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The GIMP 2.10.20 open-source and cross-platform image editor and viewer was officially announced today, and it looks like it packs some interesting new features and improvements.
Coming three and a half months after GIMP 2.10.18, the GIMP 2.10.20 release is here to introduce non-destructive cropping. The new feature is enabled by default in this version and works by resizing the canvas instead of cropping out the actual pixels.
The benefits of the non-destructive cropping feature include the fact that you can revert the cropped image at any time, even if you quit GIMP, if you save the project as an XCF file, and that the cropped image will reflect exactly what you see within the canvas boundaries of the Crop tool.
Furthermore, GIMP 2.10.20 updates the default behavior of the toolbox when it’s arranged in a single column to show the tool group menu when hovering the mouse cursor over the toolbox button, as well as to list all the tools in a group when the new behavior is disabled, which can also be enabled for other toolbox layouts.
Several new filters are present in this release to imitate out-of-focus blur, including Focus Blur, Lens Blur, and Variable Blur. There’s also a new Bloom filter that applies a soft glow effect on images, but without decreasing saturation like the Soft Glow filter does.
Moreover, the GEGL filters dialog now comes with built-in blending options and the Vignette filter received on-canvas controls to allow users to visually manipulate vignette’s geometry, as well as two new shapes, Horizontal and Vertical.
“Whichever vignette shape you pick, you will always have control for the inner area that stays unchanged, the border of the vignette where pixels stop changing, and the medium point between the two. Dragging the mouse pointer anywhere outside of the outer control will result in rotating the vignette shape,” reads the release notes.
GIMP 2.10.20 also improved support for Photoshop’s PSD file format by allowing users to export high-bit-depth images using 16-bits per channel. Furthermore, channels will now be exported in the right order while leaving the original colors intact.
Among other noteworthy changes, GIMP can now recognize Canon CR3 files, switching between original and filtered views is faster due to filter previews remaining cached even when they’re disabled, and it’s now possible to save and load blending and opacity mode to/from presets when using the Painting tools.
A few plugins were updated as well. These include the PDF plugin, which now supports importing of multi-page documents in bottom-first order, the PNG and TIFF plugins, which no longer save color values when the alpha channel is present and set to 0, as well as the TWAIN plugin, which now supports 16-bit RGB and grayscale images.
You can download GIMP 2.10.20 right now from the official website. But since only the source code is provided there, you should update your installations or install the latest GIMP release directly from the stable software repositories of your favorite GNU/Linux distribution, or install it as a Flatpak.
Last updated 4 years ago
