GIMP image editor announced the new 2.99.18 development release today. It’s marked as the last dev release for the next major 3.0 version.
The new release has a new welcome dialog, with Personalize tab to set your favorite theme, icon and font scaling, and select program language, Contribute tab with a few links for who want to contribute to GIMP, and Create tab with quick buttons to create, open, open recent images. It as well has an option to enable on every start.
GIMP image editor announced a new development release for next major 3.0 this Sunday!
It’s GIMP 2.99.16, the last release in the 2.99.x series. The release has finished the GTK+3 port. It adds ability to assign several shortcuts for a single action. And, the action search dialog also shows results’ own menu positions.
The GEGL engine has implemented filters as separate modules called “operations”, allowing 3rd party developers added their own filters to menu. And, custom filters (whether or not added to menu) will appear in the action search dialog.
The release also added new ‘Merge menu and title bar‘ option in ‘Preferences -> Image Windows’. This enable Gnome’s Client Side Decoration style that save vertical space.
For those don’t like the Flatpak package, here’s how to install GIMP 2.99.18 from PPA in Ubuntu 20.04 and/or Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
The popular GIMP image editor is working on the next major 3.0 release. For testing purpose, GIMP 2.99.18 was released as the latest development version. It provides the official Linux package via Flatpak package. However, some users don’t like it, since Flatpak is an universal package format needs separate daemon to run in sandbox.
Install GIMP 3.0 Dev from PPA in Ubuntu 20.04/22.04:
For Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, and derivatives, e.g, Linux Mint 20/21 and Zorin OS 17, the unofficial PPA contains the classic .deb package for GIMP 3.0 Dev release.
NOTE: The package in the PPA is unstable. It may have bugs and used only for testing purpose. Installing GIMP from this PPA will override the 2.10 stable release, don’t install it on production machine.
1. Add the PPA.
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, or search for and open terminal from start menu if you’re on Linux Mint or ZorinOS.
When terminal opens, copy and paste the command below and hit Run to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mati75/gimp30
Type your password as sudo command need user authentication, and hit Enter to continue.
2. Update package cache
Since Ubuntu 20.04, it updates the system package cache automatically while adding Ubuntu PPAs, However, Linux Mint 20 does not. So you may need to manually run command in terminal to update cache:
sudo apt update
3. Install / Upgrade to GIMP 3.0 Dev
Finally, you can either open Software Updater (Update Manager) to install or upgrade the GIMP package, or run command in terminal instead:
sudo apt install gimp gegl
Revert to GIMP 2.10 Stable:
It’s possible to downgrade the image editor back to 2.10 stable release, 2.10.18 if no other relevant PPA added.
Simply open terminal and run the command below to install the ppa-purge package, and then purge the Ubuntu PPA which will remove it as well as downgrade installed packages:
Before the next major GIMP 3.0, a new maintenance update for the 2.10 series GIMP 2.10.24 now is available to install.
Though it’s not officially announced at the moment of writing, GIMP has provided the 2.10.24 source tarball & Windows exe for downloading in its website.
And both the Flathub repository and unofficial Ubuntu PPA have updated the packages for the new release.
What’s new in GIMP 2.10.24 according to the release note:
Off-canvas point snapping
GeoTIFF metadata support (georeferencing information embedded within a TIFF file used by map makers)
Many improvements in the metadata viewer and editor
Many file format supports improved: HEIF, PSP, TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DDS, BMP, PSD
New “Negative Darkroom” operation to simulate enlargement prints from scans of photographic negatives.
The RAW image import now handles darktable 3.6 and over
New Kabyle translation
How to Install GIMP 2.10.24 in Ubuntu:
Method 1: Install GIMP via the universal flatpak package:
If you’re OK with the flatpak package which runs in sandbox, open terminal and run following commands one by one to install it:
1. Firstly add PPA for updated Flatpak package (required for Ubuntu 18.04 only):
4. Finally install GIMP flatpak package via command:
flatpak install flathub org.gimp.GIMP
NOTE: as flatpak runs in sandbox, it takes much more disk space for run-time libraries.
5. (Optional) If you want to remove the package, run command:
flatpak uninstall org.gimp.GIMP
Method 2: install GIMP via Ubuntu PPA:
For those prefer the classic .deb packages, the unofficial PPA has made the new release packages for Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, and Ubuntu 21.04.
Due to compile issue, the package for Ubuntu 18.04 is stuck at v2.10.22 at the moment.
1.) Open terminal from system application launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/gimp
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) for sudo prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2.) If an old version of GIMP .deb package was installed, upgrade it via Software Updater (Update Manager) utility.
or run apt commands in terminal to install GIMP:
sudo apt install gimp
If you’re going to upgrade the image editor from command line, I’d recommend to RUN this command instead, so to also install the updated dependency libraries.
sudo apt upgrade
3.) (Optional) To restore GIMP to the stock version in main Ubuntu repository, run command to purge the PPA:
For Ubuntu 18.04 users sticking to the PPA build of GIMP image editor 2.10.22, now the Python Script support is back.
Since old GTK2 and Python 2 libraries being removed from Ubuntu universe repositories, the Python script support was excluded due to lack of dependencies when I was uploading the GIMP packages into PPA.
Ubuntu 18.04 was neglected, though. It meets all the dependencies to build the requested feature. So I added it back. Hope it’s not too late for you :). And the package was totally built via the rules from otto-kesselgulasch’s PPA.
Install GIMP 2.10.22 via PPA in Ubuntu 18.04:
NOTE I do only basic image editing with GIMP, and I can’t go further test for the function though it seems working.
1.) Open terminal from system application launcher. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/gimp
Type user password (no asterisk feedback) for sudo prompts and hit Enter to continue.
2.) If an old version of GIMP .deb package was installed, upgrade it via Software Updater (need to install gimp-python manually) utility.
GIMP image editor 2.10.20 was released a few days ago with some new features as well as important bug-fixes.
GIMP 2.10.20 release highlights according to the release note:
Tool-group menus can now expand on hover
Non-destructive cropping now available by cropping the canvas rather than actual pixels
Better PSD support: exporting of 16-bit files now available, reading/writing channels in the right order
On-canvas controls for the Vignette filter
New filters: Bloom, Focus Blur, Lens Blur, Variable Blur
Blending options now built into filter dialogs
Over 30 bugfixes
How to Install GIMP 2.10.20 in Ubuntu:
Ubuntu PPA:
It seems that the otto’s PPA is not being updated, while it’s still at v2.10.14.
Snap package:
The community maintained GIMP Snap package is still v2.10.18 at the moment. If you’ve installed it on your system, it will be auto-updated once the new package published.
Flatpak package:
GIMP 2.10.20 Flatpak package was made into flathub repository on June 7 once the source tarball was available. You can install it by running following commands one by one in terminal:
1.) Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to install flatpak:
sudo apt install flatpak
2.) Add the flathub repository by running command:
GIMP image editor 2.10.18 was released a day ago with new features and usability improvements. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu.
Due to a critical bug, v2.10.16 was skipped and GIMP 2.10.18 was released with following release highlights:
Tools now grouped in the toolbox by default.
Sliders now have a compact style by default.
Vastly improved user experience for the transformation preview
Dockable areas now highlighted when a dockable dialog is being dragged
New 3D Transform tool to rotate and pan items
Much smoother brush outline preview motion on the canvas
Symmetry painting enhancements
Faster loading of ABR brushes
PSD support improvements
Consolidated user interface for merging down and anchoring layers
Update check to notify users of new releases available
Various bug-fixes, and translation updates.
Install GIMP 2.10.18 in Ubuntu:
Neither the PPA repository nor GIMP Snap package are updated to v2.10.18 at the moment of writing.
However, GIMP Flatpak package has been updated for Ubuntu 18.04 and higher. Simply open terminal from application menu and run following commands one by one:
4. If an old GIMP Flatpak version was installed, update it via command:
flatpak update flathub org.gimp.GIMP
GIMP Flatpak co-exists with Snap and native .deb packages. Run command to start it if you have more than one GIMP icon, and don’t know which one to run.
flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP
Uninstall GIMP Flatpak package:
To remove the flatpak package, simply run command: