The release of the GIMP 2.99.12 graphics editor is available for testing, which continues the development of the functionality of the future stable branch of GIMP 3.0, in which the transition to GTK3 has been made, native support for Wayland and HiDPI has been added, a significant cleanup of the codebase has been carried out, a new API for plugin development has been proposed, rendering caching has been implemented , added support for selecting multiple layers (Multi-layer selection) and provided editing in the original color space. A flatpak package is available for installation (org.gimp.GIMP in the flathub-beta repository), as well as builds for Windows and macOS.
Among the changes:
- A new theme has been proposed and enabled by default, available in light and dark versions, combined in one theme. The new theme is implemented in gray tones and built using a CSS-like style definition system used in GTK 3. The dark theme variant is enabled when the "Use dark theme variant if available" setting is selected.
- Initial support for the CMYK color model has been implemented, and many aspects related to color conversion and display have been revised.
- The data used in the simulation of color spaces is saved directly to XCF files that store image data. Simulation data used in proofing profiles, rendering intents, and black point compensation was previously lost after restarting the program session. Saving simulation data simplifies workflows, such as those associated with preparing materials for printing, in which work is done in RGB color space, and the result is generated in CMYK space, and you constantly need to evaluate how the final image will look, taking into account changes in color gamut. Previously available proofing operations (profile for proofing, color proofing, and black point compensation) have been moved from the View/Color Management menu to Image/Color Management.
- A visual switch has been added to the status bar to quickly switch between normal mode and proofing used to evaluate the color reproduction sample. Right-clicking the switch displays a panel for changing the soft proof settings.
- When you enable the CMYK simulation profile, many tools, including the eyedropper, sample points, and color picker, are converted to display colors in the CMYK color space.
- Enhanced support for CMYK in code related to exporting and importing images in JPEG, TIFF, and PSD formats. For example, for JPEG and TIFF, the ability to export using a proof profile has been implemented, and for JPEG and PSD, the import code has been switched to use GEGL / babl and the CMYK profile present in the image is saved in the form of a proof profile.
- API for plug-in development has been expanded with functions for getting and setting a proof profile. The GimpColorNotebook, GimpColorSelection and GimpColorSelector widgets provided by the libgimpwidgets library work with color space simulations in mind.
- Implemented support for changing the size of brushes directly on the canvas, without being distracted by adjusting the settings in the panel. The size of the brush can now be changed by moving the mouse while pressing the right mouse button and holding down the Alt key.
- 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.
- Added the ability to use alternative scaling behavior, which is enabled via the Preferences > Canvas Interaction menu. If the old algorithm provided a continuous increase or decrease in scale depending on the time of mouse movement (while holding the Ctrl key and the middle mouse button), then the new algorithm does not take into account the duration of the movement, but the distance the mouse moved (the more movement, the more the scale changes) . An additional parameter has been added to the settings that controls the dependence of the zoom change on the speed of the mouse movement.
- Tool pointer settings have been reorganized and moved from the Image Windows tab to the Preferences > Input Devices tab. Improved handling of the "Show brush outline" option when the "Show pointer for drawing tools" option is disabled. Improved implementation of the Point-like Cursor mode for touch screens, which now works correctly on dark and light backgrounds.
- The Fill by line art detection mode has been redesigned and reorganized in the Flat Fill tool. A new option "Stroke borders" has been added.
- A tab has been added to the Welcome Dialog to view the release notes and a list of notable improvements. For some list items, a play icon is displayed, allowing you to start a visual demonstration of individual innovations.
- The capabilities of the on-screen pinch gesture have been expanded. In addition to pinch-to-zoom, it is now also possible to rotate the canvas while zooming. With a pinch or mouse wheel, you can also change the scale of image thumbnails in docked panels (layers, channels, contours).
- Added support for loading images in WBMP format, as well as importing and exporting in the ANI format used for animated mouse cursors. Improved support for PSD, SVG, GIF, PNG, DDS, FLI image formats. Added support for additional layer masks and duotone images in PSD. For animated GIFs, the "Number of repeats" option has been implemented. For PNG, an option has been added to optimize the palette size, which allows you to shrink the palette as much as possible. For the DDS format, work with 16-bit masks is provided and support for images with one 16-bit channel is added.
- The dialog for exporting images in RAW formats has been redesigned. The ability to export images in RAW format with any value of color depth is provided.
- Work has been done to eliminate problems that arise when using the Wayland protocol. Work in environments based on Wayland has become noticeably more stable, although some known problems remain unresolved that are not directly related to GIMP and are caused by errors in composite servers or flaws in the protocol. For example, there are crashes at launch in the Sway environment and issues related to the lack of color controls in Wayland remain unresolved.
- Significantly improved support for Script-fu scripts. In the server for executing scripts (script-fu-server), the ability to connect your own plugins that run in separate processes has been added. A new separately launched Script-fu interpreter (gimp-script-fu-interpreter-3.0) has been proposed. Restructured the API for Script-fu, which is closer to the main libgimp API.
- Implemented full support for building using the Meson toolkit instead of autotools. The use of Meson is recommended for all supported platforms.
Source: opennet.ru