Roadmaps
Feature Prioritization
This page shows roughly how the core development team plans GIMP evolution.The absence of features from these roadmaps doesn’t mean we are notinterested: since GIMP is developed as a community, all it takes torevise priority is for someone to contribute.
The bottom line is that GIMP is what we all make of it. There is nosingle company or entity heading the software (code admission is basedon quality and usefulness, not dictated by someone’s business).
GIMP 3.2
List of features which we will have in GIMP 3.2 (we are infeature-freeze period):
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Link layers | done | !823 (similar to the “smart objects” concept). See also#453 and somedemo video. |
| Vector layers | done | !773. Back-end exists since 2006, UI was inadequate. |
| MyPaint brushes v2 port | done | MR !2359 (except Spectral Blending features, see#14441) |
GIMP 3.4
List of features for which some work was started and we hope to have in GIMP 3.4:
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Modern default set of resources | WIP | See#307 |
| Filters on layer mask | WIP | !2528 |
| Vector layer mask | WIP | !2522 |
| New XCF format | Discussed | An archive-based format should allow us more easily to load data on-use, therefore allowing much bigger project files (ex.: page and animation) |
| Auto-save | No | It will make use of the new XCF format based on GEGL buffers. |
| High-end CMYK support | WIP | As a backend pixel storage. See!2379 andearly experiments. Also seethe main GIMP FAQ for details |
| Layer effects and adjustement layers import from PSD | WIP | (Some legacy effects only are supported right now). Depends on Photoshop descriptor handling (!2338). |
| Layer effects export to PSD | WIP | Second step of the Photoshop descriptor handling |
| Re-Enable OpenCL? | WIP | WithGSoC 2024 work and recent work on OpenCL in GIMP core’s GEGL ops (!2414 and!2415), we may experiment re-enabling OpenCL |
| Paint Select tool | playground | Released as experimental in 2.99.4, needs work |
| Rework of Foreground Select tool | Designing | This tool definitely requires usability and workflow rework; rethinking it as a Particle Select tool (hair, fur, etc.), in combination wih Paint Select for rough selection part (hence foreground selection) of the work is also worth investigating (cf. next item). |
| Particle Select tool | No | Seecomment on issue 2912 The Foreground selection interaction should be reworked as a tool to select particles or object borders |
GIMP 3.6
List of features for which some work was started and we hope to have in GIMP 3.6:
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Core animation | WIP | Animation plug-in is dropped, this is being rewritten as a core feature |
| Page support | WIP | Proper document’s “page” concept (instead of using layers) |
| Inpainting tool | No | Feature long-available with resynthesizer third-party plug-in; would deserve GEGL-based core implementation |
Development Focus
We have several focus projects these days.These will happen on minor point releases (when the second number of theversion increases) as micro point releases (third number increment) isfor bug fixes.
The features are gathered per topic below, though they may be spreadthrough several releases.
Non-destructive editing
Some work has been started already around new types of layers, whichwill also be the start point for new tools (such as aShape Tool whichmakes sense as a vector tool).
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Shape tool | No | Easily create circles, rectangles, N-side polygons, stars etc. Either a new tool or a rewrite of the path tool with shape options |
| Less destructive transform | WIP | Squash successive transforms into a single matrix and merge the result as just-on-time before other types of edits |
Non-destructive filters
A first implementation of non-destructive filters was released inGIMP 3.0!
Note that both adjustment layers and layer effects/styles are theterminologies currently used in requests by users.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Better GUI for layer effects | Specified | SeeUX specs. We might have to reimplement the item dockable widgets. |
| Graph view | Discussed | As an alternative to the layer view, a graph-based view is regularly discussed. Seegimp-ux#240. |
Animation and multi-page support
Long-term work has been done around animation concepts. It will also bringmulti-page ability.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Story-board mode | WIP | |
| Improved export | WIP | More ability to export full-document, per-page, per layers… Web exports and alternative views were also discussed. |
Macros (script recording)
Ultimate continuation of a work which started in GIMP 2.10 and 3.0, where we started tostore parameters of every successful filter’s runs and plug-in’s runs.Same should happen for tool usage.Finally we need the proper infrastructure to allowreplayingactions.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Action storage infrastructure | No | Class (GimpMacro?) to handle a “recording” which can be replayed |
| Store GEGL ops, plug-in runs, GIMP actions and tool use | WIP | These must be recordable in aGimpMacro |
| On-disk storage | No | AGimpMacro must be serializable and deserializable across sessions |
| Script-export | No | AGimpMacro should also be exportable in “code form” which can be reused as a plug-in |
| Macro tweak | No | AGimpMacro should be viewable and tweakable: e.g. you could trigger a recorded drawing at a higher resolution! |
| Script recording and playback | No | #8 |
Extensions
The work was started for GIMP 3.0 for which we originally hoped to finalize thenew concept of “GIMP extensions”, a new wrapper format (.gex) which can embedplug-ins, brushes, dynamics, themes and other data, (un)installable in 1 or 2clicks.
The core infrastructure is already present since GIMP 3.0, but we also want tomake this public with a new online infrastructure, allowing third-partyextension creators to upload their extensions and everyone to browse availableones.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Icon themes in extensions | done | |
| Themes in extensions | done | |
| Brushes in extensions | done | |
| Plug-ins in extensions | nearly done | plug-ins cannot be disabled or enabled live (without GIMP restart) yet |
| GEGL operations in extensions | No | |
Installing extensions from.gex file | done | |
| Extension website | WIP | Arepository has been created yet is still quite bare. |
| Searching, installing from remote repository | WIP | |
| In-GIMP GUI for extension display | WIP | The dialog exists, but it’s an early very-ugly implementation |
| Bi-direction core ⇆ plug-ins communication | WIP | !120 Allow core to send signals for plug-ins to react |
Space Invasion
“Space Invasion” is the codename for a long-lived project, started with GIMP2.10 development, i.e.back in2012. The concept is tomake GIMP more than a sRGB editor. First we focused on anyRGB, but nowadays weare even more into anySpace support. We want to be able to edit images with CMYKbackend too (right now, we can do CMYK 🗘 RGB roundtrips which is nice but notenough), also allowing random channels (e.g. spot color channels), and of coursewhy not CIELAB images or whatever could be useful.
HDR support is definitely also a good target eventually.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Spot Color support | No | Ability to add more channels for printing. |
| Reviewing/Improving Indexed color mode | No | Our Indexed mode is limited and not so well maintained. Make a review of how people use it and how to improve it would be a nice project. |
Tools
We have been planning several new interesting tools or tool enhancements. Someare still only conceptual, though some already have experimental implementationswhich we consider not in a releasable state.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Seamless Clone tool | playground | Released as experimental in 2.9.2, needs work |
| N-point deformation tool | playground | Released as experimental in 2.9.2, needs work |
| Text tool re-work | WIP | This tool deserves a big rewrite of interaction (closer to well-known interactions, such as in LibreOffice); see also aproposal by Liam -part of gsoc 23 (#9274) |
| Text tool: OpenType support | No | Seeproposal in-progress |
| Better “smooth painting” in Paint tools | No | Find a proper algorithm to have good smooth painting at last! |
Painting
Various interesting topics have been raised across the years and wouldbe worth investigating for improving GIMP’s painting abilities.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Better palettes | WIP | High bit depth, multi-format, etc. Some core work was already done in 3.0 |
| Better brushes | WIP | High bit depth, color spaces, animations, other… |
| New Brush Engine | No | Some work from#268/GIMP-Painter might be worth studying |
| Study other brush engines? | No | Pigment-simulation engines, “mixbrush” engines, etc. Worth studying these new area for digital painting |
| Better painting smoothness algorithm | No | The current “weight” algorithm is not as good as we’d want |
| Linking dynamics to brushes? | No | See#1319 |
| On-Canvas Customizable Menu | No | Some quick on-canvas editing happened in#498 though a more complete GUI solution (radial menu?) could be studied |
Canvas
Since GIMP 2.10, we added some advanced canvas concept, such as the ability tosee and even work off-canvas. This is still incomplete, and we still intend toadd new concepts of either auto-growing layers or even infinite layers.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Off-canvas selection | No | |
| “Show All” contextual actions | WIP | The “View > Show All” action should change more widely how various features interfere with the image. |
GUI
GIMP’s interface has always been very customizable, though it can always beimproved. For instance while the “single window mode” (since2.8) wasvery welcome, in many case, we wished for a mix of the single and multi windowmodes. Moreover a horizontal toolbar is often wished for, as well asimprovements of dockable management. These are all topics which could beredesigned and worked on.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Improved toolbox | No | Simpler customization, draggable to other area, detachable, ability to show more than display size with… icon, etc. |
| Toolbar | No | Customizable to set quick buttons to any possible action |
| Better window management | No | Rather than a SWM vs MWM, both able to do some things the other can’t, we should have a single window mode which can do everything |
| Dockable interaction review | No | Review and change how we can create, lock, unlock and reorganize dockables |
Miscellaneous
Many of these features are on contributors wishlist and can be implemented in abranch and merged into the main development branch as we go, especially since weloosened up the “no new features in stable releases” policy. Please talk to us,if you want to work on any of those.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Optionally save undo history in the XCF | No | #89 |
| Brushpack support | No | |
| Improve resource creation | No | Dedicated GUI to create brushes, patterns, or other resources would be welcome |
Archived Roadmaps
GIMP 3.0
The focus of this version was to complete the GTK+3 port and reducetechnical debt in used technologies.
Benefits:
- Better maintained version of GTK
- Better graphics tablet support
- Better handling of HiPPI displays
- Wayland support on Linux
- Refactored code, easier to build new features upon
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Port to GTK3 | done | (except minor API usage, but no major tasks anymore) |
| Port away from intltool | done | We are now full gettext |
| Port to meson build | done | Autotools was removed |
| Redesign API for scripts/plug-ins | done | GObject Introspection introduced, along with refactoring, no wire protocol redesign in the end, big API improvements |
| Wayland support | done | Various bugs still happen, especially in window management area (broken sizes and positions), color management, but mostly because of missing protocols in Wayland… |
| Space invasion | done | Various color management improvements, CMYK support (not as core image format, but import/export and picking/choosing/viewing)… |
| Multi-layer selection | done | Most code is multilayer aware… |
| Less “floating selection” | done | Discussed on thegimp-gui mailing list, transform tools still create floating selections |
| Documentation | done | Make sure documentation is up-to-date by release time |
| Automatic layer boundary management | done | #32 - auto-growing layers arepart of gsoc 23 (#9314) |
| Support SwatchBooker file format for palettes and gradients | done | !843 (GIMP 3.0) |
| Layer effects | done | Initial limited implementation as!958:started aspart of gsoc 23 (#9244) |
| Layer effects on layer groups | done | Initial limited implementation as!1376 |
GIMP 2.10.x series
The 2.10.x series coexisted with the ongoing work to port GIMP to GTK+3and cleanup obsolete API.
We tried to backport fixes and new features to 2.10.x when we could.
| Feature | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| High bit depths | done | Released in 2.9.2 |
| Preview filters on canvas | done | Released in 2.9.2 |
| OpenCL support | done | Released in 2.9.2, more plugins need OpenCL version |
| Turn the IWarp plug-in into an on-canvas tool | done | Initial version released in 2.9.2. Improved version released in 2.9.6. |
| Merge basic transformation tools | done | Unified Transform tool, released in 2.9.2 |
| Canvas rotation and flipping | done | Released in 2.9.2 |
| MyPaint Brush tool | done | Released in 2.9.4. No brush create/edit support (bug 768772) |
| Support the XDG Base Directory Specification | done | Released in 2.9.2 |
| Symmetry painting | done | Released in 2.9.4 |
| Layer modes rewrite | done | We need to support both legacy, gamma-corrected, and linear modes, sensible UI is missing |
| Better support for image metadata | done | Released in 2.9.6 |
| Support layer masks on layer groups | done | Released in 2.10 |
| Cleanup libgimp | done | We need to go through the API with a fine comb and check to deprecate all functions which are not suitable for 3.0. |
| UI themes | done | Released in 2.9.6 |
| Icon themes | done | Released in 2.9.6 |
| Icon size minimal support | done | Released in 2.9.6 |
| Color management fixes and improvements | done | Changes released in 2.10.x, more coming in 3.x |
| Support for gamma encodings other than the sRGB TRC | done | |
| Support for RGB working spaces other than sRGB | done | currently being worked on in babl, more to be done |
| Fix compositing part of blending modes | done |