GIMP

GIMP is a powerful image editing and creation suite used by professionals and amateurs alike.

GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program, and this is a powerful image editing and creation suite that’s not only free to use but open-source and multiplatform. That means that you can enjoy a consistent experience across projects and platforms and create in a royalty-free manner, and the program is a solid option for amateurs as well.

GIMP has been around for years but is constantly evolving as well as being updated to support new computing environments, such as Windows 10. Features are consistently added and refined, but there’s as much a focus on usability as there is on feature set. All of the user interface tweaks made over the years are why a casual user can pick up GIMP and use it right away despite it being a popular option for professional design.

As mentioned, GIMP allows you to create, and you can pencil, airbrush, clone, make gradients, and much more. Advanced users can even create their own brushes, patterns and other objects, which will persist and be available each time the program is used. GIMP also supports importing images, and you can crop, resize, nest layers, add text, and much more. You can even animate images, so GIMP is widely used even by people simply managing their personal photos.

By default, GIMP employs a multi-window environment. This approach is quite powerful but has drawn criticism for being overly complex for basic image jobs. Recently, a single-window mode was introduced, and this makes GIMP even more user-friendly for the novice or when working on a small job. An annoying limitation is that single-window mode doesn’t yet support multiple images side-by-side, but that feature is planned and should be available sometime in the near future.

GIMP saves to a custom format called XCF. That format is free and open-source as well. Users can also choose to export to a wide range of common and not-so-common image formats, including BMP, PNG, JPG, GIF, TIF, and so forth. GIMP now uses the Generic Graphics Library and is transitioning entirely to GEGL, which allows support for non-destructive editing, high bit-depth images, and other advanced features. A downside to GIMP is that it still lacks automation features common to other programs like it, and while some features are planned, there’s no clear path for when they’ll arrive.

Pros

• Powerful image editing suite
• Broad selection of professional creation and editing tools
• Multi- and single-window environments

Cons

• Lacks automation
• Single-window mode limited to one item