A battle-tested image editor that’s cross-platform, totally free and open-source—why bother installing PS?
About GIMP
GIMP stands for “GNU Image Manipulation Program.” It was started in 1995 by two UC Berkeley students, Peter Mattis and Spencer Kimball, who wanted a Photoshop-class editor that anyone could run. In 1997 it became an official GNU project and was renamed GIMP. Twenty-plus years later it’s a full-blown, layer-based, colour-managed powerhouse that squares up to Photoshop—without the price tag.
Feature highlights
- Cross-platform installers for Windows, macOS and Linux
- Full Chinese UI (and 80+ other languages)
- Complete tool-set: brushes, transforms, paths, masks, filters, colour-grading, channels, layer modes—everything a pro expects
- Fully customisable interface: dock only the panels you need, or switch to single-window mode
- Extensible: drop-in plug-ins or write your own in Python, Scheme, C/C++ or Perl
- First-class colour management (ICC profiles, CMYK soft-proofing, 32-bit float precision) for print and web
First-run impressions & tips
GIMP’s default UI is leaner than Photoshop’s. If you’re coming from PS you’ll feel at home in minutes, but you can also install the community-made PhotoGIMP plug-in to re-arrange menus and shortcuts to match Adobe’s layout almost 1-to-1.
For retouching, restoration or heavy compositing, GIMP’s output rivals PS. I’ve also mocked-up icons, UI kits and editorial illustrations without issues. Compared with vector-first apps like Sketch or Figma it’s less nimble for interface design, but for photo work, colour grading and general graphic design it’s a solid, licence-free replacement.
Bottom line: no more subscriptions, no more cracked installers. Whether you’re a designer, photographer, illustrator or researcher, GIMP handles demanding workflows—and with thousands of plug-ins and scripts you can automate the boring bits and keep creating.
Free & open source
GIMP is free to download and use on GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and BSD systems. It’s released under the GPL v3+ licence, so individuals and companies can run it commercially, inspect the code, fork it or ship their own flavour. Core development is done in C, with bindings for Python, Scheme, Perl and more—hack away!