John Knoll

John Knoll born October 6 1962 is an American visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer CCO at Industrial Light Magic ILM One of the original creators of Adobe Photoshop along with his brother Thomas Knoll he has also worked as visual effects supervisor on the Star Wars prequels and the 1997 special editions of the original trilogy He also served as ILMs visual effects supervisor for Star Trek Generations and Star Trek First Contact as well as the Pirates of the Caribbean series Along with Hal Hickel Charles Gibson and Allen Hall Knoll and the trios work on Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Mans Chest earned them the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects Knoll has been praised by directors James Cameron Gore Verbinski Guillermo del Toro and Brad Bird Del Toro who worked with Knoll for the first time on Pacific Rim stated He basically has the heart of a kid and the mind of a scientist and thats a great combination Knoll is also the inventor of Knoll Light Factory a lens flare generating software inspired by his work at Industrial Light and Magic