Photoshop is the leading image editor in the market. The program is highly versatile and caters to a wide variety of needs. While it’s clear that the 4 main purposes of Photoshop are photo editing, graphic design, illustration and digital art, there are also less known fields where Photoshop plays a role. So what is Adobe Photoshop used for? Here are 14 things that might surprise you…
Adobe Photoshop is the leading image editor in the market. It’s used for a wide variety of creative needs. The 4 main purposes of Photoshop are photography, graphic design, illustration, and digital art.
Digital artists use the program to create complex image composites, photo manipulations, digital paintings and drawings. Photographers retouch their shots using Photoshop. Illustrators and graphic artists create logos, icons, and other branding elements.
So far so good. But thanks to its powerful and versatile features, Adobe Photoshop is also used by some industry sectors that you might not have thought of…
In this post, you will learn about 14 things that Photoshop is used for. If you don’t know Photoshop yet, you can start a FREE 7-Day Trial now!
What Is Photoshop, actually?
In a nutshell, Adobe Photoshop is the market-leading software for digital photographers and artists.
It has the most extensive range of tools that cater to wide variety of design and editing needs. One of the great benefits of Photoshop is that all edits are non-destructive, meaning the original image stays intact no matter how much you modify it.
That’s possible due to Photoshop’s layer-based workflow that allows you to make edits, add adjustments, layer styles, and blending modes on individual layers and remove or alter them any time.
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Adobe Photoshop CC is the latest version and available through a Creative Cloud subscription. Subscribers will get all updates automatically at no extra cost, can store their files in Adobe’s cloud storage, and edit them on different devices, including tablet and mobile.
→ Adobe’s Free App: 10 Reasons Why Photoshop Express Is Worth It
With the cheapest Photography Plan, you can get Photoshop CC together with Lightroom and Lightroom Classic for only US$9.99 per month, which is a pretty good deal.
→ Do You Need Lightroom If You Have Photoshop? [Find Out Which Is Better]
What is the history of Photoshop?
Photoshop was developed by two brothers, John Knoll and Thomas Knoll, in 1987. At the time, Thomas Knoll studied engineering at the University of Michigan and also took an interest in photography. Thomas’s father, Glen Knoll, was a photographer himself and even had a darkroom in his basement.
With his engineering skills and his inclination towards photography, Thomas managed to develop a script that allowed him to turn monochromatic images to grayscale on an Apple II Plus computer.
Thomas expanded this initial script with additional processes that made it possible to apply more effects to images on-screen.
During that time, Thomas’s brother John was a special effect designer at George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic. John joined his brother and together they created the first image editor. Image Pro was released in 1988.
Shortly after, Adobe bought the software and released the first version of Photoshop in February 1990. This is how Photoshop started.
What is Adobe Photoshop used for?
More than 30 years in, Photoshop has become the most powerful and versatile image editing software in the market that serves a wide range of different requirements.
So let’s see what Adobe Photoshop is actually used for!
14 Things Adobe Photoshop is used for
1.
Obviously, Adobe Photoshop is used for photo editing and retouching. Many professional photographers import their photos first into Lightroom and then continue working on them in Photoshop.
They use Photoshop to sharpen and color correct their captures, adjust brightness, contrast, shadows, and highlights.
Photo retouchers use Photoshop’s tools to heal the skin, remove blemishes, stray hairs and red eyes. They might also cut out or add smaller objects here and there that complement the overall composition.
Another thing you can use Photoshop for is fixing up and coloring old photographs.
2.
While Photoshop is not Adobe’s main graphic design app, it’s still a popular choice among graphic designers.
Adobe Illustrator is the app that specifically focuses on graphic design. But since many of its tools, such as the pen tool, have been included into Photoshop, Photoshop is now also used to design logos, icons, and similar brand elements.
It’s easy to add and transform text, use vectors, convert elements into smart objects, and save everything for web use. That’s why Photoshop is a popular choice in graphic design.
3.
Many illustrators like to start their sketches on paper. Fortunately, it’s not necessary anymore to first write out your sketches and then scan them. With Wacom’s Intuos Pro Paper Edition, your paper sketches are automatically digitized the minute you create them.
It’s effortless to transfer the sketches from the drawing tablet to Photoshop, where you can further edit them on different layers.
Other illustrators work on a screen tablet like the Cintiq 16 and create their illustrations from scratch using Photoshop’s brush tool. It totally depends on your personal preferences.
Just like Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop contains a lot of vector tools, such as the Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Line, and Custom Shape tool. That makes it equally good for creating illustrations.
4.
Apart from illustration and graphic design, Adobe Photoshop is used to design packaging and mock-ups for products.
Product designers create appealing designs for boxes, wrapping paper, covers, etc. that companies use for their real life products.
But it’s also possible to create virtual mock-ups to help clients understand what the actual product looks like.
5.
Social media is huge, and even companies use it to showcase and market their products and services.
Photoshop is great for creating and editing social media content. There are a number of preset aspect ratios that you can use for cropping your images. But you can also save your own aspect ratios to quickly crop vertical images for Pinterest pins or wide images for your Facebook cover.
→ 15 Must-Know Tips For Artists Using Pinterest
→ 7 DOs To Grow Your Artist Facebook Page
GIFs are another cornerstone of social media content. Knowing how to create GIFs in Photoshop is a plus if you want to create memes or short movies.
But it’s also a fantastic way to show your work in progress or illustrate how a Photoshop action works.
6.
Websites are coded with scripts and variables, but did you know that Photoshop is also used for website design?
Before a web designer finalizes the website into code, the web layout is planned out visually using Photoshop.
Adobe has a special app to design websites, Adobe XD. But Photoshop is really useful to create mock-ups of the front end of websites and apps to see what the final design will look.
7.
One thing Adobe Photoshop is famous for is creating posters and wall art.
You can crop the image to fit the right printing size, add text to complement the subject, and convert everything to CMYK.
Ideal file formats for printing are Adobe PDF, TIFF, and JPEG.
Many people also use Photoshop to create printables, for example with quotes from famous artists.
Photoshop comes with a variety of fonts out of the box. If you want a greater selection, you can import new fonts and even create your custom fonts!
8.
Yes, Photoshop also plays a role in working out interiors. It’s a great way to try out different ideas before setting up the actual interior.
You can design any interior you want, from a living room, bedroom, kitchen to a huge home office. The sky is the limit.
A really popular interior design idea are printable quotes. People love to decorate their rooms with inspirational, motivational, and uplifting words.
If you can nicely combine different font types and styles and arrange them in a decorative way, you have found a great niche. People can then buy the digital file from you and print it out themselves (either on their own printer or at a local print shop).
Just make sure to use fonts that are allowed for commercial use in your designs. I’m getting the fonts that I use for my printable quotes from Creative Market and Creative Fabrica.
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9.
This is a huge artistic component of Photoshop. Actually, Adobe Photoshop is the best tool to create all types of image composites.
You can cut out things from an image, add elements from a different photo, and combine multiple images to make an entirely new creation.
This type of digital art takes some time and practice, but it’s actually my personal favorite. Once you’ve mastered the photo manipulation techniques, you can express your surreal visions and create whatever you imagine. It gives you a creative outlet, which is proven to have a positive impact on your mental health, too.
If you’d like to know more about my creative process, feel free to check out some of my Making Ofs and my way to do lowbrow art. I also have a tutorial on how to create surreal photography (camera & editing) and how to create a surreal portrait in Photoshop, if you are interested.
10.
Another way of creative expression is through digital paintings and drawings. Even though there are specific digital painting programs like CorelDRAW or Clip Studio Paint, Photoshop is the tool of choice of lots of digital artists.
Once you have a tablet to draw on, you can pick any of Photoshop’s paintbrushes and start creating your masterpiece.
Adobe Photoshop is used for painting anything from comic and anime art to realistic oil paintings. In fact, you can even create hyper-realistic 3D paintings!
→ 13 Different Types Of Digital Art Every Digital Artist Should Know
11.
Although Photoshop might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you hear video editing, this is totally doable in Photoshop.
You might not want to use the image editor to put together an entire motion picture, but to edit short videos Photoshop works really well.
The best thing is that you can edit videos in Photoshop just like you would edit regular images. You can add adjustment layers, texts, and effects, and have all the familiar tools at your disposal.
If you don’t know how to use Adobe Premiere Pro or After Effects, Photoshop is a great alternative.
12.
Adobe already announced that the 3D features will be removed in future updates, but so far you can still use Photoshop for 3D modeling and animation.
Photoshop allows you to build basic 3D objects, add lighting and text layers. Likewise, you can create 3D animations and move the model through the digital space.
Once you are done with your 3D model or animation, you can render it directly in Photoshop.
The alternative you can use once Photoshop isn’t 3D-capable anymore is Adobe’s new Substance 3D collection.
13.
Yep, this is yet another field Adobe Photoshop is used for. In many architectural practices, it’s the primary tool to create and edit images.
It helps architects to build renders of the buildings they design, visualizations and diagrams for presentations.
The digital architectural structure benefits from Photoshop’s layer-based workflow, as reflections, colors, shadows and lighting elements can be added on separate layers.
This offers the architect a lot of flexibility when designing the tectonic details.
14.
Believe it or not, but professionals working in law enforcement use Photoshop for graphic forensic analyses.
Even though this is not a creative field, the Adobe app helps to enhance, compare, identify, clarify, and authenticate images.
There are even special Photoshop courses that teach forensic experts how to use the program!
Rundown of the best Adobe apps for Digital Artists
Adobe offer different subscription plans to their apps available in the Creative Cloud. Most artists will want to use Photoshop and Lightroom that you can both get with the Photography Plan for US$9.99 per month or
The full Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator standalone apps are also available individually with the Single App Plan, but at a slightly higher price because you will get more cloud storage, too.
Nevertheless, you can try all of Adobe’s apps with a free 7-day trial, including the All Apps Creative Cloud subscription. Students and teachers can benefit from a generous 60% discount on all subscription plans!
If you don’t like the recurring membership fees, you might want to consider Photoshop Elements. It’s the stripped down version of Photoshop that still has lots of capabilities and guided options for beginners. Photoshop Elements can be purchased with a one-off payment, rather than a subscription.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Illustrator
More about Digital Art Software:
My name is Angie and I’m a self-taught digital artist. On this blog, I am sharing my knowledge and discussing the best software and hardware for different artistic needs. My desire is to offer options for all creative stages and budgets so that everyone can follow their dream and create art!
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