Top 10 graphics technologies

2. Photoshop
Shaun Nichols: Perhaps no single piece of software is as synonymous with digital media creation as Adobe Photoshop. The tool has become the standard for processing and editing digital graphics. In fact, it is so widely used that 'photoshop' has become the verb of choice to describe editing a digital image.

I know more than a few photographers and, for virtually all of them, Photoshop is a necessary tool of the trade on par with journalists needing a comfortable pair of shoes and a functioning index finger. The amount of lab time that has been saved by the tool is countless, and it is safe to say that Photoshop has revolutionised the field of photography.

But it isn't always a great tool for sharing the world around us. Photoshop has now become so powerful and its users so skilled that the tool has increasingly been used to manipulate images and insert fake images. Ironically, Photoshop is now viewed not only as a tool to help us see more of the reality around us, but also as a way to completely distort and fabricate that reality.

Iain Thomson: You only need to look at the furore around the latest 'photoshopped' image from the fashion industry to see what an effect it has on visual media.

I honestly think people would be genuinely shocked, and not a little angry, if they realised quite how much image manipulation goes on these days. Poor lighting on the shoot? No problem. Bad outbreak of acne and red eye? Job done. Whether it's Iranian missiles or a model's over-skinny waist you have to wonder what's real any more.

But that's the downside. The upside is that it has enabled a whole generation of graphic designers to create wonderful images and effects, and turn ordinary pictures into something extraordinary.

1. Graphics Processing Unit
Iain Thomson: Although by rights the Altair should be considered the first personal computer, it wasn't until computers with graphics came along that they really began to get ubiquitous. We are a visual species and computer graphics have taken their use into the mainstream.

While many people just use integrated GPUs these days, to really get the most from your PC visually you'll need a graphics card. Some of the latest models feature the most powerful GPU chips in the world and run hot enough to fry bacon if uncooled. Advanced gamers use some of the coldest fluids in existence to squeeze a bit more visual performance from them.

When I try and tell Shaun about the early days of computer graphics he looks at me a bit oddly. I suspect he'll have the same problem with his younger generation too, and this will be largely down to improvements in GPUs.

Shaun Nichols: Wait a minute Iain, do you mean to tell me that there was a time when computers didn't have GPUs? I figured that even ENIAC had a giant graphics unit staffed by two college kids who were constantly fighting over the best methods for improving frames-per-second.

Of course I'm kidding, but in all seriousness computing as we know it would not exist without the development of graphics processors. If nobody had thought to put more horsepower behind displaying images, computers would not have evolved beyond basic mathematical applications and we likely wouldn't have an IT industry to speak of today.

Perhaps even more impressive is that GPUs are likely to become even more important in the near future. After years of development and specialisation, GPUs have developed a secret talent that is proving quite useful.

All of that horsepower for rendering 3D images has left graphics chips quite capable for parallel processing tasks. This is leading many chip makers to turn some conventional CPU computations over to the GPU, and is helping to reshape the high-performance computing field.