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 👏🏼👏🏼
I use Gimp and Krita, always was a killer combination
nice
Nice! Please punch them in the dick next!
Still no shape tool /j
The long awaited shape tool is coming up next. So the next GIMP version is shaping up to be a great release. This reply is in no shape or form a word play. :>
“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.
Damn, that sounds great! Hard to believe we’re already at 3.2, it felt like I was waiting for 3.0 for a decade!
Still doesn’t properly display HDR images for me, but I suppose this is a pain point for most photo software.
I don’t work with HDR much, but have you tried setting it to 32bit linear floating-point?
Now there’s the featureset that you wanna see from an application like GIMP. 💪
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!!
Is this version gonna be in the Ubuntu repos?
I use GIMP nearly daily for drawing with my tablet. Overall, it’s adequate, though I agree with a few other comments that the name is terrible. “PhotoShop” is partially popular because it has a (somewhat) descriptive name. “Inkscape” is far better than GIMP.
If it were my call, I’d just go with something simple and descriptive, like “Linux Image Studio” or, like, “GNU Image Studio,” if GNU’s gotta go in there. IMHO, it’s best to not over-think it, tho someone clearly took that approach to get here.
Well, this version is going to be in the Ubuntu repos eventually, but might take a while. Ubuntu 26.04 is already in feature-freeze, so it’ll be in 26.10 at the earliest (or 28.04, if you follow the LTS releases).
I guess, it would probably also show up in the “backports” repo before that, if you enable that, but might be easiest to use the Flatpak or AppImage instead…
Gotcha. Thank you.
Photoshop is not popular because of its name. It’s popular because it’s very powerful and was one of the first on the market. I’m sure there were a lot of anti competitive moves over the years also. But it’s not due to the name.
I fully believe that, but the name is simple and straightforward, as well, which I expect is worth a lot.
If the point is the GIMP’s name hurts it and Photoshop’s does not, I can fully agree to that.
Linux Image Studio
It runs on other platforms too right?
You mean Debian repos. And yes
OP… It’s a software release. Stop with this unnecessary tribalism bullshit
I’m not for “tribalism” if it’s related to a specific piece of software vs. another. But I definitely am on the side of open source vs. a garbage subscription based model of closed source software.
Do you tell people at the bar to calm the fuck down when the hockey game is on?
Hockey is full of chuds; you won’t find me anywhere close to a sports bar.
lmfao had no idea lemmys supported bigotry so much
Oh you must be FUN at parties, just try Gimp it’s awesome
So you don’t tell them to calm down, you just stay away. Hm.
I have no idea what almost any of that means but I assume professional graphics designers will. And go gimp! I still struggle with understanding how to do things whenever I need to do something new but I absolutely and exclusively use gimp for image editing. I am forever grateful for such a great tool.
PS: please don’t accept slop contributions ever
as a media professional i can tell you that the non destructive editing features are huge. that used to be the first thing I’d point out as a specific reason i didn’t use gimp.
the ui/ux is still the biggest problem, but honestly THIS was a big part of the issue. how tedious is was to make itterarive adjustments.
may the kindly lords of foss save you if you did work for a client and they wanted you to change something minor. if you did it all destructivly in gimp, you basically just had to start over. now you can organize by linked layers and vector layers to create layer masks and adjustment layers. it’s most useful for photo manipulations and composites, but I’m sure most advanced users will find it solves something for them regardless of what they make.
this isn’t enough to get me to switch, but it’s a great step in a good direction. I’ll always be supportive of that.
thank you for some additional insights about non-destructive editing, that makes a lot of sense :) I hope you can eventually switch over.
cue users of adobe products since 1950 complaining about how gimp ui is not intuitive after trying it for a full 5 minutes :)
I find Photoshop not intuitive too, because its different from GIMP.
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.
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.
Sounds great! Gimp has been my companion since discovering it 10 years ago. To many more years!
I am excited about new GIMP and somehow still exhausted with current GIMP
