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-as of [27 JANUARY 2025]–
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“GNU IMAGE MANIPULATION PROGRAM*
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*aka ‘GHIMP’*
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*GIMP is a [‘free’/’open-source’ raster graphics editor] used for…*
image manipulation (retouching) and image editing,
free-form drawing,
transcoding between different image file formats,
and more specialized tasks*
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It is not designed to be used for drawing, though some artists and creators have used it for such.[5]
GIMP is released under GPL-3.0-or-later license and is available for Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows
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History
In 1995, Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis began developing GIMP – originally named General Image Manipulation Program – as a semester-long project at the University of California, Berkeley for the eXperimental Computing Facility
The acronym was coined first, with the letter G being added to -IMP as a reference to “the gimp” in the scene from the 1994 Pulp Fiction film.[8]
In 1996 was the initial public release of GIMP (0.54).[9][10] The editor was quickly adopted and a community of contributors formed. The community began developing tutorials, artwork and shared better work-flows and techniques.
In the following year, Kimball and Mattis met with Richard Stallman of the GNU Project while he visited UC Berkeley and asked if they could change General in the application’s name to GNU (the name of the operating system created by Stallman), and Stallman approved.[12] The application subsequently formed part of the GNU software collection.[13]
The first release supported Unix systems, such as Linux, SGI IRIX and HP-UX.[7][14] Since then, GIMP has been ported to other operating systems, including Microsoft Windows (1997, GIMP 1.1)[14] and macOS.
A GUI toolkit called GTK (at the time known as the GIMP ToolKit) was developed to facilitate the development of GIMP. The development of the GIMP ToolKit has been attributed to Peter Mattis becoming disenchanted with the Motif toolkit GIMP originally used. Motif was used up until GIMP 0.60.[10][15]
Versions[edit]
Major version Initial release Significant changes and notes Latest minor version
0.x 1995-11-21 First release ?
0.54 1996-01-31 0.54 features some improvements over earlier versions and many bug fixes. Also made a slight modification to the way the file overwrite dialog works. 0.54.1
0.60 July 1996 Creation of GIMP Tool kit. ?
0.99 1997-02-26 Porting plug-ins 0.99.31
The GIMP 1.x
1.0 1998-06-05 Switch from Motif to GTK+ 1.x. Support for image layers. Introduction of the XCF file format. New memory manager with disk caching of tiles to support large images. New plug-in/extension API and introduction of the Procedural Database (PDB). Introduction of Script-Fu. 1.0.3
1.2 2000-12-25 Improvements to the user interface. 1.2.5
GIMP 2.x
2.0 2004-03-23 Switch to GTK+ 2.x graphical toolkit. Introduction of tabs and docks system, improvements to Script-Fu scripting, text re-editing, CMYK color support. 2.0.6
2.2 2004-12-19 Plugin support, keyboard shortcut editor, previews for transform tools. New GIMP hardware controllers support. Improvements to Drag/drop and copy/paste to other applications. 2.2.17
2.4 2007-10-24 Color management support, scalable brushes, new and rewritten selection tools and crop tools. Many user interface changes including full screen editing and a new icon theme. Increased file format support. Improved printing quality. Improved interface for external device input. 2.4.7
2.6 2008-10-01 Partial implementation of GEGL, and first iteration of UI re-design. 2.6.12[16]
2.7 (dev) 2009-08-16 Removed the Tools dockable and move toolbox configuration to Preferences. 2.7.5
2.8 2012-05-03 Single-window mode, layer groups, tool improvements. 2.8.22[17]
2.9 (dev) 2015-11-27 Porting more features to GEGL. New or improved tools. Revamped user interface. 2.9.8[18]
2.10 2018-4-27 Full use of GEGL, including for filters. HEIF and Avif support. MacOS beta. Optimizations and multi-threading for painting and display, themes rewritten, gradient tool improved, Initial DDS support, better curve tools, new 3D Transform Tool, PSD support with 16-bit export and PDF plugin with multi pages support. GeoTIFF Metadata support, “Negative Darkroom” for negatives.[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][excessive citations] 2.10.30
GIMP 3.x
3.0 TBA Complete port from unmaintained old GTK+ 2.x to maintained GTK+ 3.24[34] or GTK 4.0, better hiDPi and Wacom support, wayland support on Linux, multiple layer selection support, extensions in Python 3, JavaScript, Lua and Vala.
2.99.10 is fifth prerelease with many improvements in core.[35] 2.99.8 is available as the 4th public prerelease.[36] (after 2.99.2,[37] 2.99.4,[38] and 2.99.6[39]) Some blocker bugs on road to 3.0.[40]
2.99.10
3.2 TBA Non-destructive editing and some other things.[41][42]
Legend:
Old version
Older version, still maintained
Latest version
Latest preview version
Future release
Development[edit]
GIMP’s icon features Wilber, the application’s mascot[43]
GIMP is primarily developed by volunteers as a free and open source software project associated with both the GNU and GNOME projects. Development takes place in a public git source code repository,[44] on public mailing lists and in public chat channels on the GIMPNET IRC network.[45]
New features are held in public separate source code branches and merged into the main (or development) branch when the GIMP team is sure they won’t damage existing functions.[44] Sometimes this means that features that appear complete do not get merged or take months or years before they become available in GIMP.
GIMP itself is released as source code. After a source code release, installers and packages are made for different operating systems by parties who might not be in contact with the maintainers of GIMP.
The version number used in GIMP is expressed in a major-minor-micro format, with each number carrying a specific meaning: the first (major) number is incremented only for major developments (and is currently 2). The second (minor) number is incremented with each release of new features, with odd numbers reserved for in-progress development versions and even numbers assigned to stable releases; the third (micro) number is incremented before and after each release (resulting in even numbers for releases, and odd numbers for development snapshots) with any bug fixes subsequently applied and released for a stable version.
Previously, GIMP applied for several positions in the Google Summer of Code (GSoC).[46][47] From 2006 to 2009 there have been nine GSoC projects that have been listed as successful,[46] although not all successful projects have been merged into GIMP immediately. The healing brush and perspective clone tools and Ruby bindings were created as part of the 2006 GSoC and can be used in version 2.8.0 of GIMP, although there were three other projects that were completed and are later available in a stable version of GIMP; those projects being Vector Layers (end 2008 in 2.8 and master),[48] and a JPEG 2000 plug-in (mid 2009 in 2.8 and master).[49] Several of the GSoC projects were completed in 2008, but have been merged into a stable GIMP release later in 2009 to 2014 for Version 2.8.xx and 2.10.x. Some of them needed some more code work for the master tree.
Second public Development 2.9-Version was 2.9.4 with many deep improvements after initial Public Version 2.9.2.[50][51] Third Public 2.9-Development version is Version 2.9.6.[52] One of the new features is removing the 4 GB size limit of XCF file.[53][54] Increase of possible threads to 64 is also an important point for modern parallel execution in actual AMD Ryzen and Intel Xeon processors. Version 2.9.8 included many bug fixes and improvements in gradients and clips.[55] Improvements in performance and optimization beyond bug hunting were the development targets for 2.10.0.[56] MacOS Beta is available with Version 2.10.4.[57]
The next stable version in the roadmap is 3.0 with a GTK3 port.[58] 2.99-Series is the development Series to 3.0.
GIMP developers meet during the annual Libre Graphics Meeting.[59] Interaction designers from OpenUsability have also contributed to GIMP.[60]
Distribution[edit]
The current version of GIMP works with numerous operating systems, including Linux, macOS and Windows. Many Linux distributions include GIMP as a part of their desktop operating systems, including Fedora Linux[61] and Debian.[62][63]
GIMP began to host its own downloads after discontinuing use of SourceForge in 2013.[64] The website later repossessed GIMP’s dormant account and hosted advertising-laden versions of GIMP for Windows.[65]
Professional reviews[edit]
Lifewire reviewed GIMP favorably in March 2019, writing that “[f]or those who have never experienced Photoshop, GIMP is simply a very powerful image manipulation program,” and “[i]f you’re willing to invest some time learning it, it can be a very good graphics tool.”[66]
GIMP’s fitness for use in professional environments is regularly reviewed; it is often compared to and suggested as a possible replacement for Adobe Photoshop.[67][68] GIMP has similar functionality to Photoshop, but has a different user interface.[69]
GIMP 2.6 was used to create nearly all of the art in Lucas the Game, an independent video game by developer Timothy Courtney. Courtney started development of Lucas the Game in early 2014, and the video game was published in July 2015 for PC and Mac. Courtney explains GIMP is a powerful tool, fully capable of large professional projects, such as video games.[70]
The single-window mode introduced in GIMP 2.8 was reviewed in 2012 by Ryan Paul of Ars Technica, who noted that it made the user experience feel “more streamlined and less cluttered”.[71] Michael Burns, writing for Macworld in 2014, described the single-window interface of GIMP 2.8.10 as a “big improvement”.[72]
In his review of GIMP for ExtremeTech in October 2013, David Cardinal noted that GIMP’s reputation of being hard to use and lacking features has “changed dramatically over the last couple years”, and that it was “no longer a crippled alternative to Photoshop”. He described GIMP’s scripting as one of its strengths, but also remarked that some of Photoshop’s features – such as Text, 3D commands, Adjustment Layers and History – are either less powerful or missing in GIMP. Cardinal favorably described the UFRaw converter for raw images used with GIMP, noting that it still “requires some patience to figure out how to use those more advanced capabilities”. Cardinal stated that GIMP is “easy enough to try” despite not having as well developed documentation and he