GIMP

GIMP(GNU manipulation program) is considered as a free source image editor tool. It is cross-platform available for different operating systems such as GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows etc. As it is open-source, its source code can be downloaded.

It is created with significant and available tools for various image changing tasks. For e.g.: photo editing, image composition, image construction, logo designing, painting. This can be used as a simple paint tool and the latest photo editing tool, a mass production image renderer.

Features of GIMP

There are some features of GIMP

1. Free and open source

It is a free and open-source tool.

2. Cross-platforms

It is a platform tool available for different operating systems such as GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more.

3. High-Quality photo manipulation

It has support for the tools required for high-quality image editing. It is used to execute new tasks like image retouching, image restoring, image composing.

4. Original Artwork Creation

It can transform an image into truly unique creations.

5. Graphic Design Elements

The Gimp is a significant tool for developing icons, logos, and graphical design elements.

6. Programming Algorithms

It is having a new framework for a scripted image changing with many programming support like C, C++, Python etc.

Important components in a Desktop Publishing workflow:

It has color management characteristics to make sure the high quality fade-able color reproduction across media. It gives associating workflow in other tools like Scribus, Inscape and Swatch Booker.

It will be having some features 

1. Provides a full suite of painting tools  like brushes, airbrush, pencil, cloning.
2. It will have a tile–based memory management tool to limit the image size by available disk space.
3. It has a sub-pixel sampling for high-quality and anti-aliasing.
4. It has full alpha channel support for transparency.
5. It has several layers and channels.
6. It provides several selection tools such as rectangle, ellipse, circle, fuzzy etc.
7. It has several plug-ins for easy addition of new file formats and filters.

Gimp Versions

The very early version was released in 1996 as “GIMP 0.54” with many colors and file format support. It was updated for many years and released many versions.

1. Gimp 0.54
2. Gimp 0.60
3. Gimp 0.99
4. Gimp 1.0
5. Gimp 1.1
6. Gimp 1.2
7. Gimp 2.0
8. Gimp 2.2,2.4,2.6,2.8
9. Gimp 3.0,3.2

Gimp User Interface

Gimp user interface looks like a typical image editing tool. It is presented in two forms

1. Single Window
2. Multiple Window

The Gimp is a multiple window mode. It has tool settings on the left and other utility dialogues on the right. The center screen has images being manipulated. In display mode, top navigation is always ON. It is an important component of the desktop publishing workflow. GIMP will give high end color management features. This can be used to achieve high fidelity color reproduction over digital and printed media. It is one of the best-used workflows involving different free software like scribes, Inkscape and swatch booker.

Gimp offers integration with various programming languages like scheme, Python, Perl and more. The outcome will be an extreme level of customization as explained by more scripts and plug-ins that are created by the community.

Gimp is a very powerful image manipulation software but doesn’t have to intimidate you. Even if you don’t have time to learn advanced computer graphics, GIMP may be useful as a  tool for quick image modifications. It is expected that these few examples will help to solve those easy modifications that we may need to apply to an image.

GIMP has many tools required for high-quality image manipulation. Suppose from retouching to restoring to creative composites and limits will be your imagination.

Questions

1. What is a GIMP tool?

2. What are the features of the GIMP tool?