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Gimp 2.8 Released

172

After years of work, the Gimp team has released a new version with some long-awaited features: single-window mode, layer groups and many UI improvements.

Gimp.org writes:

We are happy to announce immediate availability of GIMP 2.8 — a new stable version of GNU Image Manipulation Program that culminates 3.5 years of exciting work.

With this version we are introducing some long-anticipated features such as layer groups, on-canvas text editing, advanced brush dynamics and the much desired optional single-window mode. We also started applying other important changes to the user interface that bring us closer to matching the product vision.

For detailed information about changes since 2.6 please read the release notes. Source code is available for downloading from a plethora of mirrors, a build for Windows will soon be available, and we hope to see a build for Mac OS X released as well.

We'd like to thank everyone who participated in development of GIMP 2.8: programmers, translators, documentation writers (updated user manual is a work in progress), and testers. We also thank our user community for the dedication and support — we needed it more than ever.

Now that this version is finally released, we are grasping the future with both hands. Stay tuned: some really exciting news will follow.

Links

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

172 Comments

        • I suspect so, but even so I found 2.6 under OS X to be badly "ported" and, for my purposes, unusable. I'd love to see a native port for OS X. I sincerely hope this time around will reveal a quality OS X build.

          • chromemonkey on

            Can't the Mac just run the non-OSX builds in virtual sessions and bypass the bad ported code entirely?

          • stevenshearing on

            VirtualBox box would work great but it makes a small app around 2GB larger being that Ubuntu will only install on any harddrive about 2gb or larger.Also more ram and cpu is needed.

            We need both windows and mac versions more then linux, remember that both mac and windows do control most desktops.

          • The trouble with running virtual machines is now your computer is spending cycles to run 2 operating systems instead of 1 creating a hardware tax so you will never have the same performance native code will yield. In my experience it's around a 20% performance drop but it varies depending on the processor speed and efficacy, graphics card, and whether or not you have a solid state drive.

      • I heavily assume that they again use the X System and you can give up on that idea when you also want to work with fonts etc. I tried it once and placed Gimp OS X right back into the trash can.

    • Not to be against Gimp but on OS X I gave up on it. I switched to Pixelmator which is very cheap for simple image tasks. Maybe check this one out in case you do not want to get Photoshop.

          • Neither have sources, although Pixelmator uses various open-source libraries, such as Imagemagick. Neither is really 'free' in any sense.

          • Whatever. I don't like back-doors. The point was not in the software in itself, but in the freedom that it provides. There's no comparison point in there, so there's no reason to compare GIMP to others and to promove other softwares that are privative. If someone chooses GIMP it should be first because of the freedom, if not, these people should keep there buying or cracking the software they want to use (at the cost of possible back doors and freedom 0 about the future of the tools) because they choose there's no need to be free.

          • If freedom is the basis of comparison, Gimp is obviously the only free image editor.  But Info and I were using image-editing applications as a basis of comparison, not freedom.

          • Neither is free and both are closed source but they're cheap and much better designed and if you depend on these tools for a living IMHO $30 isn't too much to pay for saving you the headache of working with a clumsily ported gimp. If you really NEED access to the source code this obviously isn't good enough but gimp or another package will get there....eventually.

    • Although sadly not free or open source, I find pixelmator to be hands down the best low cost image editor for mac. Hopefully the gimp team will expand and bring official support for mac one day though as the current wine powered implementation is ugly and clunky at best. OS X needs a good FREE image editor and it looks like gimp will be the first to do this.

    •  It's the GNU image manipulation program (GIMP), so it should be obvious that their focus is supporting GNU/Linux OS.

      • Maybe you got the point... Yep, that's GIMP, not Blender. Thank god! Or maybe I should thank Blender team. :)

      • Nick Rishel on

        And here I was thinking GIMP was an admittance of being gimped. ;)

        Jokes aside, I do find it unfortunate that GIMP is observed in this light instead of a cross-platform one.

    • And why not to use GNU/Linux? What is "really" needed in other desktops? There are many options for any kind of users.

      • In my opinion if you're a techy person with the know how and time to work through all the downsides to linux (hardware compatibility, software and format support, random bugs, memory leaks, etc.) or your business has an exceptionally talented IT department you should use GNU/linux. Unfortunately neither of these scenarios are the case for a sizable portion of the computer graphics artist community so the time and money spent working through the problems with linux quickly equal the cost of buying a site license for OS X or Windows ironically enough offering economic incentive not to go with the free gnu/linux option. Hopefully as linux hardware support continues to expand and the various OS distributions become more and more polished this won't be the state of the industry for much longer. 

        • That's a complete myth. GNU/Linux supports many many hardwares out of the box and many more every day, because it includes all the drivers needed in the little exception of the most ultimate market hardware (whose is just the manufacturer responsibility to get it to work as soon as possible). The problem here is not the OS, it's the people culture to not to consider the technical support of the OS (you shouldn't be there installing as a freak user) and the learning curve (you always compare the new things with the other things you learned before) which make them the process harder (because they want to).
          And remember that the choose for libre software is freedom, not money.

          •  Hate to say it man but I've tried several Linux distros within the last 6 months that wouldn't work toa satisfactory degree on any of my three computers. I don't have the money to have a dedicated Linux box and the last three times I tried to create a dual boot it made my Windows side unbootable. I spent several hours online with Sabayon Techies trying to rectify the problem but ended up having to reload Windows after transferring as many personal files as I could.

            By the way, yes I know that there a lot of Linux ready computer solutions with Ubuntu preloaded but to be frank I'm not rich and can't afford another cent worth of hardware. Free may be great but if it doesn't work then it ain't gonna help the cause. 

          • Your case is just bad experience that comes from bad hardware, so, what's the point to generalize? Many problems comes from users that don't take proper precaution, like backuping files, discs inappropriately partitioned (bad filesystems or windows made partitions) or even bad choose of a distribution, but that's exactly the work to be done for your computer technician! not you! The problems you mentioned do not concern the user, but your professional technician instead.

          • I say use whatever's better, not whatever is more "free". We're trying to get work done, not creating a completely libre environment.

            That said they are not necessarily mutually exclusive; if the free software is better then use it, but if the commercial software is better then use that.

          • Nop. That's the enterprise mentality. The other rest of the world is really REALLY focusing in getting a completely libre environment, as you said. It's not a matter of money or product, it's about an ethical issue that influences the society we are living on. A perfect example of this is the education, with thousands of teachers creating value and content around the libre software. Students are the future and many of them will be creating the tools needed to get the job done, but mainly from ethical values in a first place.
            And finally, remember what companies and entirely nations do when they get access to your data through back doors and there are international conflicts in the frontier. Privative software brings them the possibility to step on your head while one keeps unconcerned.

        • It sounds like you haven't tried a good Linux distro since the 90's, mate. =)

          Perhaps give it an actual try before you sprout this kind of misinformation.

        •  On some hardware support is bad and Linux is either unusable or requires some "techy" tweaks. But on some other hardware it works out of the box and is even easier to use than Windows (my grandpa uses Linux Mint :D). And it's just faster, especially on older hardware. (Currently I have PC with SSD and 4-core CPU. Windows 7 is a bit slower than Linux on it, but the difference is unnoticeable without stopwatch - I measured booting, shutdown, copying files and launching Firefox times. I'm curious if Windows 8 will be faster than Linux. I'm writing this using Windows 8 in Virtualbox.)

          And it's getting better and better. My friend tried Ubuntu once and he hated it. 2 years later I persuaded him to try once again and now it's his main OS (he keeps Windows to play games).

      • stevenshearing on

        I'm not really a fan of Linux, its great that it is free and powerful and maybe more stable and faster then windows.
        But when I tried it with in the first few minutes of using the system i ran into so many problems and the Ubuntu forums   was unable t fix my issue's(all of my issues).

        First I had hardware issues, it would not set my dual screen up correctly with out flicking or screen size resolutions. Second my graphics tablet was not wacom so huge issue's getting it to work, the pressure was just unusable and the short-cut keys did not work, it just did not work. I posted both issue's on the forums and some people tried to help but in the end they was unable to fix the problem for me.
        My sound was buggy and so was my wifi internet, i did fix the wifi.

        Hardly any of my software had linux versions expect Blender and hand few of other programs like Google chrome, I did try the linux alternatives but only found 1 program that was a suitable replacement if not better. Wine was no help what so ever , seems that it ran the programs with many bugs or not at all.

        The command line started annoying me to hell, its the year 2012 and yet still I had to use command line for a handful of downloads because they was not on the software centre app

        No iphone itunes, not much to say there.

        Linux was a nightmare for me, but it does have its up's but for the none geeky users such as my self it can be very pain full to transfer.

        • Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

           Interesting you say how you hate the command-line, yet guess what Microsoft has belatedly start to embrace with its PowerShell?

          GUis are great for some things (e.g. 3D modelling, drawing), but for file manipulation, for example, they get very repetitive. But performing repetitive actions is what the computer is good at, so why not get it do them, instead of you? That’s what a command line is for.

          • stevenshearing on

            Yes command line has its use's like you said ,but the average user(many users don't even know which version of windows they use) would have no hardly or need for it.
            I can't even recall a time in which I needed to do a repetitive task on windows, and if I did then it would be more then likely that I would have downloaded a app for it.

  1. @a7c09403c40c3023d5589e7c3abb1c2a:disqus  Kingtem, Maybe it is because Windows has many image editing tools, Mac OS X also has same number of image editing apps, Linux on the other hand has only GIMP as an image editing system of high end level. 
    I am even happy to see it give priority to Linux. Although I use WIndows and Linux, I would always prefer to see  Linux versions come first. 
    This is my point of view :) 

    • Hi, Dan, I'm glad you reply for me! But Blender do a good did about this. :D 
      Anyway, we'll get the Windows or Max OS build soon. Cheers!

      •  Amen to that man, unfortunately not all organizations are a s together as Blender Institute, to bad on that front, would love to see the versioning system with it's multiple branches that Blender has. I'd love to see the dual brush mods from Gimp for Painters brought to the official build.

    • GIMP is not the only tool available to work with images in a high level fashion in GNU/Linux desktops. That's a myth! You have many options available to easily download and use natively, such as: Krita, MyPaint, Alchemy, DigiKam, Showfoto, Darktable, Hugin, Panorama, ExpoBlending, QTpfsGUI, Swatchbooker, Agave, Argyll, CMYKTool.....

      • Every single one of those software packages you mentioned serves a dedicated function. Using a combination of those packages one can edit photos similar to gimp but none of those is a drop in replacement for gimp or photoshop. Digital painting tools are not the same as photo editors at all.

        • So. What's your point. I was talking about high quality standards to work with images. What the painting-editing comparison came about.

          •  Don't forget Blender's compositing software to. Frankly with what's being worked on for Blender in this regard Gimp is becoming less of a necessity for me although I doubt it will ever replace it entirely. 

          • They are very different softwares, with different ends, but, yes, Blender is an enormous toolbox. I can say that many of the compositing and sequencing can be done in Blender, but I always need to work textures and appropriate masks before Blender. Things like resynthesizing for example, can't be done in Blender.

        • Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

           And how much time and money does it cost to install them all on a Linux system?

          Versus the time and money it takes to install Windows equivalents on a Windows system?

  2. Like it or not, Windows has yet the bigger slice of the pie, followed closely by Mac, for 2D CG (3D is Windows, without match). So, I hope to see a 2.7/2.8 Win installer, anytime soon.

    • Actually a lot of the big vfx houses, and quite a few of the smaller ones are using Linux extensively, both on render farms and workstations. Maya, Nuke, Houdini, XSI, RenderMan and a number of other commercial high end vfx tools all run on Linux.

      •  too true. A lot of people try to say that a cheap OS isn't a real issue with a pro 3d studio but if you run your own farm and you have to have Windows running on ten or twelve separate machines it really does become an issue. Then you have to consider the fact that Windows is quite bloated and contains code whose only function is to keep you from using it if it isn't legit which slows things down, Then you have to consider the fact that if you are making a render farm you can choose between buying more hardware or more OS licenses. With Linux you can get more hardware for the money. Also Linux runs a lot more efficiently generally speaking meaning the hardware that you do have will work faster...

        I just wish I could use it on any of the hardware I have now!

        • Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

           It’s the cost as well as the reliability. Windows just isn’t designed for long uptimes, or to run for months or years without installation. Too often with Windows problems, the only answer is to reboot, or if that doesn’t help, to reinstall. That gets pretty expensive in a production environment.

  3. I agree it might be worth adding that this is so far only a LINUX release. For me I have sunk countless hours into getting linux to work but to no avail so personally I steer clear until I have another routine go at linux in a few more months, maybe next time! Glutten for punishment I guess, maybe it's the laptop instead, but it doesn't have any issues with windows in any case.

    I think judging by the WINDOWS related notes already throughout these comments it would be of great value to the community if they (someone? anyone with any code knowledge? anyone here?) hosted support for windows (and mac OS also).

    Many windows related releases CAN BE FOUND HERE, which are reasonably up to date...
    http://www.partha.com/

    Gimp and blender go hand in hand in many ways, which considering the multi platform support that blender users are used to is easy to expect that Gimp would have the same support (whether these expectations are really ever justified or not).

    •  It may be because your laptop's drivers were released only for Windows. In this case Windows works fine, but Linux will have problems. Some drivers are reverse-engineered to make Linux versions, because hardware manufacturers won't release Linux drivers or even their hardware specifications, so people can't write Linux drivers without reverse-engineering. (It isn't Linux fault, for some manufacturers making drivers for Linux is not profitable enough.)

      • Yes but you have to realize that fault has nothing to do with the pragmatic side of things. If I am trying to make a living by using this software and it doesn't work, I can't use this software, no matter how much I believe in the movement.

        I plan on getting hardware specifically compatible with Mint Linux, but, It isn't easy to find out what hardware is compatible with it! There should be a page on every distro's site with lists of supported hardware otherwise I have to either guess or I have to buy a pre-made box which I have not done in the last fifteen years, frankly I trust my choice in hardware better than HP or Dell...

        I fully understand the problem of closed source drivers, probably better than most people here but to be frank, the producers of the Linux Distros that I'm familiar with are not helping themselves and the dismissive attitude toward people that have legitimate problems with the OS I've been seeing here and other places has been even more problematic towards the movement. Instead of coming up with solutions, like supported hardware lists to help homegrown computer builders, I see a lot of excuses.

        I've been making my own rigs for about twenty years now, how am I supposed to build a Linux system that I KNOW will work for the system I make?

        Sorry boys and girls, Software freedom isn't enough, I need hardware freedom too.

    •  Same thing happens to me. Annoying. Seems like the repositories haven't been updated yet. I'm not savvy enough to build/compile from source... :-/

    •  yeah. same here. .. i asked in #gimp about this and they blamed it on the distro. fair enuf. .....
      how about a fricken binary tarball then please. seems to work JUST fine for Blender.

    • michael_121 on

      Use PPA (non-official personal repositories), it's unlikely that GIMP in the official repositories will be updated before the next Ubuntu release. See news at webupd8 or OMG Ubuntu:

      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get install gimp

  4. I love using the GIMP!  It's actually the only image editor I use.  I've been hoping for a new version for a long time, now I just have to be patient for osx version.  :)

  5. 3.5 years for very few new features or real significant improvements in GIMP's capabilities. In the day of Photoshop CS6, GIMP remains horribly GIMPed.

    •  Huge back-end stuff in place now. What you can't see is often more important than what you can, in software. Feeling so proud of the gimp team, gonna sign up to a small monthly subscription, blender too. If more people supported these things, even just in a minor financial way, they would make headway much quicker.

    •  i agree to a degree ... ... it seems like the GIMP is becoming more of a 'testing and development' platform instead of something for a Real End User .... :
      makes me sad, I've LONG been a GIMP enthusiast, but I'm losing patience with the dev cycle ... ... and now it seems full HDRI support (i.e. 16+bpp) won't be 'in' until v3 .. WHAT!?!?!! LAME!!!

      • Releases will be faster this time, man. All the time you had to wait before was because of the GEGL integration in the internal structure and because the developers didn't worked with braches, and that's a major change now. GEGL is finished and now it's time to do magic with those new capabilities. Also they now are moving to support branches, what will make possible to other developers to contribute with new stuff just like in Blender. The GEGL step was something like the 2.5/6 migration/restructuring, which development started in 2007 and finally it was really ended in 2011.

        •  I think it's funny that people on this forum don't realize how it works in dev. Look at what we've been going through with Blender the last couple years? They've been cleaning up the code on Blender to make it easier to make the good stuff and now that they pretty much have, look what's coming out! It looks to me that Gimp is going in the same direction, working on infrastructure to pave the way for greatness.

          •  true re: Blender ... but then Blender MAY have the fastest general development cycle on the planet =]
            true it's taken quite some time to get bmesh in there, but at least there's been clear and obvious and useable results between 2.49 and 2.63
            so, basically, you're saying the GEGL implementation is akin to bmesh integration in blender? i sure hope that's the case.

    • If less people complain like you and donate to the project, then the development would raise to higher "standards" and better speed. Think about it.

      •  So it does all boil down to money.  I guess there is no such thing as a "free" lunch after all. 

        And it seems we shouldn't have the "freedom" to use "free" speech to voice an opinion if it isn't positive one.

        Sorry, thought police, I'll come along quietly.  ;^)

        On the other hand, these guys are donating a lot of there own time into a great project that they could have spent elsewhere and been highly paid.

        The donated man-hours that went into GIMP must have been worth millions over the years,  so I think that I too would be miffed as I listen any whining that is nonconstructive from people that are riding my coat-tails.

  6. GIMPs  development speed has always made me sad. If something doesnt change i will not live long enought to see this great example of free(as in freedom) software becoming as capable as its commercial alternatives.
    Not to missguide anyone - GIMP is very capable image manipulation program :)

    • Then if that's your thinking about free as in freedom software you should get better informed and see what happens with softwares like Krita, MyPaint, DigiKam, Showfoto, Darktable, and others.
      Different projects have different realities and complexities. Is not that easy as "buy a product because is cute". Here you, as a user, have an important role in the development: you could donate more often to the project or even hire a, or a few devoloper/s dedicated to contribute for the tools you need in the daily work. Imagine what they could do if a lot of the money invested in paying PS would be used to develop tools in GIMP or such projects. Well, now make it real, now is the time. That's the attitude, not to always complain about the "lack of the feature I want".

      • I agree the world would be a far better place if the money going to photoshop would go to developers for gimp and other free software. Try and convince your boss to take that leap of faith into financing the relatively corporately unexplored realm of open source software and I think you're lucky if he or she even considers it an option.

        • You don't get the point because you always look at it from the business perspective, which is a complex task that comes with the time and the effort of big companies to support a way of work, a technology or a new thinking. The libre software is supported not only for big companies, also by people like you or me, freelancers and small studios. That's the way you should see at the scenario and realize that the problem isn't the boss, but our way to act and take decisions instead.

          • With all due respect looking at it from a business perspective could help. I don't think that "greed is good" but by at least looking at it from the perspective of and showing people how Gimp could make people money it would encourage people to donate more for development. Just look at what Ton is doing with Blender Institute.

          • But not if you dismiss every attempt by a user to voice their problems so devs can know there is an issue to be fixed. Idealism that doesn't bear useful fruit will die.

            It is counterproductive to ignore the four hundred pound gorilla in the room. The only way GIMP will be able to really compete like Blender does and like Open Office does is by being open about the problems there are with the software.

            Devs are like Scientists in that they like to find the problems in their work because they can improve it. Without negative feedback there can be no growth.

  7. chromemonkey on

    I will be interested in seeing if the new release of GIMP has improved text kerning.  I tried to recreate some text that was authored in Photoshop so that I could edit it as a text frame, and the letter spacing was just all over the map in most fonts I chose.

    • Then, please ask Adobe to release their .psd specification, because developers are forced to guess what the file format is meant to say, because it's closed as a bank's door.

      • chromemonkey on

        That's actually very good to know.  I thought I had avoided using the Adobe fonts in favor of the ones included with GIMP because I typed everything directly in from the keyboard, no file imports at all.  Maybe I need to install some alternate fonts.  I'd never thought about it, as an enduser with no typesetting experience to speak of, I'm still learning how many under-the-hood things there are that I'm not even aware enough of to formulate proper questions to search for the answers!  I got as far as learning that the issue was called "kerning pairs" before just going with a monospaced font.

        • Ok, sorry if I rushed you. You would like to know that most of the important fonts have "digital rights", copyright, or easily, they are absurdly protected against anyone that may want to make use of them, such as the Adobe Font Folio fonts. Afortunately, there are many websites that provides totally non-royalties fonts to get them to be included in your daily workflow. Some of them are really minor optical adjustments from the copyrighted ones, and yeah, some graphic designers could jump enraged because they probably want to use "the official Helvetica, Bodoni or Garamond", but in general if you are a good designer you will realize that they are very subtle differences, and that you can get excellent designs with them too (I am saying it as a real designer, not just an artist).
          You have for example: http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
          Very official libre fonts, although it have just a very few fonts.
          Google officialy supports libre fonts. You can search for them, and other excellent sites with legal downloads.

  8. Simple saving of an image is now crippled!
    export for (jpg/png/... and save is just for xcf)
    Why is this changed in that bad way?
    Just like it was before it was fast: push save and then decide with the extension what to save..

      •  You're wrong. Completely wrong. This is not any bad change, this is just another solution that is (for me) better than in PS :) You can save your file as a "original.xfc", and export as many times as you want to png's, jpg's etc. And when you hit ctr+s gimp saves the ORIGINAL file with your project, layers, and everything you may need in the future. In the past it was quite common that when you hit ctr+s and fast ctr+q it all get lost because you only has your newest version in png file with no layer data. Now such situation is impossible :) And thats good.

          •  Annoying change? Ok. Maybe a litlle bit. But it takes me less than 2 days to get feel of it, and now i just love this solution in gimp :)

          •  I mean: i love and everybody can, and i think he could start loving it when he realize that "these" particular moment gimp with it's new solution just saved a couple of hours of work to recreate all that flattened - in other way - stuff :)

      • Nick Rishel on

        It's a UI decision, and a good one at that. :)

        The basic idea is that save is loss-less, you can open it again in GIMP and work with the same layers and masks you did before. When you export, you loose some of that information and only receive the product. You see similar standards in Blender, save to .blend, export to .obj.

    •  That's what makes 2.8.0 so awesome! Save your work to xcf (project file) and separate outputs to png, etc. It increases efficiency like crazy.

  9. GIMP is one of those softwares that I try, remove, try, remove ... naturally I'll try again when there is a stable Windows build (or OSX while I'm at work). I'd still like to see support for importing OBJ, FBX, DAE or even BLEND files .. but that's a dream that probably won't ever happen! ;)

    • It will not happen as you keep complaining and not giving support/ideas/personal-payed-developers to the project. Think about that.

        • I don't assumed it. I talk about the common attitude to complain and never do nothing. Your case can be different, of course, but even in that case, I don't get the point to complain freely (as in beer)

    • Colin Griffith on

      OBJ, FBX, DAE and BLEND files are all 3D formats, and Gimp is a 2D graphics editor. Importing any of those into Gimp doesn't even make sense.

      That's like saying you want recycling plants to turn your used paper plates into ice cream. Yes it would be nice if they could do it, but paper and ice cream have too little in common for it to even make sense.

      • Importing them DOES make sense. Gimp is constantly labeled as an open source version of Photoshop. While yes, Gimp does have some good features, it lacks in some - such as importing those 3D file formats for texture painting, which you can do in Photoshop CS4 Extended, CS5 Extended and I believe CS6 as well. Granted, you're also paying nearly a grand for that software, where Gimp is free/donation supported. 

        So, I just simply stated that it would be nice if they had 3D support, which I use at work with Photoshop. That is all. 

          • Colin Griffith on

            This is exactly my point. Blender will also export the UV maps as an svg or png or other image format, which you can use in Gimp/etc. for painting. Use a 2D tool for 2D, use a 3D tool for 3D. I don't want Gimp to include the kitchen sink.

          •  This is where a tighter branching system like Blender would be useful, I'd love to have a branch with the features that Mr. Mencer is talking about but maintaining a clean trunk would be great too.

  10. I just rant about gimp lack of layer grouping. And then I saw this news. Hurray for GIMP!

    Windows support please! I can't go back to my lovely ubuntu for a moment.

  11. We also made 16/32bit float processing available in the unstable branch, with 16bit PNG loading/exporting and EXR and HDR exporting.

    Read more on gimp.org or at http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/gimp-2.8-released-next-version-to-get-high-bit-depth-precision :)

    •  I've been waiting for GIMP to get HDR support for forever now. To be fair, I'm no programmer; still, I do NOT understand why this is taking so long. It's been like pulling teeth to convince GIMP devs to implement HDR support, yet it is ESSENTIAL in a modern digital art workflow. PERIOD.
      and then I read recently that full HDR support won't be 'in' until v3 ?? what? why? ... i just don't get it ... so, what then? another 2 or 3 years?

      • Sorry, but I don't understand you statement. There has never been any need to convince us to implement HDR.  But what _had_ always been there is a need to _help us_ implementing it.

        We can't provide estimation of 2.10 release date yet. But we'll do our best to cut it significantly and we already know what we need to do.

        • I am not entirely displeased with the rate gimp is progressing given the size of the development team. The size of the active development team relative to the size of the user base however, is depressing.

      •  Transition from GIMP 2.6 to 2.8 was like transition from Blender 2.4 to 2.5. The backend was hugely improved and now new versions (and new features) will come much faster.

  12. Bart, you did it to me again, man!  I need a something to show up one day and the next day it shows right up on BlenderNation!  Yesterday, I was all like, "Man, the limited dynamics on this brush engine in GIMP is killing me!  I can't adjust it like I want to!" I come here today, and boom, it's here. Yesterday, it was CryBlend that showed up here, today it's GIMP 2.8.

    Of course, all I need now is a Windows build...  You can make it happen again, right, Bart?  And while you at it, I also need a Blender-related contest where a grand prize winner can win about a Mac Pro with 16 GB RAM, if you're able to make that automagically appear on BlenderNation!  LOL

  13. Janet Murray on

    Hooray! After some wrangling, I was able to build it from the git repository (on my trusty GNU/Linux operating system)! GIMP 2.8 is great!

    I wonder how easy it is for OS X users to switch to GNU/Linux. I read that Linus Torvalds uses GNU/Linux on a Macbook, and I'm sure he's not dual-booting the thing either.

    •  They don't use GNU/Linux, because they hear things like "I was able to build it from the git repository". And they don't know that installing on Linux is easy and normal. They think GNU/Linux = terminal and kernel compilation.

    •  I had a second-hand PowerPC G4 Mac with  Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and it was relatively slow even using native applications. I still used GIMP under Fink for X-Window - worked well.  Then, I tried an Ubuntu 6.06 for PowerPC and guess what: it was many times faster than the OS X !!! And now I could say that GIMP (well, and all Linux applications) was a native MAC application :D . So, I challenge all MAC owners (where is possible) to try a Linux distro ported for their hardware to see the real difference - how stable, fast and efficient can be a well made Operating System.

      "I wonder how easy it is for OS X users to switch to GNU/Linux" and to answer to your question, I bet they will wonder why their precious MAC is so fast. Here you can see what artists can do with Linux:
      http://eamon63.deviantart.com/art/GTK-Leopard-mod-178365053

  14. Come on people, I have been downloading and installing Gimp for many years on my PCs and the Windows version of a new release never takes that long to appear, give those guys a break please, ja, ja, ja :)

    Also remember that just like with the new Blender these particular changes will allow other new changes that I think will be done faster.

    I know that it is still not Photoshop but it is a very capable image editor. I've done quite a lot of things with it and now it has the single window mode option that I prefer by far.

    In addition the other improvements were very badly needed. It is tempting to call it the poors man Photoshop but with these improvements and the next few that will come soon it just doesn't look that poor anymore, terrific just terrific!

    • And you are reading these from somebody that also has Photoshop (I have CS4) but for quite a while when I couldn't buy Photoshop I used The Gimp with very satisfactory results. I am still amazed to see what I can do with a program that doesn't cost a penny.

      • The things that I missed the most from Photoshop were the single window mode and the parametric layer effects that are such big time savers. The ones that Photoshop have are the nicest I've seen.

        Now, Gimp does have layer effects as an added script but you have to install 3 additional libraries in Windows to make the script work in addition to the script itself. At least these 3 libraries have automatic installers for Windows so they are very easy to install.

        The other issue is that in Photoshop these effects remain completely parametric (you can edit and readjust them easily) and the Gimp script equivalent can undo many changes but is not as streamlined a process as it is in Photoshop, at least the quality of the effects of this script have improved a whole lot since its earlier versions in wich they were pretty bad, today the quality of these is way better.

        I just wish that they were as easy to edit and manipulate as it is in Photoshop but at least they are there and they are way faster than doing effects like that by hand.

        Now the single window mode is here and that takes care of one of the issues, I hope that one day The Gimp gets parametric layer effects too so other people can enjoy their terrific easy of use.

        • Lawrence D’Oliveiro on

           In other words, if you want to fully exploit the add-on power available, you end up running into the limitations of Windows. You need to use it on Linux, with its integrated package management.

      • Janet Murray on

        It's true that it doesn't cost users any money, but we should remind ourselves that the cost is secondary to freedom. GIMP is free software, which means it guarantees users the four essential software freedoms.

        And Photoshop may have some advantages over GIMP, but the convenience is also secondary to freedom. Photoshop does not provide users with the four essential software freedoms.

        • However convenience is _much_ more important when you arrive at work and you're told that that wireframe needs to be completed by 1pm, or else the client won't sign the contract.

          I agree that software freedoms are important, but they are tempered by real world constraints.

  15. Jerry Kopare on

    Creativity is not dependent on an overwhelming amount of functions or slick interfaces. Photoshop might make people feel professional when they apply the latest ready-made effects like all the other million Photoshop users, but that has little to do with creativity. GIMP on the other hand makes us truly professional by giving us full control of it, and that's when we can become truly creative :)

    • Well said but features like hardware acceleration of effects like motion blur, support for 32 bit image editing, and non destructive filter stacks certainly wouldn't hurt the creative process and I wouldn't consider them "ready-made effects" or features that only make you feel more professional anymore than on canvas editing of text is. 

  16. The windows is there. Look well. (sorry for my bad english).
    (link just under the gimp 2.6.12).
    It's just a RC1
    good time.
    bye
    Thomas

  17. alberthrocks on

    The Windows version of GIMP is already out... and it looks like it was worth the wait! :)
    The Windows binary distributer made significant improvements to the installer, offering an easy install (and very pretty!) screen on startup (never saw that coming, eh?), and for us "advanced users", a very thorough install customization. And of course, automatic uninstallation of the old GIMP version. Worth the wait? Definitely - especially if it gives a good impression to new users. ;)

  18. Steve Starr on

    Man there are a bunch of crybabies on here, I was happy with the last version of gimp and I wiil be perfectly happy with all future versions, And why is that because I dont need all the extras to be productive as long as I have the basics. If you cant make gimp do what you want it to do then find a different career or hobby.

  19. Jerry Kopare has a good point when he says that creativity comes first. That is exactly what I mean when I said that I did a whole lot of good things in Gimp as it was in the older versions and I liked it a lot.

    Yes, the bells and whistles do not make anybody an instant artist. Now, I do understand the thing about finishing within deadlines but The Gimp is fairly fast for many, many of the things that most people want to do with images specially if you have a fast computer an today most any computer that comes to the market is fairly fast even at the low end.

    On top of that there are ongoing efforts to accelerate The Gimp even more using graphic cards with Open CL. Blender is already taking advantage of GPU computing to accelerate its new Cycles renderer and I think that it won't take long before Gimp starts to take advantage of them too which could be very good for those that need more performance.

    And on top of that Gimp is changing very fast into being capable of handling fully higher color images like 16 bit per channel images, etc. which is something that pro photographers certainly need. The program was very capable already, it has just become far more capable and soon it will go further than that.

    It is a great and very useable program that doesn't cost anything no matter how you look at it.

  20. I apologize to all if my comment offended people. It was not meant as a "whining" or even a slight against the Gimp team. I appreciate and even thank those who obviously put a lot of work into Gimp. My comment was simply that: a comment. If it offended and/or infuriated folks I apologize. That wasn't the goal.

    Gimp is a decent program. It does have a lot of great features. I don't think it's the 'be all' - I don't think Photoshop is either. There are things that Gimp does that I wish Photoshop did, or did better. My statement was only saying I've tried it but wasn't my cup of tea and that there was things that Photoshop did that would be nice in Gimp. Nothing meant as a slight against the software, developers or the die-hard fans.I'll try this version, naturally. I'm not against it in anyway. I'll donate, like I regularly do, for the program to be further developed. I see huge potential in Gimp, as I have in Blender for years (and supported). Again, I'm sorry for those who took offense.

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