The Gimp, een acroniem dat voor 'GNU Image Manipulation Program' staat, is een fotobewerkingsprogramma en wordt door velen beschouwd als de opensource tegenhanger van Adobe Photoshop en Corel Paint Shop Pro. Het programma is beschikbaar voor verschillende besturingssystemen zoals Linux, Mac OS X en Windows. De ontwikkelaars hebben enkele dagen geleden de eerste ontwikkelversie in de 2.5-reeks uitgebracht met 2.5.0 als het versienummer. De bijbehorende aankondiging en lijst met veranderingen zien er als volgt uit:
GIMP 2.5 Release Notes
This is an unstable development version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Please realize that this is just a snapshot of the development tree. We are working hard towards GIMP 2.6, the next stable release. GIMP 2.5 is in no way a final product. A lot of new features are incomplete and some things may even be completely broken. If you need to get work done, please use the stable version, GIMP 2.4.
What's New in GIMP 2.5
The most notable change in GIMP 2.5 happened under the hood. The color tools in GIMP have been ported to GEGL. This does not yet have much impact on the user experience but it is a first and important step forward. With full GEGL integration GIMP will finally get support for higher color depths, more colorspaces and eventually non-destructive editing.
With the help of the UI team, the Toolbox menu has been merged into the image window. GIMP now always keeps an image window open and the default configuration treats the toolbox and docks as utility windows.
An often requested tool for simple polygonal selections has been added and work has started to improve the text tool. Please see the NEWS file on developer.gimp.org for a more detailed list of changes. Screenshots of the development version can also be found there.
Changes in GIMP 2.5.0:
Core:Plug-ins:
- improved rectangle tool drawing for narrow mode
- ported lots (but not all) drawing code to Cairo
- optimized image rendering by using pre-multiplied alpha
- use new GLib features such as GRegex
- use new GTK+ features such as the new GtkTooltip API
- much improved GimpCurve object
- cleaner and smaller tool options
- enable brush scaling for the Smudge tool
- added debugging framework that can be enabled at run-time
- depend on GEGL and use it optionally in some color operations
- optional GEGL processing for all color tools
- add proper settings objects for all color tools
- add list of recently used settings to all color tools
- added experimental GEGL tool to use arbitrary GEGL operations
- event filtering and smoothing for better paint tool performance
- added motion constraints in the Move Tool
- some operations do not any longer automatically add an alpha channel
- some preparation for tagging resource files
- cutting a selection doesn't clear the selection any longer
- added new polygon select tool
- load brushes and other data files recursively (search through subdirs)
- started work on language selector for the text tool (unfinished)
- allow to set opacity of the transform tool preview
- merged toolbox menu into the image menu
- always keep an image window around
- improved image statusbar
- dropped 'documents' in favor of ~/.recently-used.xbel
- started to work on text box functionality in the text tool
- numerous bug fixes and cleanups
Python binding:
- dicom: improved handling of 16 bit image data
- help: use GIO to access the help index
- print: moved Page Setup out of the Print dialog
- psd-load: rewritten, cleaner and more features
- randomize: added previews
- ripple: added a Phase Shift control
- screenshot: optionally add the mouse cursor image on an extra layer
- uri: use GIO/GVfs where available
- whirlpinch: allow a larger range for the whirl angle
Script-Fu:
- allow to specify colors using CSS color names
- added new method Image.new_layer()
PDB:
- enforce R5RS syntax for 'let'
- improved Frosty Logo script
Libraries:
- added new text layer API
- added gimp-vectors-export-to-file and gimp-vectors-export-to-string
- added procedure to test for existance of a procedure in the PDB
- improved error handling for procedures
Miscellaneous:
- added some Cairo utilities
- allow to use markup in tooltips
- libgimpthumb doesn't any longer depend on other GIMP libraries
- use the gimptool program on Unix, too, instead of the gimptool script
- create the list of supported MIME types at compile-time
- gimp shows library versions when called with '--version --verbose'