Week highlights: new release of Audacity and Kdenlive, new features in GIMP, Inkscape, and Ardour.
GIMP
Jehan created a tag for GIMP 3.1.2 in the desktop files, so the first unstable release in the 3.1 series is likely coming soon. This will lead up to a stable v3.2 release sometime in this decade.
Meanwhile, here are some recent changes in git:
- Daniel Novomesly added AVCI loading and HEJ2 exporting, which requires a recent version of libheif.
- CmykStudent removed the restriction on applying NDE filters to channels in the GUI. Layer masks are still restricted, though, until UX/UI is figured out.
- CmykStudent implemented a check for whether the alpha channel should be added when you merge a layer with a filter that requires it into a layer below.
- Jacob Boerema implemented the loading of Photoshop patterns, currently limited to RGB and greyscale.
- Gabriele patched the Histogram dock to show the number of unique colors. Previously, the way to get this number was from the now obsoleted Colorcube Analysis plugin.
A few more things in merge requests:
- Exporting to PSB, a modification of PSD that supports 300,000x300,000px large images (CmykStudent).
- Repositioning the on-canvas text formatting toolbar (Gabriele). Way overdue and very much welcome!
- An early patch to load EXIF and XMP metadata from PSP v8 files (CmykStudent).
Inkscape
Charlotte Curtis proposed a patch that adds configurable grouping of items when importing PDF files: by XObject (current behavior), by optional content groups (OCGs), by page, or necessary only (ignores XObjects and OCGs).
Anunay submitted a patch for review that adds (configurable) zooming with middle-click/drag. That’s actually really nice!
Kdenlive 25.04.2
This is a bugfix release without any new features. Over 20 issues have been resolved since the previous update. Here is the full list of changes.
Audacity 3.7.4
This is mostly a bugfix release, but with some nice additions:
- A new welcome/what’s new screen.
- A bunch of changes in OpenVINO effects: availability on macOS, their own category in the Effects menu, anddiscoverability through the Get Effects button.
Ardour
The team is still very far from v9, but there’ve been some neat fixes and improvements. Here are some of the recent ones:
- Various pianoroll window improvements and the seemingly never-ending saga of tweaking the rendering og MIDI note lines and the scroomer.
- New command to search for tracks and busses in the session, with automatic scrolling to get the found item to the top of the timeline.
- Icon colors are now themable.
- The real-time analyzer is now available in regular nightly builds.
Artworks
Fantasy Tree by Facundo Mileo, made with Blender and Photoshop:
“Solstice” Concept Art by MauFlores, made with Krita:
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