As you may know, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source image editing software used a lot on Linux systems, as a free alternative of Adobe Photoshop.
It is widely used by photographers, graphic designers, illustrators and digital artists, providing a set of tools for tasks like photo retouching, image composition, and graphic design. It also includes layer masking, color corection and digital painting, making the tool very powerful.
It supports a wide variety of file formats, including JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, and PSD, making it an ideal choice for both professionals and amateurs. The software has a customizable user interface, allowing users to tailor the workspace to their preferences. Also, the basic functionality can be extended via various community-created extensions.
As a free and open-source program, GIMP is continuously improved by a vibrant community of developers and contributors. This ensures that the software stays up-to-date with modern editing trends and tools. Whether you’re refining a photograph, creating stunning digital artwork, or designing eye-catching graphics, GIMP empowers you to bring your creative visions to life without the cost of proprietary alternatives.
The latest version available:
The latest version available is Gimp 2.10.38, which brings various new features and enhancements:
- Updated User Interface and HiDPI Support: Introduced a new dark theme with symbolic icons by default, along with four UI themes (Dark, Gray, Light, System) and icon sizes to improve usability, especially on HiDPI displays.
- GEGL Integration and High Bit Depth Support: Completed the transition to the GEGL image processing engine, enabling high bit depth processing (up to 32-bit per color channel), multi-threading, and GPU-side processing for enhanced performance and image quality.
- Linear Color Space Workflow: Allowed users to work in both linear and perceptual RGB color spaces, providing flexibility in blending modes, color inversion, and application of levels and curves.
- Enhanced Color Management: Integrated color management as a core feature, utilizing LittleCMS v2 for ICC v4 color profiles and improving color accuracy across the application.
New and Improved Tools:
- Unified Transform Tool: Combined multiple transformation operations into a single tool for streamlined editing.
- Warp Transform Tool: Provided a versatile tool for warping images with precision.
- Handle Transform Tool: Enabled manipulation of images using handles for scaling, rotating, and skewing.
Digital Painting Enhancements: Added support for canvas rotation and flipping, improved brush dynamics, and updated the Smudge tool to better cater to digital artists.
Digital Photography Improvements: Introduced new GEGL-based filters such as Exposure, Shadows-Highlights, and High-pass for advanced photo editing capabilities.
Layer and Mask Advancements:
- Allowed layer groups to have masks, enhancing non-destructive editing workflows.
- Exposed compositing options for layers, providing greater control over layer interactions.
Expanded File Format Support:
- Enabled reading and writing of TIFF, PNG, PSD, and FITS files with up to 32-bit per channel precision.
- Introduced native support for the WebP format, including features like animation, ICC profiles, and metadata.
- Improved PSD plug-in to support additional blending modes such as pass-through, hard mix, pin light, vivid light, and linear light.
Metadata Handling: Included plug-ins for viewing and editing Exif, XMP, IPTC, GPS, and DICOM metadata, with options to preserve metadata in various file formats during export.

How To Install GIMP 2.10.38 On Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04 And Derivative Systems (via Snap)
As the latest version of Gimp is available via snap, installing the software on your Ubuntu, Linux Mint or another snap-compatible system is easy. All you need to do is:
sudo snap install gimp
Optional, to remove gimp, do:
sudo snap remove gimp
How To Install GIMP 2.10.38 On Ubuntu 24.10, Ubuntu 24.04, Ubuntu 22.04 And Derivative Systems (via Flatpak)
The latest version of Gimp is also available as a flatpak package. If you prefer this installation method, this is what you have to do:
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub org.gimp.GIMP
Optional, to remove gimp, do:
flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.gimp.GIMP
This is everything, enjoy!
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