Adobe Photoshop is a software produced by Adobe Systems Incorporated specialised in photo editing and, more generally, digital imaging. The first version of Photoshop was made in 1990 by the Knoll brothers, sons of a photographer and developers of the program just for facilitating the work of their father. The version currently available is the CS4. The version called CS (ie Creative Suite) is actually the eighth in the series, but is no longer indicated with a number as it was up to the version 7.0. All the components of Creative Suite are also available separately. This excellent software is able to make professional quality adjustments to the images, offering enormous creative possibilities thanks to many filters that allow you to emulate the techniques used in photo labs for image processing, with added painting and drawing techniques. Another important feature of the program is the capability to work on multiple layers, allowing you to manage separately the different images that make up the main image under edit.
Photoshop is a raster graphics software, and as such, is different from vector graphics software as it acts directly on the pixels, while also offering limited possibilities for vector graphics. The software is expandable with the use of plugins, which can significantly extend the functionality.
Among the many plugins, great importance have those allowing Adobe Photoshop to read and write new file formats, and give it great future expandability. Also worth noting Adobe Camera Raw which allows to work with RAW files produced by many cameras and DNG files.
Adobe also produced a simplified and cheaper version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements. But many of the growing community of fans of this software lately are more and more developing a sympathy for the open source clone of this great tool: The Gimp. The GIMP is an open-source image manipulation and professional editing which aims to become a professional alternative to Adobe Photoshop. There is even a Gimp variant (GIMPShop) that presents a user interface almost identical to the Adobe interface.
Among the many features of the program we should remember one in particular: the efficient panning and zooming and fluid dynamic rotating. We can in fact pass over any area of an image even more quickly with new options for panning and zooming. The image sharpness is maintained even when using the zoom to individual pixels and with the new pixel grid it is possible to easily make changes even at the highest levels of magnification. Moreover, with the new and revolutionary tool Rotate Picture is perfectly possible to rotate the canvas in all directions for a non-destructive display.
The adjustment of the images is made easier by the ability of accessing all the tools needed to modify and optimize non-destructively colors and hues of the images. In this new and dynamic Adjustments panel there are also controls of the image and many useful predefined parameters. It is possible to create, edit and quickly adjust masks. Here are grouped all the tools needed to create changeable masks based on pixels and vectors, adjust the density and nuances, easily select non-contiguous items, and many additional operations. Using the revolutionary new features for intelligent resizing, the program allows to reconstruct an image while it is enlarged or reduced, keeping intact the most important areas and at the same time adjusting the image to new dimensions.
An impressive set of features that give Photoshop the undisputed leadership in the field of image editing.
