GNU Image Manipulation Program 3 is here

For all of us interested in pushing open source software into the Desktop Publishing space the release of the new GNU Image Manipulation Program, mostly known as GIMP, has been a huge thing that we have been watching closely till these last days.

GIMP has always been a powerful tool but with rough edges, usually designers that come from proprietary software always complained about its missing features, or its interface and never tried to learn more; although GIMP for many times had special features before than the most know proprietary software.

The comparison has always been unfair: GIMP is a project (not a product) developed by volunteers with a very limited budget, while the alternative proprietary software have full-time professional paid programmers. When you consider those conditions, you realized that what GIMP achieved has always been very impressive.

With the version 3, actually we are already at 3.0.2, GIMP made a huge leap forward that many people still didn't grasp fully. I am not going to list all the new shiny features that version 3 has introduced, there already plenty of articles on the internet. What I am going to highlight is the new foundation GIMP is built on, GEGL, because it is a total, innovative, game changer.

GEGL, that stands for Generic Graphics Library «is a data flow based image processing framework, providing floating point processing and non-destructive image processing capabilities to GNU Image Manipulation Program and other projects (cit.)»; GEGL now handles 99,99% of all the GIMP operations, this means that virtually everything you can do in GIMP is now non-destructive, and it virtually makes GIMP the most advanced image manipulator software out there. Now it is a matter of time on implementing what the alternative proprietary software already do, and going beyond. What GIMP can achieve in the future depends also by your contribution, many free-lance designers had better in investing in a future where your work doesn't depend by a corporation but instead by a community of passionate developers and designers, it is up to you to make Gimp glorious as much as Blender or OBS.

We are just at the beginning and with the proprietary software chasing after the generative AI because their ultimate goals is to get rid off the designers, I would dare to say that GIMP, as well the other free and opensource software, are the last defense against this non-sense.

I really recommend to all of you to start taking confidence with the opensource design software, in the future this will make the difference, with designers that can only design with generative AI assistance, and designers that have continuing crafting their skills with the free (as in freedom) and opensource software.

At RenderData.Pro we are constantly crafting our skills to offer to our customers the best service and the best product you can find on the market, we firmly believe that opensource empower us and our customers as well, if want to learn more, check out at our product page.