Yesterday, I came across a shocking revelation about Photoshop that shook me to my core. In this moment of crisis, I alerted my colleagues with the breaking news: "Guys, Photoshop used to come on a disk?!?! WTF"
The response? Ridicule. Soon, a sea of messages was upon me, claiming that I had made my team feel old, and that this was, in fact, not a revelation. The generational divide on the Creative Bloq team had never felt so enormous – I was ashamed, yet my amazement was scarcely quelled. What do you mean, this iconic graphic design software wasn't always available a mere click away? And don't even get me started on floppy disks...
I'd like to preface by saying that, of course, I knew Photoshop wasn't always downloadable online, but it had never crossed my mind that Photoshop could be tangible. In an illuminating Reddit thread, users shared their fond memories of buying physical copies of Photoshop back in the 90s/00s, with many nostalgic for the simpler times.
"I remember purchasing Photoshop as a CD from Best Buy in 2007!" one user wrote, while another added, "I’ve still got my Photoshop 2.0 floppy disk set. I couldn’t part with them when I was cleaning stuff out." Others recalled the basic functionality of early PS, with one user explaining, "About 1999 I discovered at work that there was a 99 layer limit and if you saved your work with 99 layers it wouldn’t load again," while one added, "I used Photoshop before it introduced layers. I feel so old" (this sounds like an absolute nightmare; I will never take layers for granted).
While admittedly I enjoy the convenience of modern Photoshop, I do see the appeal of having a physical CD or floppy disk (whatever that is...) over endless Adobe subscriptions, given its controversial pricing and subscription cancellation issues. With advancements like Photoshop for Android, we've come a long way from its humble origins, but there's no denying PS revolutionised the design sphere.
