A second GIMP 3.2 release candidate (RC) is now available for testing, should you fancy sampling the changes ahead of the final, stable release.
GIMP 3.2 iterates on the huge GIMP 3.0 release that landed earlier this year, which took more than 7 years to get in to shape. No lengthy gap for GIMP 3.2 or successors as the team switches to an accelerated development cycle.
Below, I run what’s changed since GIMP 3.2 RC1. That build, along with the GIMP 3.1.2 & 3.1.4 dev releases, added lots of new features. There are no new features as the focus is now on refinement, fixes and stabilising the base.
Which is to say: if you’ve not tracked development, what follows is an overview of what’s new in GIMP 3.2 RC2, not an overview of everything new in GIMP 3.2 – I’ll recap that once the stable arrives.
GIMP 3.2 RC2 Highlights
Splash screen features image by Mark McCaughrean
The colour of header bar buttons match the default theme style with this update, while an increase in the spacing between buttons in the Transform tool overlays will, GIMP say, ‘make it easier to click the right one’.
An updated splash screen is added, giving testers something nice to look at while the programme initialises. Like the choice of splash screen image in the first RC, the new graphic is an image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
GIMP 3.2 RC2 sees initial font loading is “greatly sped up” by ‘checking the first bytes of every font file’ rather than validating them through harfbuzz or freetype. Though the release notes describe this as ‘less robust’, it is faster.
Stylus barrel rotation in MyPaint Brush 2 is now supported, linked to GIMP’s existing wheel setting. But as few styluses out in the wild offer barrel rotation, this change (welcome though it is) won’t won’t affect or impact most users.
GIMP 3.2 adds a Bash completion file for its command line interfaces (CLI). The --show-debug-menu is also no longer hidden from --help output, since those interacting with the CLI will skew more advanced and being able to enable this menu in the GUI helps advanced users.
Finally, the experimental Paint Select tool (available in the Playground section of GIMP) gains assorted tweaks as part of efforts targeted at GIMP 3.4. This includes improved performance, local region computation, progression feedback and UI conformity.
Other changes in GIMP 3.2 RC2:
- Export ‘no layer selected’ restriction removed
- Clipboard brush/pattern size raised from 1024 px to 8192 px (64-bit)
- Improved importing/handling of SVG paths
- Text warnings added if trying to merge filters that cannot be merged
- Checks added when creating or loading XCF files with link layers
- PSD importer now loads legacy Outer Glow layer effects
- Fresh round of security fixes
More details in the official announcement or the raw release notes.
How to Try GIMP 3.2 RC2
While RC builds are closer to the final stable release than beta builds, they’re not considered stable. If you try this pre-release build, keep in mind it is a pre-release – report bugs, but don’t cry about them.
You can download GIMP 3.2 RC2 from the official website. AppImage, Flatpak and Snap builds are offered for Linux users on 64-bit x86 or ARM systems. Windows and macOS users can find installers for their systems (64-bit x86 and ARM) respectively.
Ubuntu users can also install this preview from the Snap Store, as the GIMP Snap is now officially maintained by the project itself.
To install it, open a terminal and run:
sudo snap install gimp --channel=preview/stable
Alternatively, pop open App Center, search for the GIMP Snap and, from its listing page, use the dropdown besides the install button to select the preview channel – then hit install.
Should you take this RC for it a test-drive, circle back to let me know what you make of it!
Instagram Engineering
Shopify Engineering