Photoshopped

How to spell photoshopped

12 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce photoshopped

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does photoshopped mean?

1. verbAltered or manipulated using digital image-editing software.

Photoshopped in a sentence

• The magazine admitted the cover image had been photoshopped to smooth her skin.

• Viewers quickly spotted that the shark in the photo had been photoshopped into the wave.

Where does photoshopped come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is a genericised verb formed from Photoshop, the trade name of Adobe's image-editing software first released in 1990. The brand name itself joins two parts: photo, ultimately from the Greek phos, phot- meaning 'light', the same root that gives photograph and photon, and the ordinary English word shop, suggesting a place where work is done. Within a few years of the software's success, people began using 'photoshop' as a generic verb for digitally altering any picture, regardless of the program used, much as 'hoover' or 'google' became verbs. The past tense and adjective form doubles the final p before -ed, following the regular English rule that a short stressed syllable ending in a single consonant doubles that consonant. Adobe has long discouraged this generic use to protect its trademark, but the verb is now firmly established in everyday speech, and the doubled p is the spot writers most often get wrong.

How the word is built

• photo- (light, image)
• shop (from the Adobe Photoshop trade name)
• -ed (past tense), with the final p doubled before the suffix