GIMP working towards 2.6 release, promises feature upgrades, new interface
GIMP provides an excellent open source alternative to more expensive photo-editing tools like Photoshop, and announced recently a development release that mirrors the newest version 2.6 that should be released in the coming months.
The development release, version 2.5.2, became available at the beginning of the month, and according to GIMP’s release notes, will offer improvements in the areas of tool management, free-form design, new PDB functionality, overall code clean-up and bug fixes. This release acts as a forerunner for the much anticipated version 2.6, and will give the company some feedback on some of the new features and fixes.
Some of the major changes in GIMP 2.6 over previous releases include the implementation of the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL), which is a graph-based image processing framework, as well as a much improved interface, which users have been asking for, according to GIMP.
Other small details have been updated that most users won’t even notice unless you’re a hardcore user. For example, duplicate file menus have been removed. Instead of having a file menu on the toolbox as well as the main image window, just the one menu will remain. Less clutter was key in designing the much improved interface.
GIMP 2.6 will also include a much-enhanced free selection tool which can be used to select items using free hand and combine the selection with polygons. What this means is that users will be able to combine round free hand selections with straight lines which makes more complex selections possible. Selections can also be adjusted mid-stream, much like paths can be changed, and for when straight lines are needed the CTRL key locks the selection line to 15 degree increments.
Other changes expected in 2.6 include a center mark for selections that are being moved which can snap to grid lines, a better status bar with more information, save-able curve selections and a finer-grained zoom function.
I’ve been a long-time GIMP user ever since receiving sticker shock when almost purchasing Photoshop a few years ago. For users that want advanced photo-editing tools on the level of Photoshop, but don’t want to spend the $600 needed, it’s more than sufficient. Since it’s released under the GNU public license, and offered free of charge, the price is sure right!
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