Photoshop FOSS alternative GIMP wakes up from 7-year coma with version 3.0

After a seven-year nap, version 3.0 of FOSS image editor GIMP is arriving with a splash, while a long-dormant open video format wakes from its slumbers and lumbers into beta.

It's the first new release for the FOSS Photoshop alternative since GIMP 2.10 back in 2018, and it's five years since the first development release.

We looked at the beta version last November, and we don't want to repeat ourselves. There are now full release notes for the details of what's changed and what's new. GIMP 3 started out as an update to Gtk 3, but over the years it's grown into a major rewrite. Now that's done, the plan is that the next development version will be GIMP 3.1, followed by a new stable release, GIMP 3.2, which the team hope to release within a year.

There's a new Gtk 3 UI. This means better support for HiDPI displays, right-to-left scripts, dark mode, native Wayland support as well as X11, better support for graphics tablets, and more use of the mouse-wheel. The results of the Paste command now go into a new layer, simplifying adjustment after the event. Functionally, there are improvements in multiple areas. Some of the highlights include non-destructive filters that can be independently toggled, deleted, or merged; the ability to select and organize multiple layers, channels, and paths into named sets; the canvas and layers can grow on demand if you draw off the edges; and better text and font handling, as well as improved color-space management.

The program supports more file formats both for import and export, including better Photoshop .PSD import. The API for add-ons and extensions has also been updated with support for multiple scripting languages. As well as C and TinyScheme, there's Python 3, JavaScript, Lua, and Vala. These changes do mean that many extensions for GIMP 2 won't work anymore, though.

There are downloads in lots of formats: Snap and Flatpak, AppImage bundles for x86-64 and Arm64, macOS Disk Images for Intel and Apple Silicon, and an installer for Windows, which automatically installs binaries for x86, x86-64, or Arm64. It's also available on the Microsoft Store, which brings automatic updates.

PhotoGIMP updated too

Not being a frequent manipulator of photos myself, this vulture has long found the complex interface of GIMP somewhat overwhelming. For us, PhotoShop is equally bewildering, but there is an entire industry full of folk that have been working with that for years. To help make Adobe emigrés feel a little less lost, there is PhotoGIMP. It's an addon that modifies how GIMP looks and works to make it more familiar to PhotoShop users: different window and menu layouts, keystrokes and so on. It's available for GIMP 3.0 on Linux and Windows.

Here in the northern hemisphere, it's the spring equinox, and as flowers bloom outside it's great to see a FOSS flagship blossoming again after a long hibernation. Back in the day it was a common complaint from Photoshop fans that GIMP was no substitute, and frankly, we suspect that it still isn't. For those recently bitten by Adobe's subscription shenanigans, though, it's definitely better than before. It may be time to take a fresh look.

Theora stirs, too

A few decades ago, The Register reported on the Ogg Theora video codec, an open source rival to proprietary formats such as H.264. Some vendors were not keen, and Apple's Steve Jobs hinted at legal threats. For a while, Firefox and Opera supported it - but that didn't last. Support was removed from the big name browsers in 2023.

Development work has been very intermittent, and it's more than 14 years since an alpha test version of Theora 1.2 appeared in September 2010. Unexpectedly, that version went into beta earlier this week. There are no new release notes, so you'll have to refer to those from the year that Eyjafjallajökull shut down air travel instead. ®