We have similar early histories when it comes to our exposure. I began using Photoshop 2.5.1 and 3.0 simultaneously, working in desktop publishing services at a now-gone copy centre chain. I think I got the job because I already had experience using, like, MacWrite and other basic stuff from when I threw together a short-lived zine in high school. This was also my gateway to being thrown into the fire of making ends meet by quickly DIY-learning all the software on our production Quadra 840AV and, later, Power Mac 8100/80 (like QuarkXpress 3.1, Illustrator 5.5, Freehand 3, 4, and 5, and so on). By 1998, I was contracting for various ad agencies and service bureaus in town, but I still didn’t have a computer at home.
The first version of Photoshop I owned was 4.0, which I bought alongside that PCI G4. Lacking history steps was the biggest bane of going head-long into anything major, unless you very consciously saved intermediate copies along the way (which, honestly, was something I forgot to do often).
