I'm Still Photoshopping My Photos
Adobe, the creator of the highly popular image editing software Photoshop (the program I use for editing my captures), has recently stated that the name Photoshop is not to be used as a verb. In fact, they have a whole section on their website detailing the company's policy on this.
Here is a snippet from Adobe.com:
The Photoshop trademark must never be used as a common verb or as a noun. The Photoshop trademark should always be capitalized and should never be used in possessive form, or as a slang term. It should be used as an adjective to describe the product, and should never be used in abbreviated form. The following examples illustrate these rules:
Trademarks are not verbs.
CORRECT: The image was enhanced using Adobe® Photoshop® software.
INCORRECT: The image was photoshopped.
I think it is a bit late to enforce this policy on a large scale. The word photoshop has become synonymous in the photography community and increasingly in mainstream speech with the word edit. Just this past weekend I overheard the following exchange:
person #1: "Check out this picture of a giant dog."
person #2: "I already saw that. The dog's not really that big, it's photoshopped."
To further illustrate my belief that it is too late for Adobe to prevail in this area, one only has to go as far as Dictionary.com. A quick search on the popular site for the definition of "photoshop" yielded this result:
"...to edit an image using a computer program," 1992..."
What I suspect is really going on here is that Adobe is required to have a policy in effect to protect their trademark. Without this effort, they run the risk of losing the claim to ownership of the name Photoshop. Google had a similar problem last year since their name was increasingly being used as a generic term for search (i.e. "just google for the answer").
I can understand why companies like Adobe and Google don't want their trademarked names to go the way of Xerox & Kleenex and become generic terms. But in the photography community I think it is too late.
As for me, I will continue photoshopping my photos. What about you?
Labels: photoshop
5 Comments:
I'm not surprised Adobe is doing this, but I'm with you that it's too late. Just like google, facebook, and even wikipedia, once something gets popular enough, we use it in verb form. There's no stopping it.
I do wonder if it's actually bad for a company. I would argue that one of the reasons Google is so popular is because when people needed to decide which search engine to use, they chose the one that was used in general conversation.
It should be used as an adjective to describe the product
Uh, Adobe, it's a title and therefore a noun not an adjectvie.
Yeah, it's a stupid legal move to try to protect something they've already lost. If a product is popular enough, then its name is going to get used however people want, regardless of the company's trademark policy. Rather than try to restrict it, annoy people and giving themselves a bad name, they should embrace it and use it in a clever, viral, guerrilla marketing campaign.
I hoovered the carpet yesterday. Hoover is a company but the company name is now a verb meaning "to vacumn clean". Adobe Photoshop is following the same route.
'Shopping my pics is one of my favorite things to do, and I'll continue to describe it that way, too. :-)
The verb "photoshopped" has been used in the movie "Cheaper By The Dozen" by Steve Martin, when they were shooting their Christmas picture.
Used in a movie...now it's an official verb.
Randy
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