I was playing around on Pinterest yesterday and hit the design-geek jackpot when I discovered a site loaded with design and web-related infographics. Check out this one on the evolution of Photoshop, via Testking.com.
Infographic: The Darwinian Evolution of Photoshop by Tech King
Me and Photoshop was not a love at first sight.
The first time I ever used Photoshop was around 1999, when I had a short summer internship at small design firm. I don’t think any of the employees really knew what to do with me, so I spent a lot of time making copies, organizing the stock photo catalogs (do places even still use those?) and double checking measurements on packaging designs. Every once in a while most of the office would be out for the day, and whoever remained would just shrug their shoulders and tell me “do whatever you want, I guess. Just play with Photoshop and Illustrator.”
I hated those programs. Absolutely HATED them. I was coming from a fine-art background, and I thought they were the most non-intuitive program ever invented. None of the menu options did what I thought they should do, or be located where I thought they should be. I would watch other people in the office as they worked, fingers flying across the keyboard, windows and menus opening and closing at lightening speed, images transforming on their screens like magic, and feel beyond frustrated that I couldn’t accomplish the same thing. And the Illustrator pen tool…don’t even get me started. That thing was my arch-nemesis. At one point someone tossed me a tutorial book, and despite reading it cover to cover over the course of a few days, I still didn’t feel like I’d ever wrap my head around the program.
I guess a lot can change in thirteen years. 🙂