John Nack on Adobe

December 26, 2007

What's Russian for "Photoshopping"?

Ah, Russia--home to 50-rouble copies of your favorite Adobe apps.  Photoshop team member Heather Dolan recently returned from a service trip there & reports that pirated software remains ridiculously easy to obtain.  When a street merchant learned that she was from Adobe, his response was to double his asking price for the Creative Suite!  (You've kind of got to admire the chutzpah...)

Even so, Adobe's business grew by 260% in Russia this past year.  And what's more fun, Photoshop was honored at the KinoBlender film awards.  Moscow-based Adobe marketer Olga Manannikova writes, "This award was conferred on the brand 'Adobe Photoshop' for most often and successful unintended mentioning in Russian movies in 2007."  The team attended the event & got a groovy little trophy & everything. [Via Winston Hendrickson]

We have quite a few Russian folks on the Photoshop team (Irina, Domnita, Nikolai, Iouri, Alex, plus others who've moved on).  I asked localization czar Iouri Tchernoousko how to render the product name in cool-looking Cyrillic characters.  Ta-da:

ФОТОШОП

Iouri noted, "In Russian, you say it pretty much just like you would in English, but in a much lower tone of voice. :)"

As long as we're on the subject,

• I dug this illustration in the NYT, from artist Valentin Kalininskiy.  Achieved with the help of ФОТОШОП, maybe?
• Check out this crazy monitor-testing routine.  (Do Russian Circuit Cities keep crossbows lying around?  And whose consumer electronics need to survive ball-peen hammer attack?)  I'm sure I could ask a friend to translate, but the language barrier adds to the inexplicable fun. :-) [Via Ellis Vener]
  

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