Sneak Peek, Photoshop 2.5: A Look Back

With all of the excitement of the release of the Photoshop CS3 beta I too have been tempted to begin offering some tutorials on the new version. But rather than put up some quick me too tutorials I would rather wait and work with the program and complete some meaningful images for me before I want to offer opinions about CS3. Right off the bat it looks amazing and I thank the other podcasters who have offered some looks at the new features. I was inspired to make a tutorial on my first version of Photoshop. It was version 2.5, released in 1993. I had just switched from Aldus Photostyler and my first version was for Windows. My first computer was a cheap IBM clone, a 486 with 4 megs of ram and a 135 meg hard drive. So much focus then was on hardware resources or lack thereof and ways to work to maximize your system's resources. But Photoshop back then was still amazing and many of its core elements are still the basis for what I do with it today. I feel that looking back to the program in a somewhat simpler form is a great way to think about image selection fundamentals and working with channels, whether you use Photoshop as a digital darkroom or as a composite generator or both. So I hope you enjoy this look back and use it as a way to look forward with your Photoshop creative technique. Happy New Year!