Photoshop Inventor Named Lifetime Innovator

Photo of Thomas Knoll by Robert Ramey

Thomas Knoll, whose name is the first one you see in the splash screen when you start Photoshop, has been awarded the Lifetime Innovator citation by Business Review.

The award was presented at the 2nd annual “Innovation Michigan” event at The Henry Ford Museum last October 4th.

Thomas Knoll is the inventor of what is now the famous Photoshop. He doesn’t own Adobe; he wisely licensed his image editing program to the software behemoth knowing he’d need more than talent to push Photoshop’s potentials.

“Unless you’re really sure of yourself and want to borrow lots of money and go into lots of debt, you’re probably better off working with established companies,” he says to software developers harboring innovative ideas today.

The primitive form of Photoshop was known as Display; Knoll and Adobe expected it to sell about 500 copies. Of course, it did a little better than that and the rest as they say is profitable history.

[Via: PhotoshopNews.com, Business Review]
Photo: Robert Ramey/Business Week

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.