GIMP

GIMP is the free image editor that people compare to Photoshop, and for good reason. It handles photo retouching, background removal, compositing, color correction, and batch processing - all without paying a subscription. The project started in 1996 at UC Berkeley, and The GIMP Team has kept it free and open source (GPL-3.0) for over 30 years. Version 3.0, released in March 2025 after seven years of development, was the biggest overhaul in the program's history.

It runs on Windows 10/11 (64-bit, including ARM), macOS 12+ (Intel and Apple Silicon), and Linux (AppImage, Flatpak, Snap). The installer is around 179 MB on Windows. If you work across different operating systems, GIMP behaves the same on all of them.

What it can do

GIMP is a raster image editor, meaning it works with pixel-based images - photos, digital paintings, web graphics. In practice, the toolbox breaks down like this:

• Photo retouching - Clone Tool (C) copies pixels from a clean area over a defect. Healing Tool (H) does the same but blends edges automatically. Dodge and Burn let you selectively lighten or darken areas. For color correction, go to Colors > Curves and drag the S-curve for better contrast, or Colors > Levels to clip the histogram.
• Background removal - add an alpha channel (Layer > Transparency > Add Alpha Channel), select the background with Fuzzy Select (U) or Scissors Select (I) for complex edges, hit Delete, then export as PNG. For solid-color backgrounds, Colors > Color to Alpha removes it in one click.
• Compositing - open a second image as a layer (File > Open as Layers), position it with Move (M), then use layer masks and blend modes (Multiply, Screen, Overlay) to merge everything together.
• Text - press T, click on the canvas, and type. You can change font, size, and color in the tool options. Since version 3.0, text outlines are non-destructive - set width, color, and direction (inner, centered, outer) without flattening the text layer.
• GIF animation - each layer becomes a frame. Name layers with timing like "frame1 (200ms)", preview with Filters > Animation > Playback, then export as GIF with "As animation" checked.
• Batch processing - GIMP supports Python 3 and Script-Fu (Scheme) scripting with 800+ procedures in its database. The BIMP plugin adds a visual batch processor for resizing, cropping, and watermarking entire folders.

Filters and effects

GIMP ships with over 150 built-in filters under the Filters menu: Blur (Gaussian, Motion, Lens), Sharpen (Unsharp Mask), Distort (Lens Distortion, Spherize, Whirl), Light and Shadow (Drop Shadow, Lens Flare), Noise, and artistic effects like Oil Painting, Cubism, and Cartoon. All of these are non-destructive in version 3.0+, so you can adjust them after applying.

Plugins are where things get interesting. G'MIC alone adds over 500 filters - color grading presets, texture generators, denoising, artistic transformations. Resynthesizer gives you content-aware fill similar to Photoshop's, letting you paint over an object and have the surrounding texture fill in automatically. One thing to watch out for: plugins written for GIMP 2.10 do not work with 3.x due to a breaking API change, so check compatibility before installing.

How it compares

Photoshop still leads in professional workflows - native CMYK, AI-powered editing, full adjustment layers. If you need those, the subscription is hard to avoid. Paint.NET is the better pick if you want something lightweight for quick edits; it loads fast and you can figure it out in an afternoon. Krita is built for digital artists and illustrators, and its brush engine is stronger than GIMP's for painting. But for general purpose photo editing and image manipulation at zero cost, GIMP does more than anything else in the free category.

What changed in version 3.x

The current release is GIMP 3.2.4 (April 2026). The 3.x series is a major rewrite compared to the 2.10 branch that most people used for years. The big changes:

• Complete UI migration from GTK2 to GTK3 - proper HiDPI scaling, Wayland support on Linux, CSS-based themes, and cleaner scaling on modern monitors
• Non-destructive editing through GEGL filters that remain editable after you apply them
• Multi-select for layers, channels, and paths - you can finally move or transform several layers at once
• Link Layers (3.2) - linked external images that update automatically, similar to Photoshop's Linked Smart Objects
• Vector Layers (3.2) - path-based layers with stroke and fill settings
• Python 3 replaced Python 2 for scripting. JavaScript, Lua, and Vala are now supported for plugins too
• New formats: JPEG XL, APNG, PSB export, JPEG 2000 export, Photoshop layer styles import
• Copy/paste creates a new layer instead of the old confusing "floating selection"

The jump from 2.10 to 3.0 took seven years. Long wait. But the result is an application that actually feels modern. If you tried GIMP years ago and bounced off the dated interface, version 3.x is worth another look.

Who it is for

GIMP is the right choice if you need a serious image editor and do not want to pay for one. It works well for web designers building graphics and optimizing images, photographers doing color correction and retouching, students learning image editing without a Photoshop license, and Linux users who need a capable editor on their platform. If your work requires native CMYK or Photoshop-level AI tools, you will hit walls. For everyone else, GIMP 3.x is the best free image editor you can get.