In a surprising turn of events, GIMP has finally, finally, FINALLY released its 3.0 version, just about one year I started waiting for it.
After seven years of active development, we are proud to announce the next major release of GIMP – GIMP 3.0!
https://www.gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-3.0.html (accessed 2025-03-19)
The new version brings with it several improvements and downgrades. Notably:
Multiple layer selection: I can't believe this is worth noting, but it's here, finally. GIMP now has the ability to do the same thing that virtually every piece of software capable of displaying a list has been able to do since forever.
Paint tools automatically resize the layer boundaries: this is another thing that everyone who doesn't use GIMP has taken for granted for decades, and that GIMP users, whoever they are, will now be able to benefit from.
Copying and pasting creates a new layer instead of a temporary layer that gets merged to the current layer: this is YET another thing that everyone who doesn't use GIMP has taken for granted for decades, and honestly if a painting software can't do this I'd just assume the developer can't figure out how to implement it because why would the opposite behavior even exist?
Non-destructive filters: still less capable than Krita (for example, there are no transforms or clones), but there are more filters in GIMP than in Krita, so it's still a great feature to have.
Using linear RGB for blending by default which makes flattening transparent graphics become too light every time: I know this is the right way to do blending, but it's also not the way everyone else does it. I bet people who don't know about it are just going to assume GIMP is bugged when they export a transparent PNG from Inkscape and go flatten it in GIMP and it makes all text too thin and hard to read.
Even more cluttered save dialogs that still can't show a preview or tell you the size of the file before saving: why only JPG has this ability is an absolute mystery!
Copying a rectangle from a layer copies the entire layer but makes unselected pixels transparent: have you ever wanted to just select a rectangle from an image to paste it on Discord or something? Now you can't. Unless you copy, click New -> Create from Clipboard, select all, and copy again.
Upgrading from a very old version of GTK to an old version of GTK: GIMP now uses GTK3, which was released in 2011. If you ever wonder why is every dialog window so needlessly tall that it almost doesn't fit in your screen, it's GTK's fault, at least in part.
Opinion
I generally assume that if a software is open source, any issues you encounter with it will remain unfixed for all eternity. The only reason to use them is if the good parts work, and you have to tolerate all that is broken because it's free.
That said, 7 years of development for 4 bullet points doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
Despite the new features, Krita and Photopea are still better alternatives for simple tasks. Photopea can do text better. Krita has more non-destructive tools. Both of them have fewer features for photography than GIMP, specially regarding the amount of filters, but in many cases people who need some free basic image editor on their PC are told to use GIMP and I think that's just a terrible idea.
Maybe if you work a lot with professional photography GIMP's features may make sense, but as I'm no expert, I can't know that.
I mean, look. Inkscape has got a filter gallery now. Its filter system remains an over-complicated mess compared to Affinity Designer, but it's making progress. How come neither Krita nor GIMP have a filter gallery? It's literally just a list of thumbnails. Are you telling me nobody could have written a single dialog box and a for loop in 7 years to help users browse the filters? Photopea has a filter gallery! It's a web app!
I just do not understand the priorities of open source software development. Hurray for the people who use GIMP, I guess.