No matter how long you have been using computers, if you have ever had anything to do with image manipulation, then the name Photoshop must have come up in conversation, there is no way any serious graphic designer can turn a blind eye to the impact that Photoshop has had on the graphic manipulation and graphic design industry. Adobe System's van guard product might still be Adobe Reader, but what has kept the wheels turning for nearly 17 years is Adobe's Photoshop, so much so that it has been established as ?an industry standard for graphics professionals?. Sure there are some great graphic manipulation software out there, but the truth is nothing comes even close to Photoshop in terms of reliability and support.



Photoshop is immensely popular with graphic designers around the world for a couple of reasons, below are listed some of the reasons for its popularity

a) Trust

Photoshop has been around for a very long time, in fact some designers remember using it ever since they have been designers. Earlier Photoshop was product of Knoll Software, and the first ever version of Photoshop was released in 1990, almost 17 years ago. No wonder graphic designers the world over swear by Photoshop. Once a strategic alliance was put in place with Adobe Systems, Photoshop was wide spread and has been constantly evolving and bettering itself, largely due to the backing of a corporate giant like Adobe Systems. No other graphic manipulating software can claim to come even close to Photoshop in terms of both pedigree and reliability. With a serious amount of investment in Photoshop's infrastructure and customer care, Adobe has pretty much made Photoshop a household name, and rightly so.

b) Plug-ins and filters

A plug-in is usually a piece of code written by programmers, that integrates itself into Photoshop, similarly a filter is an even more specific piece of coding, that adds to the image manipulation capabilities of Photoshop. Designers all over the world are looking to do different things with Photoshop, one might use it to manipulate digital images, the other to manage bitmap files, the end result is that people tend to customize Photoshop by creating new filters and Plug-ins. In addition to users, Adobe also constantly adds to its Plug-ins and filters repository and offers these as upgrades to Photoshop. The chances are that if you are using Photoshop, there is a high probability that the Plug-in or filter you require has already been created and is available to download of the internet.