GIMP 2.10 RELEASE CANDIDATE was released March 26rd and that's the most exciting thing to happen to me in such a long time!! I've been using this awfully named piece of software since GIMP 2.4 and it's grown so much.

ANYWAYS here's an incomplete list of cool new things since the 2.8 release back in 2012:

higher bit depth image processing!! (32 bit integer, 64 bit floating points)
ICC v4 color profile support (and a lot of other things i don't understand)
(seriously there is so much new color support stuff, i'm not a photo person so i don't understand it so much)
RAW image support and 'darktable'??? (i just said i'm not a photo person!)
linear gamma space support!
HDR support
lot's of bugfixes and translations
layer groups and big UI improvements
lots faster on lots of things
moving more and more onto ur GPU (GEGL port!!)
public denouncement of sourceforge when they made the GIMP malware version
better support for a bunch of file formats (PSD, PDF, OpenRaster, WebP, and more)
Seriously there's so much PSD stuff added apparently? I don't use it often
it works better on macs too?
on-canvas preview
higher-quality image scaling
new and improved tools
MyPaint brush engine integration
canvas rotation
seamless clone / heal
layer blending modes everywhere
dark themes & HiDPI support
GEGL split preview
screenshot support for some reason
Symmetry Painting (mirror, mandala, tile)
More keyboard shortcuts
Selection remove-holes command
Other selection improvements
Fuzzy select can select diagonal neighbours!! (GREAT news for pixel art)
Better text editing
Better text editing for non-western languages (CJK)
Send by email plug-in
Command line batch processing
so man gui improvements
Layer groups and masks
on-canvas gradient preview
gradient editing!!
wayland support
paste-in-place
wavelet decomposition
Dockable dashboard (CPU, RAM, etc.)
Good debug dialog & post-crash image recovery
Layer masks over groups

in the future:

non destructive editing
An improved linear-gamma workflow
Further GEGL transition
Further GIMP color management
Warp performance increases

Comments

twovests OP wrote on April 5, 2018 at 2:22 PM

the reason i sought out an update was b/c the unstable dev version i was on (2.9.9-something) had a horrendous computer-crashing memory leak during string editing. i need to get on a mailing list or something

Moonside wrote on April 5, 2018 at 5:29 PM

I've basically given up using bleeding edge software for this reason. I don't have much of special interest in, say, text editors, web browsers and printers to justify transient administration work on monthly basis.

emma wrote on April 5, 2018 at 6:14 PM

boycotting gimp until it includes a red pepper