.
I was mortified when they bought in layers and multiple undos etc. before that, it was easy to rise above the average because everything was so tricky. Now there's a pesky button or plugin for everything and everyone and his wife has a dodgy version on their machine

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Plymouth Photographer

I've never used the full version, but I do like Elements.

Same here. I never had a call to go beyond that on anything I was working on.

The Photomonk

My first version was the only software I bought with my first Mac 650.
I went into Dixons and said I was an illustrator, what have you got - the spotty yoof showed me Corel draw on a PC - it ws truly abysmal. I then went to the Mac store and was blown away! it was like fast forwarding 10 years!
I finally stumped up £4500 for a mac, monitor, scuzzy drive, scanner and PhotoShop 2.5 here's my first effort (just trying stuff out), looks really cheesy now ha ha


BTW, the copyright was put on in 97 for my first website.

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Plymouth Photographer

I spy the lens flare filter, some circular texture maps and some rather snazzy fractal work - was that last bit a plug-in or did you do that part in a seperate app?

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Joining the Q

Yes the fractal was a plugin.
I used to call this sort of thing 'stirring pixels' - it was a piece of cake to get something out of PhotoShop, but then the learning just went on and on!
Like you hefty1, I feel I'm finally getting the hang of it

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Plymouth Photographer

Started with v4, now on the full CS2 suite. For my websites, I actually prefered GoLive to Dreamweaver so never did the CS3 upgrade (CS2 suite included the last stable version of GoLive).

I've resisted the upgrade to the full CS4 suite (what a huge cost!) as I no longer need to do much professional graphic or web work as I've since retired, but I may just do the Photoshop upgrade even though it goes against my better judgement, as I find Adobe more objectionable than Microsoft!

Are there any CS2 users who upgraded to CS4 and did you find it worthwhile? If so, what especially?

I know I can download a trial version, but I'm lazy and would be interested in others opinions first!

EDIT - I don't use Lightroom, so am not interested in it's integration.

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Best regards
Richard Day

Profile - link - (click on About for equipment profile) - My Flickr site - link