We’re proud to present the first release of GIMP 3.2!
This marks a year of design, development, and testing from volunteers and our community.
Here are some of the many highlights to look out for:
Link Layers
You can now use Link Layers to incorporate external image as part of your compositions, easily scaling, rotating, and transforming them without losing quality or sharpness. It functions similar to the “Smart Object” concept from Photoshop. The Link Layer will automatically update if the external image is changed in another editor – for example, if you include a SVG logo as a Link Layer in GIMP, you can edit it in Inkscape and see the changes live in GIMP as well!
You can create a new Link Layer by choosing Open as Link Layer… in the File menu. You can change the image used at any time in the Layer Attributes dialog, which you can access by double-clicking the layer in the dock or by choosing Edit Layer Attributes… from the layer menu.
Vector Layers
The Path tool can now create Vector Layers, which lets you draw shapes with adjustable fill and stroke settings. The shape of the vector layer also automatically updates whenever you adjust the path, and you can non-destructively rotate, scale, and transform it too
PaintBrush improvements
The MyPaint Brush tool has been upgraded, adding 20 new brushes, including a much-requested arrow brush. It now automatically adjusts to your canvas zoom and rotation for more dynamic painting.
Better Text Editor
Our Text Editor has been the focus of several development projects to improve its usability and functionality. You can now drag the on-canvas text editor to move it out of the way when writing text. Several common shortcuts are now supported (such as Ctrl + B for bold, Ctrl + I for italics, and Shift + Ctrl + V for pasting unformatted text).
Non-Destructive Filter Updates
As well as working on new non-destructive layers (vector layers, link layers, and text layers), we’ve also been working on the non-destructive filters! You can now apply filters to channels non-destructively, in addition to layers and layer groups.
Overwrite Mode
A new Overwrite paint mode allows you to draw over existing colors without blending their transparency. It has many useful applications when working with pixel art
UX/UI improvements
This release includes a TON of small user interface and user experience improvements
New System color scheme
There is a new system color scheme for default themes. If set, it will automatically update GIMP’s theme colors to match the current OS settings.
Automatic transparency
The Crop Tool and NDE filters now automatically add transparency to a layer when necessary, rather than requiring you to remember to do it manually.
Switch between tools easily
You can now quickly switch back and forth between your 2 most recent tools with the Shift + X shortcut
Welcome Dialog improvements
The Welcome Dialog has received improvements to help streamline user workflows.
It now recognizes the Ctrl + 0, 1, 2… 9 shortcuts for opening the most recent images.
It now recognizes your shortcuts to create a new image, or open an existing one (whether the respective default Ctrl + N or Ctrl + O, or your custom shortcuts)
The Welcom Dialog no longer appears if you intentionally open GIMP with an image
Flip images with your keyboard
The Flip and Shear Tools now respond to the arrow keys, similar to the Move and Rotate Tools.
Flip Tool: You can use the Left and Right arrows to flip the image horizontally, and the Up and Down arrows to flip it vertically.
Shear Tool: You can use the Left and Right arrows to shear your image horizontally, and the Up and Down arrows to do the same vertically. Like the Move tool, you can hold down Shift to shear with a larger value.
For Script and Plug-in Developers
GIMP 3.0 brought non-destructive filters and a new GimpDrawableFilter API for script developers to create them. However, it wasn’t easy to find the names and properties for the extensive list of potential filters, especially for third-party GEGL filters. A new GEGL Filter browser has been added to make it easier to find non-destructive filters to use.
New formats
GIMP 3.2 includes built-in support for even more file formats! These range from well-known formats like APNGs to obsolete archival formats such as Seattle FilmWorks photos, supporting your quest of old data retrieval. For retro game developers, we now support Sony PlayStation TIM and Sega Dreamcast PVR textures.
We also added export support for JPEG 2000 images, which is the standard for the digital cinema industry. This now matches our import support, which we’ve had since GIMP 2.8
In addition to our existing darktable and RawTherapee plug-ins, we’ve added support for using ART for editing Camera RAW images.
As a side effect of adding support for NASA‘s .hgt.zip image format, GIMP can now load compressed images from any format that we currently support.
Total Ink Coverage value
You can now see the Total Ink Coverage value for a color in the CMYK Color Selector. This is useful to know when soft-proofing your image for printing, as your printer may have an ink coverage limit to prevent over-saturation of the page.
https://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.2.html#usability-improvements
This release is a true GAME CHANGER!! Nothing will ever be the same. Adobe just got punched right in the face.
You can support Gimp
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If you’re a developer, we always welcome more code contributions – we’ve even marked some reports for “Newcomers” to help you ease into the codebase.
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We’re looking for more feedback from designers to help create a better user experience.
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You may also donate to support the existing team members.
Thank you SO MUCH to developers, designers, translators, testers, donors and all members of our community 👏🏼👏🏼
Im just here to read all the complaints about the name.
seems fine to me.
I misread the title of this post and thought it said “the name has changed” and I was like, “wow, they finally did it?” then realized my error. lol
This release is a true GAME CHANGER!! Nothing will ever be the same. Adobe just got punched right in the face.
This is an absolutely ridiculous statement…
I just 100% all-the-time will always want someone to release a fork of GIMP that is totally identical in every way but has a different name. I can’t tell you the amount of time it was rejected by schools because of it.
Just rename it Jump. It doesn’t have to make sense, it’ll still be an improvement.
Jimp, just like Jif. (Lost the dice roll, I have to submit this idiocy. Dammit)
GIF peanut butter is delicious.
Jraphical is the right way to say it.
English speaking country problems
GIMP is an English acronym.
Yes, nobody in Korea or Thailand cares and they just enjoy the software, that’s the point
Sounds like someone put a bunch of gimps in charge of those schools.
Bring 'em out.
That was already tried, not very sucessfully. It was called glimpse.
Wow, that would have been a great name.
Using GIMP to edit text is the ultimate - I don’t even know what but still - move.
Sigh, okay, I’ll try it again.
Like I do every time there’s a huge update. Will this time be different? I hate Adobe, but the Gimp has yet to live up to its promise to replace it. I’d love to never give Adobe another cent, but we’ll see.
I don’t think these big software companies considered laying off all their devs would lead to open source projects getting piles of talented volunteers
What was rejected by the proprietary, looking to steal and rape from even their very engineers, has now been given to the commonwealth. As it should.
With intellectual property, you snooze, you lose.
These corpos think they’re hot shit and capitalism is impervious.
I’m not a communist. But when capitalism acts up like it has been, it needs to be taken down a notch or ten to be told who really matters: all of us. When the machine or the government stops serving its people, we rebuild it, because that is the purpose of the machine and the government.
A friendly reminder to ourselves.
I used Photoshop for over a decade, took several classes, spending thousands of hours using it. I quit using it when they wanted me too pay for it as a service. Recently I tried GIMP, and though it took me a while to find some things, I’m now doing everything I could do previously with Photoshop, ironically except link layers. That was the last thing I needed to fully endorse GIMP, and it seems to be exactly what I needed. Fantastic work!!
How did you adjust to not having layer styles in gimp, the workarounds are very tiresome
That and shape layers are what holding me from using gimp fulltime
What are link layers and why do you need them?
It is described in this very post…. Layers that are linked from outside files (like an image or an svg) that dynamically update when the file is changed in another program.
They are explained in the post.
Its getting better. Doesn’t mean it’s the best yet.
Keep the good work. And listen to feedback.
Its getting better. Doesn’t mean it’s the best yet.
Are you implying that a particular older version of GIMP was the “best” version and that current versions are worse? Or what are you saying?
It takes quite a shitty attitude to look at a comment which clearly only showed support for GIMP and then turn it into a semi-debate. It’s almost impressive.
It means GIMP is constantly improving but there is still quite a bit of room for improvement, where, maybe in comparison to an established industry standard such as Photoshop, it does not leave nearly as much to be desired.
Exactly
Nice! Please punch them in the dick next!
cue users of adobe products since 1950 complaining about how gimp ui is not intuitive after trying it for a full 5 minutes :)
Intuitiveness aside, it is very messy, unorganized and painful to navigate
I’ve never used PhotoShop, and respect GIMP as a useful and powerful tool.
But when I need to use it, before I even open a file, I open a browser window, because I’m resigned to the fact that I’ll be searching for how to do anything.
You can add PhotoGIMP to change the layout to be similar to Photoshop.
I’ll check this out but I’ve been a gimp user since forever so I’m actually most likely better off with the vanilla ui
I switched to Krita. I wish I’d discovered it sooner. Gimp has Blender brain regarding its UI. It took forever, like 20 years, for Blender to realize people don’t want to re-learn how to do everything. It’s a fucking pain in the ass. It’s been so much easier migrating to Krita.
I find Photoshop not intuitive too, because its different from GIMP.
Upvoted, because that’s me.
Although, since I have no professional reason for paying for Photoshop anymore, I’m forcing myself to learn GIMP.
Try Krita. You won’t have to force yourself to learn it. It’s almost exactly like PS.
I use Gimp and Krita, always was a killer combination
Now there’s the featureset that you wanna see from an application like GIMP. 💪
“Better text editor” makes me chuckle how I took a picture I edited in GIMP to Paint always when I wanted to add some text on it 😂
Was somehow much less painful on Paint to do itI know your comment definitely isn’t implying that GIMP is currently still awful for editing text, but I am curious how long ago you are talking about. I have used GIMP as my primary means of making memes over the past few years or so (which often involves adding text), and have never felt inclined to use a different program just for text.
Sounds great! Gimp has been my companion since discovering it 10 years ago. To many more years!
