Hard to believe, but on Friday Adobe Photoshop officially celebrated its 20th anniversary (or birthday, depending on how you look at it)… The New York Times writes:

“It’s remarkable when a product stays on top of its game for 20 years, and Adobe Photoshop had done just that. The first version of Photoshop shipped on Feb. 19, 1990, at a price of $895. Today it’s the go-to tool for professional photographers and graphic designers, and it is used by 10 million people around the world, according to Adobe.”

Indeed, the software has traveled a long way. When it first came out, Adobe predicted it would sell 500 copies per month. Yet now, over 90 percent of creative professionals worldwide have Photoshop on their desktops. The original authors say they knew they had a groundbreaking technology on their hands, but never anticipated how much it would impact the images we see all around us.

The current CS4 version of Photoshop is actually release 11.0 – so there have been ten major versions of the tool over the past two decades. And the flagship product is less expensive now than when it originally came out, even more so (less than half the price) when adjusting to 1990 dollars. Photoshop together with Acrobat and Dreamweaver remain Adobe’s top three selling individual desktop products.

In honor of the celebration, Adobe is offering a couple new specials for the week… The first is free shipping on all Photoshop-family products in the North American commercial store. The second is free shipping on all Adobe products for the Europe and Australia commercial stores, with the promotion code adobeeu. All shipping offers are valid through Sunday, February 28th, and might be stackable with the 10%-off coupon code posted last week.

Adobe is offering free Fedex shipping on all Education products at select Adobe Education Stores. Offer valid until February 22, 2010. Plus, students, teachers, and faculty can still save up to 80% off regular prices at the Adobe Education Store.

Offer good for the following Adobe Education Stores:

• North America
• United Kingdom
• France
• Germany
• Other European Countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland)

Also there’s another promotion where if you’re a teacher or K-12 student in North America, you can save $50 instantly on the already-reduced price of a “Premium” version of CS4… This one is valid through February 28, 2010.

It’s that time of year again, and as has been the case in recent Decembers past, Adobe is offering free FedEx ground shipping to its commercial and education store customers for the holidays, pretty much worldwide… Just choose the store you want here and take it from there.

The offer runs through Monday, December 21st, and you should be able to see the details on each page of your store. If not, you can find the complete terms for North America in English here, and for the UK and Europe here: in English, French, or German.