Fascinating Interview with Photoshop Co-Creator John Knoll
Jan. 18
12:51 am
You gotta check this out, because this isn’t just one of those things you don’t see very often—-this is something you just never see—an interview with John Knoll—the co-creator of Adobe Photoshop, and he’s talking to Robert Scoble about the origin of Photoshop well….ya just gotta watch it.
It’s one of those must-watch clips for anyone with even a passing interest in Photoshop, and because it’s John Knoll, you get insights and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Really great stuff!
Here’s the link—don’t miss it.
Cool! John seems like a great guy. Humble too. Hard to believe it has been 20 years…
I remember John gave me a copy of Photoshop 0.93b back around maybe 1988, he was working on the FX for “The Hunt for Red October” and he used it to show me a bunch of primitive 3D rendered images of submarines, animatics for planning the animation camera shots of the live sub models. The images were done in Swivel 3D, wow it’s hard to believe anyone ever did serious FX planning with such primitive tools, compared to what we have today. But that was when Mac CG was in its infancy, hell, we’d just got color displays for the first time. $4k for a color display, the CRT only? $2k for a video card? A bargain compared to the expensive workstations that were in use at the time.
BTW, oddly enough, the set for Red October was in an industrial building just a block from where I lived, in the artist loft district in LA. Once in a while, if the gate was open, you could see the interior of the set as you drove past the site.
Very cool indeed – that was some feature if you think about it: Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Scobelizer and Thomas Knoll just chatting away in the halls of ILM! How’d you like to be a fly on that wall? (Although we kind of were from the interview…TK seems pretty down to earth.) Did you notice both videos were recorded on SLR’s? – also telling of the times!
For a more extended interview of the chat, AS posted his on YouTube too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iItTsYmy8lQ&feature=player_embedded#
Fantastic interview indeed. Watched the long version that Jason linked to, yesterday. What a fantastic guy. Genuinely enjoyable interview and a great insight into things.
Szabi
Pioneers of a new time.
Clicked the link, but nothing there
Great insight from someone that was there!
I loved the interview. He seams like a genuine down to earth guy.
Scott Kelby – Help Please!!!
I was in Haiti during the earthquake and took photos before, during, and after the quake. I posted some to Flickr, and a magazine in France want to purchase them for a couple full page spreads. They want exclusivity, and want to know how much I want for them. I have no idea who to ask for help. I want the proceeds to go directly to the orphanage I was helping in Haiti, and I want a fair price. What should I do next? They want to finalize this in 30 min… Any ideas? (The magazine is “Paris Match”)
I have removed the shots during the earthquake at their request, but the rest are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiffmeyer/sets/72157623223753680/
Any thoughts? My main goal is to help the people of Haiti, and if I can generate money for them I would feel I have helped.
James Kiffmeyer
jkiffmeyer@gmail.com
Great interview. It was interesting to hear how it started. It was funny to hear them mention MB of RAM vs GB today. Imagine computing and technology 5 to 10 years from now.
Very cool to here this story. I still remember when I saw the Photoshop 1.0 box on the shelf at a company that did color work for me. I was like “hey what is that?”
Thanks, Scott! Here’s the YOUTUBE link from the guy who actually did the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iItTsYmy8lQ&feature=related
who is this guy?? who knows him?
isn’t it Thomas Knoll ?
Fascinating to see him and hear about the world of 20 years ago; hope I’m around to see what 20 years from now brings……….
Did any of you guys ever see the “Terminator 2 Extreme Edition” DVD? (the one that had the Windows Media High Def video on it?).
It’s been a good few years since I watched it, but in the extras on there, there was some pretty in-depth talk with the guys at ILM & Adobe regarding the origins of Photoshop and how it was integral to producing the movie (and how the movie was integral to the development of Photoshop at the time).
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/t2dvd.aspx
It is amazing to see how far we have come in 20 years. The human race is becoming a rocket ride!