The GIMP -- the GNU Image Manipulation Program -- is one of the flagships of free software. On October 1 the project released version 2.6, with many new and improved features. Most of the user-visible features are just polish; the real changes are lurking under the hood.

In case you are not aware, GIMP is an open source image editing software that is bundled in most Linux distro and is touted as the closest alternative to Photoshop. It comes with plenty of toolset and filters for you to create/edit your image, and the best thing of all, it is free.

Most probably, GIMP 2.8 will yet be released 2009, so it has been time to have a look at the current developer version. Though GIMP 2.8 doesn't bring revolutionary things like non-destructive image editing, there are some features you will like.

No matter which Linux distro you run, chances are it came with a magnificent little image editor called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Unlike Paint and other free-with-your-OS image editors, GIMP is a full featured graphics app with a broad range of capabilities that rival those os Adobe Photoshop.

GIMP Paint Studio is a package that comes with new tools and brushes, designed to improve the drawing capabilities of GIMP. GIMP Painter adds some color blending and line smoothing features [...]

GIMP is a great image editor but the lack of a single interface window and various other features, make it not ideal to take on Adobe Photoshop as a viable alternative.

This is an unstable development version of the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Please realize that this is just a snapshot of the development tree. We are working hard towards GIMP 2.8, the next stable release. GIMP 2.7 is in no way a final product. A lot of new features are incomplete and some things may even be completely broken.

On my sort of GIMP vs. Photoshop post, a lot of people through comments have expressed that GIMP is highly capable graphics design/editing software that can be used professionally.

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