GIMP 3.0 image editing software

[bfilm]

A new version of the GIMP open-source image editing software has recently been released, that really improves its capabilites.

Probably of most interest to photographers is the ability to properly handle a full range of color profiles beyond just sRGB and the capability of non-destructive editing.

 

[Sharktooth]

That's good news.

One caveat for Mac users is that you need the Mac OS 11 Big Sur, or newer, operating system. I was hoping it would work on older systems that are still perfectly usable, but Apple no longer supports.

 

[koraks]

Probably of most interest to photographers is the ability to properly handle a full range of color profiles beyond just sRGB

That has been supported for eons. Non-destructive editing is a huge step forward though.

I've been using the release candidate for a few weeks, and the 3.0.0 version for a week or so (just updated to 3.0.2). Works OK for the most part; there are some minor glitches with e.g. thumbnails in the tabs not rendering properly when non-destructive filter layers are added, and the RC version had some issues with the frame buffer under the same conditions as well. IDK if that carried over to the release version.

Scanning hasn't been changed and thus is no better than it was before; the TWAIN interface will still crash often on big scans, but usually the data transfer just fine, so it's not a big deal either way.

Overall I'm quite pleased with this version.

 

[bfilm]

That has been supported for eons.

GIMP has appeared to support other color profiles for awhile, but behind the scenes everything was still treated as sRGB. So, this is the first time that GIMP should properly handle a larger range of color profiles.

 

[Sirius Glass]

That's good news.

One caveat for Mac users is that you need the Mac OS 11 Big Sur, or newer, operating system. I was hoping it would work on older systems that are still perfectly usable, but Apple no longer supports.

That has been supported for eons. Non-destructive editing is a huge step forward though.

I've been using the release candidate for a few weeks, and the 3.0.0 version for a week or so (just updated to 3.0.2). Works OK for the most part; there are some minor glitches with e.g. thumbnails in the tabs not rendering properly when non-destructive filter layers are added, and the RC version had some issues with the frame buffer under the same conditions as well. IDK if that carried over to the release version.

Scanning hasn't been changed and thus is no better than it was before; the TWAIN interface will still crash often on big scans, but usually the data transfer just fine, so it's not a big deal either way.

Overall I'm quite pleased with this version.

Great I have a new Mac coming tomorrow 31 March 2025. I will look forward to the updated GIMP.

 

[koraks]

GIMP has appeared to support other color profiles for awhile, but behind the scenes everything was still treated as sRGB. So, this is the first time that GIMP should properly handle a larger range of color profiles.

Oh, I see, I didn't realize it because from a functional viewpoint, it seemed to work OK.

 

[bfilm]

Oh, I see, I didn't realize it because from a functional viewpoint, it seemed to work OK.

I didn't realize it for awhile, either. But I think the general good practice before this new version was to convert an image in a different color space to the GIMP sRGB profile if you were going to do any editing.

GIMP refers somewhat to the previous behind the scenes sRGB parameters and how they are working on improving color handling in some of the pre-release postings about what they call the "Color Space Invasion":

Development Update: Closing In on the 3.0 Release Candidate

GIMP 3.0 RC1 Released

GIMP 3.0 RC2 Released

 

[Sirius Glass]

I didn't realize it for awhile, either. But I think the general good practice before this new version was to convert an image in a different color space to the GIMP sRGB profile if you were going to do any editing.

GIMP refers somewhat to the previous behind the scenes sRGB parameters and how they are working on improving color handling in some of the pre-release postings about what they call the "Color Space Invasion":

Development Update: Closing In on the 3.0 Release Candidate

GIMP 3.0 RC1 Released

GIMP 3.0 RC2 Released

Thank you for the information and urls.

 

[loccdor]

I hope they fix the bug with some images taking minutes to rotate, while others take seconds. Isn't resolution related, I think it varies based on bit depth.

 

[koraks]

I hope they fix the bug with some images taking minutes to rotate, while others take seconds. Isn't resolution related, I think it varies based on bit depth.

There are some simple operations that take remarkably long sometimes to perform. The first thing to check is how much memory is made available for GIMP's frame buffer. If the image doesn't fit into it, the disk will be used as temporary buffer, which slows things way down. But otherwise, yes, there's some oddities in how some things take surprisingly long.

 

[Kilgallb]

Does gimp 3.0 need a high end PC to run?

My 2017 PC cannot run photoshop past 2020. Maybe a return to gimp is possible.

 

[bfilm]

Does gimp 3.0 need a high end PC to run?

My 2017 PC cannot run photoshop past 2020. Maybe a return to gimp is possible.

I have not come across a listing of system requirements for GIMP, beyond the operating system version. But it is worth giving it a try.

You can still access the downloads for older versions, too, if you can get by without the new features.

 

[koraks]

Does gimp 3.0 need a high end PC to run?

It depends on what you're going to do with it. GIMP doesn't require high-end hardware just to start up. If you're about to handle big files and do complex adjustments on them, then GIMP needs a lot of memory and a powerful CPU would help, too. The hardware I used is a platform introduced in 2013/2014 - but I have upgraded to 32GB RAM and an SSD instead of a conventional HDD to make things run a little more smoothly.