Seven years after the release of the 2.10 branch, the GIMP 3.0 graphics editor has been released. Ready-made builds have been published for Linux (AppImage and Flatpak for x86_64 and ARM64). Builds for Windows and macOS are being prepared for publication.
In preparation for future releases, it has been decided to move to a more predictable and frequent schedule of publishing new stable branches. In the future, the developers will not try to push many significant changes at once, but will try to focus on polishing individual new features. The next significant branch of GIMP 3.2 is planned to be published in about a year. In between significant releases, corrective updates with bug fixes will be released.
Among the most significant improvements in GIMP 3.0:
- The transition to the GTK3 library, CSS-like style definition system and the use of client-side dialog window decoration (CSD, window title and frames are drawn not by the window manager, but by the application itself) was made. New widgets were proposed.
- Provided native support for working in environments based on the Wayland protocol.
- Added support for HiDPI and taking into account system scaling settings when generating the interface.
- The interface has been significantly modernized. Support for symbolic icon sets has been improved, and now automatically adjusts to the set foreground and background colors (when switching from light to dark mode, you no longer need to manually change the icon set).
- The five basic design themes (Default, Gray, System, Darker, Compact) in light and dark variants have been replaced by the System and Default themes with three state variants - light, dark and gray. Similarly, the four icon themes have been transformed into two sets - Legacy and Default - with color and symbolic variants. The quality of the dark design mode has been improved, which now also includes window decoration elements.
- The first launch welcome screen has been redesigned to allow you to quickly change basic settings, open/create image files, or access documentation.
- The ability to select multiple layers (Multi-layer selection) has been implemented, allowing you to select multiple layers at once using the standard Shift+click combination to select a range of layers and Ctrl+click to add or exclude individual layers from the set. Operations in GIMP are applied to all selected layers, which allows you to move, group, delete, combine and duplicate all selected layers at once, as well as scale, crop, rotate and change the content in all selected layers at once.
- Added a non-destructive editing mode that allows you to manipulate filters and effects without losing the original image (the result of applying a filter is no longer merged with the original layer, but superimposed on top of it).
- Automatic layer expansion mode has been implemented. The "Expand Layers" option has been added to the "Brush" tool. When enabled, the brush going beyond the layer boundary will automatically expand the layer. In the settings, you can specify how much the layer should expand and what fill should be used in the new area.
- Added the ability to edit outside the canvas. In the canvas size dialog, added the ability to select predefined templates that describe typical sizes corresponding to common page formats (A1, A2, A3, etc.) Added new snapping parameters used to align layers on the canvas.
- Added a brush stroke selection tool that allows you to gradually cover an area with a selection using rough brush strokes. The tool is based on the use of a selective segmentation algorithm (graphcut) to select only the area of interest.
- Added basic support for the CMYK color model (late binding — the ability to export to CMYK). Significantly modernized the color management code and switched to using an internal representation of the color profile. Integrated the developments of the Space Invasion project, aimed at improving the correctness of color rendering and improving color management in GIMP. Eliminated the call of intermediate color conversion operations and eliminated the loss of information arising from such conversions (color conversion is now performed at the final stage, only if necessary). Added support for editing in the original color space.
- The compact presentation of slider buttons (sliders), which are commonly used to set parameters for filters and tools, is enabled by default. The compact style, which reduces the top and bottom padding, significantly saves vertical screen space and allows you to fit more elements into the visible area.
- Added support for scaling and rotating the canvas via the pinch gesture on touchpads and touchscreens.
- Implemented support for changing the size of brushes directly on the canvas, by moving the mouse while pressing the right mouse button and holding the Alt key, without being distracted by adjusting the settings in the panel.
- Provides the ability to customize key modifiers that act on mouse clicks on the canvas, such as Ctrl to scale, Shift to rotate the canvas, and Alt to select layers or resize brushes.
- The text placement tool has new options for non-destructive stroke and fill of letter outlines. A new "Style" setting has been added, which offers three modes: Fill (original style), Stroke (highlighting the outline with color), and Stroke and Fill (highlighting the outline and filling the inside of the letters with selected colors). The "Show on-canvas editor" option has been added, allowing you to hide the block with editing options displayed while typing, leaving only the text being typed.
- Automatic activation of transformation tools (transformation, rotation, scaling, etc.) is provided. Until now, after selecting a tool in the panel, it was necessary to click on the canvas for the handles associated with it to appear. Now the handler for applying the tool appears immediately after selecting it in the panel.
- A new API for developing plugins has been added, which is incompatible with older plugins. Some functions in the API have been deprecated, and instead of manipulating object identifiers, it is proposed to use regular objects. The entire GIMP API has been moved through GObject introspection, allowing plugins to be created in different programming languages.
- A new public API for filters based on the GEGL library has been implemented, allowing you to instantly display the results of applying effects and add them in non-destructive editing mode.
- Support for a rendering cache has been implemented, which stores the results of scaling, as well as manipulations with colors, filters, and masks. To speed up work, the ability to determine the scaling quality level has also been added to the settings (Preferences -> Display -> Zoom Quality). In the "fast" mode, faster interpolation is used than when using linear or quadratic methods. Significantly accelerated writing of XCF files due to multi-threaded packaging.
- Improved import and export in PSD (Adobe Photoshop) format. Added support for JPEG-XL, ICNS, PAM, QOI, Amiga IFF/ILBM, DCX, FITS, ANIб, Farbfeld, PIX (Esm Software), HEJ2, and WBMP formats. Redesigned dialog for exporting images in RAW formats. Provided the ability to export images in RAW format with any color depth value.
- Improved support for graphics tablets and light pens. Tablets and pens are now available immediately after connection, without the need to change settings. Access to advanced input device settings has been simplified.
- A significant codebase cleanup has been performed. Internal subsystems have been migrated to the GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) image processing framework.
Source: opennet.ru
