Chapter 1. Introduction

We’re all familiar with the rapid pace of computer development. These days, we routinely e-mail documents that would have filled multiple floppy disks just ten years ago. And though people may complain about the high prices of the latest video consoles, they can at least take some solace in the fact that those consoles are much more powerful than the supercomputers of the late ’80s and early ’90s.

With this level of change, it’s kind of hard to believe that Adobe Photoshop has been around for 16 years, but it’s true: Photoshop version 1 shipped in February 1990. That a piece of hardware or software could survive the type of change we’ve seen over the past 16 years is amazing. There was no World Wide Web in 1990; there were ...

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