The software was developed by Adobe Systems and has been one of the standard applications of many web developers, designers, and advertising agencies around the world.
Adobe Photoshop is an image editing software. You can edit and manipulate images in a breeze with this powerful software. Whether you are a graphic artist, web developer or a photographer, this is a tool, which can surely help you do the job with less time and effort. Adobe Photoshop is the leading graphic application used in digital image editing, web graphics, prints and other multi media requirement. Photoshop is widely-used by millions of graphic artists, web developers, photographers, as well as ordinary people. Because of the popularity of the software, it has been accepted as a print industry standard.
Most likely, posters, magazine covers, book covers, brochures, and ads have all been created or edited with Photoshop. With the powerful tools that Photoshop offers, there are a lot of features that can be used to create, even the most complex digital art in a breeze.
Photoshop is the first toolkit for taking your images from concept to completion in print and on the Web, maximizing your efficiency while helping you achieve the finest-quality output in both media.

Adobe Photoshop Features

Selection - This is the most basic but powerful feature of Photoshop. You can select only part of an image wherein you want changes to take effect. This method is done with the use of the tools like the marquee tool, lasso, and pen tools.
Layers - Layers is a set of different stacked elements that contains different parts of an image. Layering lets you work on different parts of a photo and put them together for a dramatic finish.
Image size alteration - This feature enlarges or reduces an image as needed.
Cropping - Cropping lets you select a portion of the image you want to retain. It deletes the rest.
Sharpening and softening - Photoshop features the power to render a sharper or blurred effect on images.
Merging images - This feature allows two or more separate images to merged as one.
Removal of unwanted elements - This technique involves the use of clone tool to maintain the texture of the image. This is useful when you want to get rid of distracting objects in an image which gives more focus on the subject. This feature can enhance close up portraits, to erase acne marks in a face.
Selective color change - Using this feature lets you alter the color of certain parts of an image, keeping the rest of the colors original.
Slicing - This features the ability of slicing a whole image into parts and is labelled with different files and later on used as contents of a website. This feature is automated and widely-used in creating mock-ups of websites.

Produce Superior Web Graphics

• Rollovers
• Web Optimization
• Animation

Expand Your Creative Power

• Precise Masking
• Art History Brush
• Contact Sheets
• History Palette

Enjoy Consistent Design Tools

• Integrated Adobe User Interface
• Seamless Web Graphics Workflow
• Layer Effects

There a lot more features of this great software which you just have to discover and will greatly help you do your image editing task faster and efficient with professional looking results.

Advantages

Photoshop has strong ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring. The .PSD (Photoshop Document), Photoshop's native format, stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality.
Photoshop's popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used, and it is supported to some extent by most competing software. The .PSD file format can be exported to and from adobe illustrator, Adobe premier pro to make professional standard DVDs and provide non-linear editing and special effects services for television, film, and the Web. Photoshop is a pixel based image editor.
Photoshop can utilize the color models RGB , CMYK, grayscale, binary bitmap, and duotone. Photoshop has the ability to read and write image formats such as EPS, .PNG, .GIF, .JPEG, and Fireworks.

Conclusion

With Photoshop's powerful features, you can have unlimited possibilities in image editing which makes it standout among all other graphic software in the market. It has all the necessary tools that can be used to enhance and alter images.