We’re happy to present the first release of GIMP 3.2!

This marks a year of design, development, and testing from volunteers and our community.*

Here are some of the many highlights to look out for:

Link Layers

You can now use Link Layers to incorporate external image as part of your compositions, easily scaling, rotating, and transforming them without losing quality or sharpness. It functions similar to the “Linked Smart Object” concept from Photoshop. The Link Layer will automatically update if the external image is changed in another editor – for example, if you include a SVG logo as a Link Layer in GIMP, you can edit it in Inkscape and see the changes live in GIMP as well!

You can create a new Link Layer by choosing Open as Link Layer… in the File menu. You can change the image used at any time in the Layer Attributes dialog, which you can access by double-clicking the layer in the dock or by choosing Edit Layer Attributes… from the layer menu.

Vector Layers

The Path tool can now create Vector Layers, which lets you draw shapes with adjustable fill and stroke settings. The shape of the vector layer also automatically updates whenever you adjust the path, and you can non-destructively rotate, scale, and transform it too

PaintBrush improvements

The MyPaint Brush tool has been upgraded, adding 20 new brushes, including a much-requested arrow brush. It now automatically adjusts to your canvas zoom and rotation for more dynamic painting.

Better Text Editor

Our Text Editor has been the focus of several development projects to improve its usability and functionality. You can now drag the on-canvas text editor to move it out of the way when writing text. Several common shortcuts are now supported (such as Ctrl + B for bold, Ctrl + I for italics, and Shift + Ctrl + V for pasting unformatted text).

Non-Destructive Filter Updates

As well as working on new non-destructive layers (vector layers, link layers, and text layers), we’ve also been working on the non-destructive filters! You can now apply filters to channels non-destructively, in addition to layers and layer groups.

Overwrite Mode

A new Overwrite paint mode allows you to draw over existing colors without blending their transparency. It has many useful applications when working with pixel art

UX/UI improvements

This release includes a TON of small user interface and user experience improvements

New System color scheme

There is a new System color scheme for Default themes. If set, it will automatically update GIMP’s theme colors to match the current OS settings.

Automatic transparency

The Crop Tool and NDE filters now automatically add transparency to a layer when necessary, rather than requiring you to remember to do it manually.

Switch between tools easily

You can now quickly switch back and forth between your two most recent tools with the Shift + X shortcut

Welcome Dialog improvements

The Welcome Dialog has received improvements to help streamline user workflows.

It now recognizes the Ctrl + 0, 1, 2… 9 shortcuts for opening the most recent images.

It now recognizes your shortcuts to create a new image, or open an existing one (whether the respective default Ctrl + N or Ctrl + O, or your custom shortcuts)

It no longer appears if you intentionally open GIMP with an image

Flip images with your keyboard

The Flip and Shear Tools now respond to the arrow keys, similar to the Move and Rotate Tools.

Flip Tool: You can use the Left and Right arrows to flip the image horizontally, and the Up and Down arrows to flip it vertically.

Shear Tool: You can use the Left and Right arrows to shear your image horizontally, and the Up and Down arrows to do the same vertically. Like the Move tool, you can hold down Shift to shear with a larger value.

For Script and Plug-in Developers

GIMP 3.0 brought non-destructive filters and a new GimpDrawableFilter API for script developers to create them. However, it was not always easy to find the names and properties for the extensive list of potential filters, especially for third-party GEGL filters.

A new GEGL Filter browser has been added to make it easier to find non-destructive filters to use.

New formats

GIMP 3.2 includes built-in support for even more file formats! These range from well-known formats like APNGs to obsolete archival formats such as Seattle FilmWorks photos, supporting your quest of old data retrieval. For retro game developers, we now support Sony PlayStation TIM and Sega Dreamcast PVR textures.

We also added export support for JPEG 2000 images, which is the standard for the digital cinema industry. This now matches our import support, which we’ve had since GIMP 2.8

In addition to our existing darktable and RawTherapee plug-ins, we’ve added support for using ART for editing Camera RAW images.

As a side effect of adding support for NASA‘s .hgt.zip image format, GIMP can now load compressed images from any format that we currently support.

Total Ink Coverage value

You can now see the Total Ink Coverage value for a color in the CMYK Color Selector. This is useful to know when soft-proofing your image for printing, as your printer may have an ink coverage limit to prevent over-saturation of the page.

https://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.2.html#usability-improvements

This release is a GAME CHANGER!! Nothing will ever be the same. Adobe just got punched right in the face.

You can support Gimp

• If you’re a developer, we always welcome more code contributions – we’ve even marked some reports for “Newcomers” to help you ease into the codebase.

• We’re looking for more feedback from designers to help create a better user experience.

• You may also donate to support the existing team members.

Thank you SO MUCH to developers, designers, translators, testers, donors and all members of our community 👏🏼👏🏼.