A second GIMP 3.2 release candidate (RC) is now available for testingshould you fancy sampling the changes ahead of the finalstable release.
GIMP 3.2 iterates on the huge GIMP 3.0 release that landed earlier this yearwhich 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.
BelowI run what’s changed since GIMP 3.2 RC1. That buildalong with the GIMP 3.1.2 & 3.1.4 dev releasesadded lots of new features. There are no new features as the focus is now on refinementfixes and stabilising the base.
Which is to say: if you’ve not tracked developmentwhat follows is an overview of what’s new in GIMP 3.2 RC2not an overview of everything new in GIMP 3.2 – I’ll recap that once the stable arrives.
GIMP 3.2 RC2 Highlights
The colour of header bar buttons match the default theme with this updatewhile an increase in the spacing between buttons in the Transform tool overlays willGIMP say‘make it easier to click the right one’.
An updated splash screen is addedgiving testers something nice to look at while the programme initialises. Like the choice of splash screen image in the first RCthe 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 supportedlinked to GIMP’s existing wheel setting. But as few styluses out in the wild offer barrel rotationthis 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 outputsince those interacting with the CLI will skew more advanced and being able to enable this menu in the GUI helps advanced users.
Finallythe 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 performancelocal region computationprogression 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 buildsthey’re not considered stable. If you try this pre-release buildkeep in mind it is a pre-release – report bugsbut don’t cry about them.
You can download GIMP 3.2 RC2 from the official website. AppImageFlatpak 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 Storeas the GIMP Snap is now officially maintained by the project itself.
To install itopen a terminal and run:
sudo snap install gimp --channel=preview/stable
Alternativelypop open App Centersearch for the GIMP Snap andfrom its listing pageuse the dropdown besides the install button to select the preview channel – then hit install.
Should you take this RC for it a test-drivecircle back to let me know what you make of it!