So, I’m a sucker for alliteration. That’s what first drew my attention to the article, written on Postlight, entitled Fun Photoshop File Format Facts.
As a Photoshop geek since version 2.5 of the program (before they even invented Layers), this discussion of the inner workings of how a Photoshop .psd file retains it’s backwards compatibility, along with it’s potential and power is of massive fascination to any Photoshop geek.
Upon first looking at the article, I was brought back to a simpler and easier time, with the help of the first image – Photoshop, as it looked when layers were still almost brand new in Photoshop 4 (version 3 actually first introduced them). There’s a fun retro-splashscreen quiz (for those of us with memories of Photoshop going WAY back – image G was the first one with which I worked), reference to a really interesting commentary by a programmer from 2009, about his utter hatred of the .psd technology (which, by the way, is what gives us ALL the power we have now), and some technical background on what really makes up a .psd file.
As Photoshop users and designers, we really don’t need to know any of this. For us, it just works, and we’re grateful for the power it gives us. But for me, it makes me happy I’m not a programmer working with Photoshop files from a coding perspective!
Just for fun, I’m including the splashscreen from Photoshop CC2015, and what the interface looks like, now!
