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Graphics Software The Gimp

GIMP 3.0 Released (9to5linux.com) 52

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved dept.
GIMP 3.0 has been released after over a decade of development. Highlights include a refined GTK3 interface with scroll wheel tab navigation, a new splash screen, improved HiDPI icon support, enhanced color management, a stable public API, and support for more file formats. 9to5Linux reports: GIMP 3.0 also brings improvements to non-destructive editing by introducing an optional "Merge Filters" checkbox at the bottom of NDE filters that merges down the filter immediately after it's committed, along with non-destructive filters on layer groups and the implementation of storing version of filters in GIMP's XCF project files. Among other noteworthy changes, the GEGL and babl components have been updated with new features and many improvements, such as Inner Glow, Bevel, and GEGL Styles filters, some plugins saw small enhancements, and it's now possible to export images with different settings while leaving the original image unchanged.

There's also a new PDB call that allows Script-Fu writers to use labels to specify filter properties, a brand new named-argument syntax, support for loading 16-bits-per-channel LAB PSD files, support for loading DDS images with BC7 support, early-binding CMYK support, and support for PSB and JPEG-XL image formats. On top of that, GIMP 3.0 introduces new auto-expanding layer boundary and snapping options, an updated search pop-up to show the menu path for all entries while making individual filters searchable, a revamped alignment tool, and support for "layer sets," replacing the older concept of linked layers. You can download GIMP 3.0 from the official website.
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GIMP 3.0 Released More

GIMP 3.0 Released

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  • refined GTK3 interface? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @05:26PM (#65240765)
    If there is one area GIMP needs improving it is the interface. It is not an intuitive program to use and even understood tasks can be a struggle to accomplish. I'm hoping for improvement since the software is impressive.

    • There was PhotoGIMP, a set of patches that I think helped the user experience quite a bit. But getting someone to maintain an overhaul that is somewhat controversial is nigh impossible.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by VaccinesCauseAdults ( 7114361 )
      Having used Photoshop and many other creative and “DCC” applications such as Illustrator, InDesign, Nuke, Houdini, etc the user interface of GIMP was atrocious. Terrible to look at and terrible to use. Neither form nor function — the ultimate expression of programmer art and developer-centric mindset. It reeked of “Oh, I don’t use it or any of the competitors, just write the code for free. Icons and menus don’t really matter I use the terminal mostly.”

      From what

      • I take your experience is based on using GIMP 0.x, maybe 1.x at most.

        • We have hundreds of artists, technical artists, compositor's, modellers, animators and software and so on in this building (a world-class VFX studio). The consensus is pretty unanimous. The standard install on a workstation is GIMP 2.8, not recently updated because no one really uses it It has Hasbro “My First Application” feel to it, like the weird icons on the dialog buttons (stop sign on cancel). Menus have weird names like Fill With BG Colour” (why not just Fill With Background), or
          • compositors is plural, not possessive (autocomplete) (The GIMP interface and the Slashdot Web 1.0 text entry interface come from the same planet)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by haruchai ( 17472 )

            so what do all your pros use?

            • Photoshop, Nuke, Fusion, Substance, Mari and other tools in 2D and 2.5D, Houdini, Maya and in-house tools and renderer in 3D.
              • Admittedly none of that software is free, and some of it is pretty expensive.

                https://www.framestore.com/wor... [framestore.com] I understand the purpose of free software, indeed much of our tool chain runs on Linux, Clang and so on. I understand that GIMP was a devotion of enthusiast programmers. But the interface was always a bit programmer centric, and I do not think usability or customer research ranked very high in their priorities.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by haruchai ( 17472 )

                  I was one of the Slashdotters that chipped in to free the Blender sources but I don't have the skills to make use of it & hadn't given it much thought in years.
                  Then I heard a Latvian team used it to create an animated movie that won in its category at the 2025 Oscars

    • Strongly disagree, the UI is intuitive, in some areas even more intuitive than Photoshop. It is just that you are used with the Photoshop UI and expect GIMP to look and work the same. To test my assertion, get a sample of new users, without prior exposure to Photoshop, introduce them to GIMP and Photoshop and analyze their experience.

      • Part of the goal for FOSS needs to be winning over existing users of other platforms. They're the ones with experience who are going to tell others, "Hey, check out Gimp".

      • You don'ts seem to understand that there is no abstractly "intuitive UI" in existence: the phrase can only mean something in a particular context. Intuitive UI can only be intuitive *to a set of users*.

        And in the context of "anyone except an established Gimp user in 2025" ... Gimp's UI is *objectively* bad and unintuitive. Put 10 average people in front of Gimp and ask them to accomplish a certain task in an hour. Then put 10 more in front of a tool with intuitive UI (eg. Photoshop, or even some web-based

    • Re:refined GTK3 interface? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by machineghost ( 622031 ) on Tuesday March 18, 2025 @11:42AM (#65242459)

      The Gimp team is actively hostile to UI improvements. If you don't believe me, just check their bug queue: it's *full* of reasonable suggestions that they've categorically rejected.

      Really, all you need to know is that they've kept their offensive name after all these years. The Gimp people are convinced everything they do is great, and couldn't possibly be better (even when it's transparently obvious that it could be).

  • Great job! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dynamo ( 6127 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @05:34PM (#65240785) Journal

    This is a huge improvement over the old interface, it reminds me a lot of photoshop back from back before they charged a subscription. I can see how much work went into making that UI work smoothly. I've only been messing with it a little while, but for a .0.0 release, it's pretty nice.

    Excellent work, GIMP team!

    • This makes me interested in checking it out. My biggest gripe about GIMP has been the UI. Making it like the older version of Photoshop that a lot of people know before Adobe became rent-seeking assholes will get a lot more people to try it out.

      • It's a big step in the right direction, but it's still not as good an interface as Photoshop 2.5.

        We can hope (and agitate) for continued improvements, though.

    • Are you serious? It's barely even an interface. It's like someone sneezed a bunch of poorly-drawn icons onto a screen and called it a day. There's NOTHING good about the interface. It's an embarrassment. You know who uses graphic design software? GRAPHIC DESIGNERS. So we open the app after holding our nose at the terrible icon and go "holy shit!" and close it immediately. It's like opening a word processor with typos in the menus. If you're so unwilling to pay attention to the details, just quit.
      • Haha.. very vitriolic... but you got it mostly right . One thing very right: the target audience is not techies... It was really a UI wrapped around imagemagick, done by techies.

        If you used imagemagick at the command line, you'd find gimp somewhat more intuitive. <chuckles>

      • Have you ever used GIMP in the last 10 years?

    • As someone who uses GIMP on a daily basis (and is quite proficient with it), I see the interface in 3.0 as having only small refinements over 2.x, it pretty much stays the same (and this is a good thing).

  • I don't need anything as powerful as Photoshop so GIMP may be a nice alternative. The last time I tried GIMP (maybe 5 or 6 years ago) I found it to be very unintuitive and really hard to use. I've been trudging along with PhotoImpact X3 on a Windows 7 partition for way too long now. I'm hoping GIMP can help with this.

  • Alternative article (Score:3)

    by echo123 ( 1266692 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @06:24PM (#65240893)

    https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/20... [omgubuntu.co.uk]

  • I cannot believe that Gimp 3.0 was released before Half Life 3!!!

    I honestly never thought this day would come.

    Is there still hope for Valve??

  • Announcing a GIMP release ⦠hours before other sites catch on!

    I always thought 3.0 was designated as the CMYK version. Iâ(TM)m glad to see at least the groundwork for it was a headline feature. But GIMP 3 to catch up to GTK3 also makes sense, with a dose of irony. Year of Linux desktop incoming!

    (Iâ(TM)m both trolling and wondering if there will be an official package added to Debian 12 because this is a big, necessary upgrade.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bsolar ( 1176767 )

      (Iâ(TM)m both trolling and wondering if there will be an official package added to Debian 12 because this is a big, necessary upgrade.)

      I highly doubt it's going to happen as Debian 13 "Trixie" should be "only" 6 months or so away.

  • ...who hate software. And other people.

  • Why is the link to the release candidate? (Score:4, Informative)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Monday March 17, 2025 @09:45PM (#65241253)

    The link at the start of the story goes to RC3 from Feb 10th. Why not the actual release post [gimp.org]?

  • is glimpse still a thing?

  • Wow, I haven't used it in many years. It's looking great! Might finally drop my old Photoshop install. Thanks!
  • Gimp has been a functional tool offering people an alternative to PhotoShop, with a thorny handle. Gimp's problem has been: it's not only PhotoShop they are doing an away-from, but most image editors. G'Mic has some unique filters, such as Antialias, which PhotoShop has not. I am going to give it a try.

  • My only question is whether the UI now requires less than 5 years of intense study to understand for one who is both a longtime photographer and programmer.

  • who remembers the first few versions of gimp when gtk (gimp toolkit) wasn't even a thing and it used lesstif instead.
    ok, i'm old...

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