GIMP 3.0
IMAGE EDITOR
www.gimp.org
What you need: Windows 10 or 11, macOS or Linux
GIMP – or the GNU Image Manipulation Program, to give it its full name – is commonly regarded as the closest free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It’s packed with expert tools for editing photos, which can make it seem daunting at first, but it provides lots of online tutorials (www.snipca.com/54365) to help you get started.
Incredibly, it’s been seven years since the last major GIMP release (2.10), but version 3.0 is finally here, following extensive beta testing. One of the biggest changes is to the program’s interface. While the layout remains familiar to long-time users, the design has been streamlined and optimised for high-resolution displays.
This is a critical improvement, because older versions of GIMP often struggled with scaling issues on larger, high-DPI screens. The updated interface also displays better when using GIMP on Windows tablets.
The program now greets you with a Welcome screen, which makes its learning curve a little less steep. Click the Personalise tab to adjust the colour scheme, font and icon size of the GIMP interface, and the Create tab to open a new image or reopen one you’ve been working on.
GIMP 3.0 introduces non-destructive editing when applying filters to image layers. In GIMP 2.10, filters were automatically merged with the current layer, which prevented you from making further edits without repeatedly undoing your changes. You can now select, deselect and delete filters individually to save you reverting your work. Other improvements include support for more image formats, such as JPEG XL (see page 49) and QOI, and better handling of text, so you can quickly distinguish between different fonts and their bold and italic variants.