Hands-on: testing the GIMP 2.8 and its new single-window interface

We go hands-on with the latest update of the venerable open source image editor.

The developers behind the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) have announced the official release of version 2.8, the first stable update since 2008. The new version brings a number of significant technical enhancements and user interface improvements, including the long-awaited single-window editing mode.

The GIMP is an open source raster image editor with advanced features, such as support for layers and scripting. It was originally created by students at UC Berkeley in 1996 and later became part of the GNU project. The GIMP has spawned several other notable open source software projects, including the Gtk+ widget toolkit with which it is built.

The tremendous amount of functionality exposed by the GIMP makes it difficult to learn and use. The complexity of the user interface is often a source of major criticism. The project began a major redesign effort in 2007 with the aim of improving usability. Ideas for improvements came from in-depth expert analysis and community brainstorming. After collecting and evaluating proposals, the designers drafted specifications for some of the major changes, including the new single-window mode.

Although it has taken a long time to get the feature ready for widespread use, the single-window mode was largely implemented a few years ago. I first tested the feature in 2010 when I wrote a hands-on review of a GIMP developer build. The functionality is still largely the same in the 2.8 release, but the implementation has matured.

Features

The single-window mode consolidates the GIMP’s document windows and floating tool palettes into a single unified window. The individual documents are combined in a tabbed view in the center of the window. Each image has a tab that is adorned with a thumbnail. You can switch between the tabs by clicking the desired item or holding the alt key and hitting the number of the tab you want to access.

The palette windows dock to the left and right of the content area. The primary tool palette is locked into place in the top left-hand corner, but the rest can be moved by dragging their tabs. You can have as many rows of palettes as you want on each side. You can also stack the palettes on top of each other, in which case the interface will allow you to switch between them by clicking the tabs. There's even an option to tear the palettes out of the interface and combine them in separate floating windows.

Although the single-window mode is a long-awaited landmark feature, the designers chose not to make it the default mode. The first time that you run the GIMP, it will start with the traditional floating window layout. The single-window mode can be enabled with an option in the application’s “Windows” menu. The setting can be toggled to switch between the floating and single-window layouts. The user’s preference will be remembered between uses.

The GIMP 2.8 in its default multi-window mode

The GIMP 2.8 used in single-window mode

The single-window mode offers a user experience that feels more streamlined and less cluttered. It makes the GIMP easier to manage and simpler to use. It has a number of limitations, however, that might prove troubling to intensive users. For example, there doesn’t appear to be a way to snap content tabs out of the main window or split the content area, which means that users won’t be able to view multiple images at the same time.

In addition to the single-window mode, the GIMP also gained a number of other design and usability improvements. The title bar on the floating palette windows was removed and the associated configuration button was sucked up into the tab bar. Although it’s a minor change, it cuts down on some of the space waste in the palette layout.

Another modest usability improvement comes in the form of a new design for spin buttons, the user interface control that displays adjustable numerical values. The new spin buttons are larger and have a colored fill that indicates the level of their value. In addition to the traditional means of adjustment (direct keyboard input and clickable up/down arrow buttons) the widget’s value can be configured by clicking and dragging back and forth inside of the fill area. This change will make the spin buttons easier to operate with touchscreen stylus input devices, which are commonly used by artists.

In an effort to improve the GIMP’s predictability, the developers worked to simplify the file saving workflow. The application’s “Save” feature can now only save images in the GIMP’s native XCF format. Generating output in any other format is now an “export” operation. The change is sensible because the XCF format is obviously the only one that will actually preserve all of the document state characteristics that users require for works-in-progress.

Alongside the interface changes, GIMP 2.8 introduces a number of major feature improvements. Most notably, support for nested layer groups. This will give artists more flexibility over how they structure their work. Another major functional improvement is the new canvas-based text editing support, a feature that is sure to please the lolcat crafting masses.

The GIMP's new on-canvas text editor

When the user employs the GIMP’s text tool to put a caption on top of an image, they can type directly into the caption space instead of having to use an external text editing window. While you are editing the text, a floating pane with formatting options will appear above.

Roadmap

The GIMP developers have laid out a roadmap that documents their plans for the next several releases. One of the most significant potential changes that could arrive in the next major release is a full transition to the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL), a sophisticated image processing framework.

The original concept for GEGL arose in 2000, but it has taken many years to make it suitable for adoption. The framework uses a graph-based model, allowing individual image operations to be tied together as a series of connected nodes. It will make it easier to support non-destructive editing and high bit-depth images. Preliminary GEGL enablement in the GIMP began with version 2.6 in 2008. The framework has seen gradual integration for a handful of GIMP features leading up to the release of 2.8.

The GIMP developers recently began a renewed effort to transition the application over to GEGL with the aim of completing the transition for version 2.10. According to the GIMP website, the work has been proceeding swiftly. Over 90 percent of the GIMP’s core is said to have been ported to GEGL. This is a significant milestone for the project. You can learn more about GEGL integration by reading a January blog post by Peter Sikking, a professional interaction architect who is contributing to the GEGL user interface design.

After the 2.10 release arrives, the next major version will be 3.0. According to the roadmap, the goal for 3.0 will be delivering support for Gtk+ 3, a major new version of the underlying widget toolkit that is used to build the GIMP’s interface. The other major feature item included in the roadmap for version 3.0 is pervasive high bit-depth support, a major feature that will made possible by the GEGL transition.

Although it took years for 2.8 to be released, it was well worth the wait. It’s a great update that has much to offer regular end users. The roadmap is also really promising, assuming that development will move faster now.

I've been a GIMP user for many years, though I only take advantage of a portion of the application's available functionality. I've recently been reading an advance copy of the upcoming second edition of Artist's Guide to GIMP from No Starch Press, a really instructive book that is expanding my knowledge of the program. Users who are looking to get more out of the GIMP might want to check it out. It's currently in "beta" and available for preorder.

Getting the GIMP

GIMP 2.8 was officially released last week in source code form. At the time this article was written, no official binaries have yet been released. This means that users who want to get their hands on the application right away will likely have to compile it from source or find an unofficial binary distribution.

According to the website, Mac and Windows binaries will be made available soon. The process of building and distributing the GIMP for Linux will be up to the individual Linux distributors, as you would expect. Most regular Linux users on stable distributions won’t see the new version until the next round of desktop Linux releases, when it will be made available in the distro package repositories.

Compiling it from source was a bit of a pain because it required newer versions of certain libraries than the ones that are included in Ubuntu 12.04 (which is what I’m currently running on my Linux test system). I don’t recommend trying to build it from source yourself unless you know what you are doing.

The source code is available for download from the GIMP’s website. You can learn more about the new features and improvements by reading the release notes.

Arch Linux has it already, at 2.8.0-1 - Thanks for the insight, congrats on the new release, and let's hope we don't have to re-learn everything. Not sure I am attracted to the single window mode; but I've been using Gimp as it is for so long now, may just be a problem with sclerotic brain refusing to adapt.Cheers.Jean-Philippe.

I wonder if the issue with the tabs is that GTK has never really done a good MDI job. It was either tabs or a cluster of floating stuff. Then again, Qt also struggles to some degree (tho mostly cosmetic).

...with touchscreen stylus input devices, which are commonly used by artists.

It really must be a different world across the Big Pond.Here artists use pen based digitizers, not touch screens, for the actual artistic work. You know, that Wacom thingies that work with electromagnetic stuff and have gotten touch only recently as a fancy add on. Their Cintiqs didn't feature any touch input last time I checked, except for some touch strips outside the actual screen area.

I'm glad to finally have the single-window interface; multi-window interfaces and focus-follows-mouse doesn't work at all well, especially with some of a few of the UI edge cases that come up constantly when using a Wacom tablet due to how GIMP implements its tool switching (which is one of its better features, but also a bit of a liability in places).

...with touchscreen stylus input devices, which are commonly used by artists.

It really must be a different world across the Big Pond.Here artists use pen based digitizers, not touch screens, for the actual artistic work. You know, that Wacom thingies that work with electromagnetic stuff and have gotten touch only recently as a fancy add on. Their Cintiqs didn't feature any touch input last time I checked, except for some touch strips outside the actual screen area.

I think that's universal. The way it's phrased could be interpreted like you're saying but I think (could be wrong) that the author is trying to say that the stylus input device operates on a screen which you touch with the stylus ("touchscreen") -- as in the author is explaining it in easier terms for those who may not have heard of such a device before

I just hope they'll be able to speed up the release cycles. I like the implementation of SWM. Just anecdotally it seems to launch quite a bit faster than 2.6, at least on my ubuntu install. I know it used to be really slow to launch on OSX, has that been improved?

Single-window mode in GIMP 2.8 is a nice addition, but it's an insufficient addition. The problem with the floating palettes approach wasn't the existence or even number of the palettes, at least in my experience; it was that the palette windows behaved like document windows, showing up in the windows swap chain (and the task switcher under Windows). With SWM, if I have multiple displays and want to take advantage of them, then I have to break some tabs/palettes out into floating windows, so I now have a hybrid windowing model.

Photoshop has the same problem. I installed the CS 6 beta last week, and the large "workspace" window that took up most/all of my primary display was a.) ugly, and b.) inefficient.

Wu Shi already mentioned Pixelmator. It has floating document windows and uses OS X's "HUD window"-style NSPanels (or an approximation) for options palettes. They do not enter the document window swap chain, they disappear when the application loses focus, and this means that the same windowing model works for any number of displays.

(Sole disappointment: fullscreen mode, where most OS X apps seem to fail to enumerate the number of attached displays and determine the most efficient use of all that space; on a two-display setup, the secondary monitor is just filled with a blank "linen texture.")

I would have liked to see a little more thought applied to GIMP's windowing model than "just ape Photoshop."

The tremendous amount of functionality exposed by the GIMP makes it difficult to learn and use.

LMAO. Is this not the typical argument as to why folks leave PS and jump to GIMP or Pixelmator or some other alternative (after cost) ? Because they are easier. Every time I have played with either of these Applications - I find myself cringing and jumping back into PS due to the lack of functionality.

Quote:

For example, there doesn’t appear to be a way to snap content tabs out of the main window or split the content area, which means that users won’t be able to view multiple images at the same time.

Which is the whole point of floating/ multi-window user interface. Seeing as how the original GUI interfaces in the 80's were single window mode and Users wanted a way to visuall cue back and forth between documents - the multi window optioln became availble. But no one seems to be alive that remembers this.

Thanks for sharing this. Looks like a very capable application for people such as me that can't justify buying something like photoshop. I know, this is a gimp article and it's capable and free however as far as I know there is no mac port that doesn't require X11 so pixelmator is a more attractive option in my opinion.

Ditto @natethomas on hopes for a better OSX port: I've always been mildly frustrated that the available version always lags a little behind...

Ditto @Wu Shi on Pixelmator. I use both Pixelmator and GIMP. I have two gripes with Pixelmator, though, and in these two gripes, GIMP does *not* fail. One is, full faithfullness to colors. If I set up the bucket fill with a specific color, specified in #rrggbb format, often Pixelmator "takes liberties" with the color. This may be verified via subsequent color sampler. In a bucket fill on the same image, GIMP is exactingly faithful. The other gripe is the "magic wand". GIMP has proven, in most of my cases, to have more appropriate sensitivity for e.g. solid objects in a photo or items in requiring very careful and difficult-to-see distinction between foreground and background. Pixelmator's magic wand is more a brute force tool. Still, for all but the most exacting cases, I use

In an effort to improve the GIMP’s predictability, the developers worked to simplify the file saving workflow. The application’s “Save” feature can now only save images in the GIMP’s native XCF format. Generating output in any other format is now an “export” operation. The change is sensible because the XCF format is obviously the only one that will actually preserve all of the document state characteristics that users require for works-in-progress.

Been using the 2.7.x betas, and hate this change. I always forget, choose Save, navigate to my target folder, then get the popup refusing png/jpg, forcing me to cancel and switch to the (identical) Export dialog and drill through my directories again.

I wish I could program, else I would contribute to the development of GIMP. As it is, it's been a very sad, slow 15 years of development on the program.

I just wish the people that worked on it took it as seriously as the people that work on something like Blender. Look at that program and the way they've developed and enhanced and massaged everything about it to the new interface (which yes, the old die hards may hate) which is gorgeous and functional and all that good stuff. Plus, you can download it and just start using it on OS X in 64-bit. No need to install X-windows or whatever. Just download and run. No extra libraries or any of that crap.

GIMP, I don't know. They've had 15 years to become a legit alternative to Photoshop and they've just failed in so many places. Does it work for a great many people? Sure. But I've just never been able to like it.

Random question. I did that about 2 weeks before the 2.8 went official on my Ubuntu 12.04 and while it worked, I couldn't save anything in any extension beyond GIMP's native one, .xcf. Does yours have the same issue or did I just manage to have a bad install? (I did have GIMP 2.6 installed but uninstalled in before installing 2.8)

Random question. I did that about 2 weeks before the 2.8 went official on my Ubuntu 12.04 and while it worked, I couldn't save anything in any extension beyond GIMP's native one, .xcf. Does yours have the same issue or did I just manage to have a bad install? (I did have GIMP 2.6 installed but uninstalled in before installing 2.8)

Saving to other formats is done through File -> Export now. I don't blame you for being confused; that's the other problem the change introduces, aside from the one I mentioned above.

Sweet. The biggest reason I don't use gimp is the multi window thing. Can't stand that. Will have to check out this single window.

LOL. The "giant single windows with tabs" the first thing I turn off when I use Photoshop. Of the issues GIMP has, that certainly wasn't the one I'd have picked to fix.

Now, implementing on canvas text is a biggie. At least it was for Photoshop, what, like 12 years ago? Let me fire up my compiler and check it out.

Ok ok, sorry to pick on it, I know it's a volunteer project, and it's actually come through for me on occasion for odd things that Photoshop doesn't do well (.ico support, for instance). I'm glad it's out there. But when people say "Drop stupid Adobe, the GIMP is just as good.", I just chuckle.

Random question. I did that about 2 weeks before the 2.8 went official on my Ubuntu 12.04 and while it worked, I couldn't save anything in any extension beyond GIMP's native one, .xcf.

Did you try exporting the image?

I would do File>Save As> and at the bottom of the box under the Select File Type (by Extension) would expand that and it would only offer GIMP XCF image. No options for anything else, no JPG, PNG or anything. Just xfc

*edit*

I was basing the steps with my now 2.6 GIMP. After seeing your post and MechR think I will try it again.I'm still a real beginner to GIMP (everyone was at first) and following along with meetthegimp.org (great site) but they are based using older GIMP versions

*more edit*

Yeah, that was it. Basic mistake, oh well. Thank you for helping with something so simple.

One thing the Gimp text tool could really use is a border/outline feature. People always say you don't need Photoshop if all you're doing is making lolcats, but the irony is, making that ubiquitous white-with-black-outline text in the Gimp is stupidly complicated. You have to do this:http://www.gimpology.com/submission/vie ... tline_text

And it doesn't even auto-update if you change the text.

Edit: Hmm, Google indicates Photoshop is the same way. That's disappointing. You can tell I've pretty much never used PS. I'm surprised such a common use case takes such a roundabout process.

.Edit: Hmm, Google indicates Photoshop is the same way. That's disappointing. You can tell I've pretty much never used PS. I'm surprised such a common use case takes such a roundabout process.

Not true. Use layer effects in Photoshop. You can have three "stroke"s—outer glow, inner glow, drop shadow...am I missing anything? And if you change the text, the effects change with it. It's not as good as the stroke handling in Illustrator or InDesign, but it's good enough for most needs.

I was just talking to someone about the GIMP last week about how terrible it was at text, and I said they must have changed things since I tried it out a couple years ago. Then I see today's article touting the canvas-based text handling, and it's...wow. Repeating the earlier comment in the thread, this is all they have done in four years? Wow.

I heard a rumor they started doing CMYK semi well a couple of years ago. Someone please tell me that is true.

.Edit: Hmm, Google indicates Photoshop is the same way. That's disappointing. You can tell I've pretty much never used PS. I'm surprised such a common use case takes such a roundabout process.

Not true. Use layer effects in Photoshop. You can have three "stroke"s—outer glow, inner glow, drop shadow...am I missing anything? And if you change the text, the effects change with it. It's not as good as the stroke handling in Illustrator or InDesign, but it's good enough for most needs.

Well, yeah - regular stroke...? :SThat's actually the easiest way to do it. Just use the Stroke layer style and set the width and color.

Quote:

I was just talking to someone about the GIMP last week about how terrible it was at text, and I said they must have changed things since I tried it out a couple years ago. Then I see today's article touting the canvas-based text handling, and it's...wow. Repeating the earlier comment in the thread, this is all they have done in four years? Wow.

No apparently they also copied the window management and Smart Objects.

I must admit I was a bit disappointed after reading in the intro that they spent years with experts re-evaluating their window management and interface, and then seeing that apparently they ended up just going with what Photoshop did a few years ago. I'd have expected something a bit more evolutionary at least.

L.

I heard a rumor they started doing CMYK semi well a couple of years ago. Someone please tell me that is true.[/quote]

I'll drop it down and compile it later on. My primary gripe has been concerned, I *hated* the UI, and photogimp only went so far in addressing that. Hopefully this is usable, because I need to decide to upgrade to 5.5 soon (Free upgrade to 6), or drop it altogether. Given that I make money using it, it's not a decision to be taken lightly, or it'll cost me a new copy of PS further down the road if I bank on GIMP too soon.

Ok ok, sorry to pick on it, I know it's a volunteer project, and it's actually come through for me on occasion for odd things that Photoshop doesn't do well (.ico support, for instance). I'm glad it's out there. But when people say "Drop stupid Adobe, the GIMP is just as good.", I just chuckle.

The only valid reason for your chuckle can be that you require Photoshop for your work, and I somehow doubt that someone is telling you to drop Photoshop if your income depends on it.

I know a lot of people that use Photoshop from Pirate Bay and they mostly use it to remove the red glow from their kids' eyes and crop images. People like that really have no reason to chuckle.

The biggest problem I have with the multi-window interface is that hotkeys doesn't work properly across windows (eg if you click on the fill tool, then you can't zoom in the image with +/- until you select that window). A complete productivity killer.

(Sole disappointment: fullscreen mode, where most OS X apps seem to fail to enumerate the number of attached displays and determine the most efficient use of all that space; on a two-display setup, the secondary monitor is just filled with a blank "linen texture.")

The fullscreen mode is limited by the underlying API OS X 10.7 provides: there is no such option currently in the API to specify on which screen the application is supposed to go fullscreen (or use all screen estate).