GIMP

Related articles
GIMP/CMYK support
List of applications/Multimedia#Raster graphics editors
GIMP
is a powerful raster image editing program, and commonly used for photo retouching, image composition, and general graphic design work. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
Installation
Install
the
gimp
package.
Tips and tricks
Captions
To caption an image follow these steps after inputting the desired text:
Click
Layer
and
Text to Path
Click
Select
and
From Path
Click
Select
and
Invert
Click
Edit
and
Stroke Path
Create a circle
To draw a circle in GIMP follow these steps:
Select the
Ellipse tool
and hold
Shift
Click
Edit
and
Fill with Color
Click
Select
and
Shrink
Press
Delete
Tip
Grow
and
Border
give the same result.
Photoshop behaviour
Since GIMP is highly configurable, it is possible to change the keybinds, and even the UI, to be more familiar to those who are used to the raster image editing program
Photoshop
.
Specifically the
GimpPs
theme aims to make GIMP behave more like Photoshop, which you can install on top of GIMP.
Alternately, if you just want the keybinds, the relevant lines are included in the theme's
menurc
file, which you can then add to your local
~/.config/GIMP/2.10/menurc
.
There is also the
PhotoGIMP
project, aiming to do to the same.
Plugins
GIMP has an extensive
plugin system
, as well as a
Scheme
interpreter which can be used to write
Script-Fu
scripts.
Most plugins are distributed via the
official repositories
(for example,
gimp-plugin-gmic
) and the
AUR
; some, but not all, are listed as optional dependencies of the
gimp
package.
Note
The Python-Fu plugin is not available on the version of GIMP distributed via the official repositories, since it requires
python2
AUR
, which has reached end of life in 2020. To restore the functionality,
python2-gimp
AUR
can be used instead.
Manual installation
If not distributed via the repositories, plugins can be compiled and installed using the
gimptool
executable.
To install a plugin from source:
$ gimptool --install source.c
To install a pre-compiled plugin:
$ gimptool --install-bin executable
To install a Script-Fu script:
$ gimptool --install-script script.scm
Further options may be found in the
gimptool --help
message.
Packaging
Plugin packages should add their files to a directory with their name within
/usr/lib/gimp/3.0/plug-ins/
.
Troubleshooting
Green text
Add the following to
~/.config/GIMP/2.10/fonts.conf
if you see a green tint around letters with antialiasing enabled:
~/.config/GIMP/2.10/fonts.conf
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
  <match target="font">
    <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
      <const>none</const>
    </edit>
  </match>
</fontconfig>
Hide Noto
Add the following to
~/.config/GIMP/2.10/fonts.conf
if you have
noto-fonts
installed and would like to remove them from GIMP's fonts list:
~/.config/GIMP/2.10/fonts.conf
<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
<fontconfig>
  <rejectfont>
    <glob>/usr/share/fonts/noto</glob>
  </rejectfont>
</fontconfig>
See
fonts-conf(5)
and
Font configuration#Whitelisting and blacklisting fonts
for more information.
PDF files
GIMP requires the
poppler-glib
library to open PDF files or it will report that they are unrecognised.
Since GIMP rasterizes PDF files right from the start, it will not exploit intrinsic PDF capabilities while editing them. Other programs (like
LibreOffice Draw
) can be used to better edit PDF files.
Global menu in KDE Plasma under Wayland
If you don't see the global menu in GIMP, make sure you have installed the packages from
KDE#Plasma 6 Global Menu not working with some applications
. If the problem still persists, use
environment variable
to launch GIMP:
WAYLAND_DISPLAY= gimp
.
See also
Official website
debian:GIMP
GIMP Forum