The Professional ~ OpenSource FREE Image Editor Professional Functionality Modular Interface Easy to Download & Understand Plenty of Tools Extendable Features Via Plugins

Clicking this Download button starts InstallIQ™, it manages your installation. Learn More

GIMP News

GIMP is a free image editor that has already conquered a huge number of users, and now it comes with new resources and improvements. Nowadays, there are countless software programs for professional image editing in the market, but most of them are commercial and usually very expensive. For the happiness of many users, GIMP has appeared into the scene, a powerful and advanced image editor, such as Photoshop and others, but with the difference that GIMP is open source and completely free.

Though being free, is not far behind compared to more famous programs in the category: there are thousands of resources available, including filters and effects which can do real magic with any picture. Besides the large amount of tools, the program offers a set of scripts for increasing the effects indefinitely,thus giving more freedom to the user. Today I'm going to tell you about the latest news GIMP will bring in its long awaited 2.8 version.

The first thing in my list is the "Single-Window Mode" but not just because of all the talking I've heard about it but because to my humble opinion is a real improvement that is extremely positive in terms of usability. So I installed version 2.7.1 which though being a little buggy it already brings a preview of the feature.

So, you can find it under the Windows menu and now let me show you how it looks like in the next screenshot.

There you are, Single-Window Mode, though not completely implemented yet it works pretty nice and it certainly takes GIMP to the next level.

Secondly, we find that Gimp brings a new Open new file browsing style with thumbnail preview. this is also a nice novelty which allows you to improve your work-flow.

Another interesting new feature (to come) is the possibility to edit text directly on the image which unfortunately I cannot show you because is still causing some kind of trouble.
What many users have been waiting is the possibility to group layers and in version 2.8 they are going to be happy to find this possibility.

Last but not least we find that brushes, gradients, patterns and other resources can now be "labeled" to describe them and can now be filtered for easier searching. And also brushes can be rotated to a certain angle which is also a long waited novelty.

Final Words

As you can see upcoming features mean great improvements in terms of usability and extended capabilities for this already almighty free image editor. I will continue this series as soon as news appear so just stay tuned. If you decide to give GIMP a try, remember is for free and you can download from this page without even having to register.

Clicking this Download button starts InstallIQ™, it manages your installation. Learn More