GIMP 3.0.4, the second update for the major 3.0 release series of this popular image editor, is out!

The official release note is not ready at the moment of writing, though it should be available in next few days. According to the NEWS file in source code, GIMP 3.0.4 features bug-fixes, tools/plug-ins updates, and various improvements.

As you may know, GIMP 3.0 introduced non destructive editing (aka NDE). When applying filters to layers, instead of altering the layer pixels immediately, it adds them into stack that’s applied on the fly, allowing to easily revert, edit, re-arrange the filters.

Now editing non-destructive effects triggers undo steps. And, undo history uses NDE filter name instead of generic “Add filter”, making the label consistent with destructive filters, and is more descriptive.

Besides that, the release improved module loading to be better cross-platform compatibility. In particular, on macOS both .so and .dylib modules are supported.

And, for migrating from GIMP 2.10.x to GIMP 3, the shortcuts for “edit-paste-as-new-layer*” actions are now converted to “edit-paste-merged*”.

GIMP 3.0.4 also improved the built-in tools and plugins. MyPaint Brush now has consistent options layout compared to other paint tools. The Path Tool now connect path on click in design mode.

And, the GUI dialog for “Difference Clouds” script, that had been lost since GIMP 2.8, is finally added back.

Difference Clouds dialog

Other changes in the release include:

• Make maximum radius for generated brushes consistent across codebase.
• Optimize font loading on app startup.
• Hide “windows-display-*” in shortcuts dialog.
• Hide Force slider for Pencil Tool.
• Remove size restrictions on Display Filters.
• Make “gimp-plug-ins-query” public again.
• Add Repair mode to Windows installer.
• No longer ship debug symbols in Linux AppImage.
• Many UI improvements.

How to Get GIMP 3.0.4

GIMP offers official packages for Linux, Windows, and macOS, which are available to download at the link below:

For Linux, the Flatpak package, which runs in sandbox environment, has been updated to the new release, while the AppImage is not yet updated.

And, Ubuntu users can install the community maintained (meaning unofficial) Snap package directly from App Center (or Ubuntu Software), though it’s also NOT been updated at the moment.

For those who prefer the native .deb package, keep an eye on this Ubuntu PPA. I’ve built gegl-0.4.62 and babl-0.1.114, though the GIMP 3.0.4 source tarball is not yet available to download.