GIMP 3.1.2, the first development release for the next major GIMP 3.2, was released!

The new release of this popular image editor improved the built-in system theme, added many new file formats support, and introduced new painting mode.

As I’ve written about, GIMP 3.1.2 updated the built-in “System” theme, so it finally automatically switch between light and dark mode, that following system color scheme in Linux (Flatpak package) and Windows.

It as well improved dark mode support by adding new toggle button to make brush previews rendered with the theme foreground and background colors. So in dark mode, the brush background will be a darker color while the brush itself will be lighter.

GIMP 3.1.2 introduced new paint mode: Overwrite, allowing to directly replace the pixels over the area you paint, without blending the transparency values of the brush and the existing pixels in that area.

Though it’s so far only available as a paint mode.

There’s also new Outline Direction option for text tool, allowing to choose grow text outline inward, outward, or in both directions.

The release also added many new file formats support. They include:

• Support for using ART (AnotherRawTherapee) as a RAW loader.
• Export to Krita .kpl palette format.
• Import Photoshop RGB and grayscale patterns (.pat)
• Support Photoshop .acv and .alv presets in GIMP Curves and Levels filters.
• Export support for PSB Photoshop Large format.
• Import APNG animations.
• Load multi-layer OpenEXR images.
• Export JPEG 2000
• Import/export Playstation TIM
• Import Over-the-Air Bitmap format.
• Import Jeff’s Image Format (.jif)
• Export HEJ2.

Other change include:

• Support adding non-destructive filters to channels.
• Display the Total Ink Coverage of the selected color in CMYK Color Selector.
• Jigsaw plug-in now draws on transparent layers too.
• New API to create GimpCoordinates widget in the auto-generated dialogue.
• Lock Content now generates undo steps
• Various bug-fixes and UI/UX improvements.
• For more, see the official announcement.

How to Install GIMP 3.1.2

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

Linux user may choose the AppImage which can be run directly to launch the image editor after adding executable permission.

NOTE: Ubuntu since 22.04 does NOT support AppImage out-of-box. You need to run command in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to install required library first:

sudo apt install libfuse2

Or, run the command below to install the Flatpak package instead which runs in sandbox environment.

flatpak install https://flathub.org/beta-repo/appstream/org.gimp.GIMP.flatpakref

For Debian/Ubuntu, run sudo apt install flatpak first to enable Flatpak support.

If you have both Devel and Stable versions of GIMP installed as Flatpak, and don’t know which icon to use, then use the command below to start the GIMP 3.1.2 from terminal:

flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP//beta

Uninstall:

To uninstall the GIMP Devel release installed as Flatpak, use command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.gimp.GIMP//beta

For choice, you may also run the command below to remove the Flathub Beta repository:

flatpak remote-delete flathub-beta

NOTE: skip last command if you has any other app packages (the command output will inform you) installed from the Beta repository.