Posts

Weekly recap — 16 March 2025

New versions of digiKam, MuseScore Studio, Audacity, and Ratatouille.lv2

MuseScore Studio 4.5 released

Easy dynamics insertion, brand-new percussion palette, and new engraving features

Weekly recap — 9 March 2025

Blender-made Flow gets an Oscar, PipeWire gets MIDI 2.0 support, OTIO in Kdenlive news

ALSA Scarlett Control Panel 0.5

The Focusrite control panel for Linux gets support for 8 more audio interfaces

Weekly recap — 2 March 2025

CMYK image mode is WIP in GIMP, great changes in Inkscape, Friction, and FreeCAD.

Weekly recap — 23 February 2025

New releases of Tahoma2D, JupyterCAD, and KiCAD; CMYK PDF exporting in Inkscape

Weekly recap — 16 February 2025

New releases of GIMP, LittleCMS, HDRView, and more; AstoCAD is a sexier soft fork of FreeCAD

Weekly recap — 9 February 2025

New release of Bonsai and GCodeWorkShop, upcoming HDR support in GNOME

Weekly recap — 2 February 2025

New releases of Scribus and Krita, a beta release of Pinta. A preliminary look at astroterm.

Weekly recap — 26 January 2025

New releases of Skyfill, Mayo, and Shotcut; the FreeCAD Project Association offers jobs

Weekly recap — 19 January 2025

Mew releases of Scribus and Qtractor; great new features coming to Inkscape

Weekly recap — 12 January 2025

New releases of HDRView and LibreCAD; FreeCAD’s alternative Ribbon UI gets an update

Weekly recap — 5 January 2025

New releases of Our Paint, vokoscreenNG, Faircamp; new AI feature in Kdenlive

Weekly recap — 29 December 2024

The second release candidate of GIMP 3.0 is out, and so are the new releases of OpenShot, Mixxx, Overwitch

Weekly recap — 22 December 2024

Holidays rush: new release of darktable, HDRView, Tahoma2D, Flowblade, Kdenlive, Qtractor

Weekly recap — 15 December 2024

More progress on the new PDF exporter in Inkscape, libwacom supports new XP-Pen tablets

Weekly recap — 8 December 2024

New major releases of Hugin and OBS Studio, and a new beta of Friction 1.0

Weekly recap — 1 December 2024

New LibrePCB release, GIMP 3.0rc2 is being delayed, new great features are coming to FreeCAD

Weekly recap — 24 November 2024

Major new releases of Blender, FreeCAD, and Zrythm; PrusaSlicer switches to flatpak

FreeCAD 1.0: new features and the larger picture

It's a major milestone for the project, with a lot more coming next

Weekly recap — 17 November 2024

Exciting development in Inkscape, zero release blockers for FreeCAD 1.0, and a new Verge3D release

How to make FreeCAD look and work like Ondsel ES

Missing Ondsel ES already? Here is how you can customize FreeCAD to be more like it

Weekly recap — 10 November 2024

First release candidate of GIMP 3.0 is out; DIGImend’s developer resigns

Weekly recap — 3 November 2024

FreeCAD is getting closer to v1.0 but Ondsel is shutting down

CLever Audio Plugin API two years later

Let’s take a look at the evolution of the project and its adoption by developers of DAWs and plugins alike.

Weekly recap — 29 October 2024

Major update of Dune 3D, Scribus dev update, new-ish libre programs for astrophotography

Weekly recap — 22 October 2024

New releases of Inkscape, Friction, and Ardour, update on GIMP and FreeCAD

Elektroid 3.1 welcomes Arturia MicroFreak

Libre replacement for Elektron Transfer advances further into Arturia territory

How to record browser audio on Linux

Let's learn how to use Sound Recorder and Helvum to record audio from a web browser

Elektroid 3.0 and Overwitch 1.1 released

FOSS replacement for Elektron Transfer gets audio recording and sampels editing

New in GIMP: paint tools can autoexpand layers now

This is one more step toward getting an infinite canvas in GIMP

GIMP 3.0 finally has a release schedule

The team is targeting May 2024, but it's going to be tough, and here is why

Is this radical redesign of GIMP possible now?

Glimpse NX didn't have a great solution for missing menu, but this new 3D CAD application has

Weekly recap — 7 November 2023

Audacity 3.4 comes with musical time and easy audio stretching

Weekly recap — 30 October 2023

GIMP is getting pen pressure smoothing, FreeCAD's sketching is undergoing a revamp

Weekly-ish recap — 22 October 2023

New releases of OSPRay and Ardour, the FPA is surveying FreeCAD educators

Weekly-ish recap — 16 October 2023

Krita 5.2 and Ardour 8.0 released, integrated assembly workbench in FreeCAD starts solving

Weekly recap — 3 September 2023

Major BlenderBIM update, exciting changes in Inkscape, FreeCAD, and Ardour

Weekly recap — 28 August 2023

Kdenlive and LSP plugins get major updates. Olive's future is increasingly uncertain

Weekly recap — 21 August 2023

Inkscape + CMYK PDF = ❤️, FreeCAD has updated start screen, VCV Rack 2.4.0 is out

Weekly recap — 7 August 2023

FreeCAD 0.21 released, Inkscape to get CMYK PDF exporting in v1.4

Weekly recap — 10 July 2023

New releases of GIMP, Godot and Armory3D, Ardour gets freehand automation drawing

Weekly recap — 3 July 2023

Major releases of darktable and Blender, Ardour gets tempo mapping to performance

Weekly recap — 28 May 2023

Major update of Intel's image denoiser, new open movie by Blender Studio coming

Weekly recap — 21 May 2023

Blender 3.6 beta is out, VGC Illustration gets new tools

Weekly recap — 14 May 2023

Further steps towards non-destructive editing in GIMP, new OpenToonz release

Weekly recap — 7 May 2023

GSoC 2023 projects announced, MoonRay and BlenderBIM get updates

GSoC 2023 projects have been announced

What's coming for GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Blender, FreeCAD, MuseScore

Weekly recap — 30 April 2023

Kdenlive 23.04 gets nested sequences, Audacity 3.3.0 introduces musical time

Audacity 3.3.0 released

Musical time ruler makes the entrance

Weekly recap — 23 April 2023

BeeRef resurrected in a fork, Inkscape looking for a full-time GTK4 developer

Weekly recap — 16 April 2023

Curtail gets SVG compression, Pitivi gets back clips alignment

Weekly recap — 9 April 2023

OpenShot 3.1.0 released, new features in GIMP and Krita

Weekly recap — 2 April 2023

Blender 3.5 released with new hair system and GPU-side compositing

Weekly recap — 26 March 2023

Kdenlive is getting automatic generation of subtitles from audio

Weekly recap — 19 March 2023

DreamWorks Animation releases MoonRay, FreeCAD team starts merging toponaming fixes

Weekly recap — 12 March 2023

New releases of VCV Rack and plugdata, GIMP is getting on-canvas equidistant distribution

Weekly recap — 5 March 2023

New releases of GIMP and Godot, new features in Krita and Inkscape

Weekly recap — 26 February 2023

New experimental blending modes in Krita, Blender changes release schedule

Weekly recap — 19 February 2023

New releases of KiCad, CAD Sketcher, Glaxnimate, and Ardour

Weekly recap — 12 February 2023

Inkscape gets improved PDF importing with layers and ICC profiles

Weekly recap — 5 February 2023

New features in GIMP, Inkscape, Penpot, and Ardour

Get started with Mayo

Meet the open-source 3D CAD files viewer

Weekly recap — 29 January 2023

Massive open-source releases from Autodesk and DNEG

Weekly recap — 22 January 2023

New releases of OBS Studio, Pinta, and Synfig

2023 in preview

What's coming this year across the entire stack of free software for creatives

Weekly recap — 25 December 2022

Photographic week: darktable and Hugin get updates

darktable 4.2

New and updates modules, WebP and JPEG-XL support

Hugin 2022

The panorama stitcher got UX improvements

Weekly recap — 18 December 2022

MuseScore 4.0 is out, and so are... oh, so many more releases

Weekly-ish recap — 11 December 2022

Blender, Inkscape, and OpenShot all get updates

Weekly-ish recap — 7 December 2022

RawTherapee is back on track with a new massive release

Weekly-ish recap — 30 November 2022

New GIMP dev release, massive open-source release party at Amazon and AMD

Upscayl vs Upscaler

Real-ESRGAN is getting native Linux apps

GIMP 2.99.14

Goodbye, floating selection. Hello, stroked text!

Weekly-ish recap — 9 November 2022

Major changes in GIMP, new Ardour release, fun with Olive

Weekly-ish recap — 26 October 2022

Massive Ardour update, MuseScore 4 beta released

Master live broadcasting streams with master_me

Meet the tool that makes the loudness of your live streams just right.

GIMP 2.99.12: CMYK, canvas interaction, and more

Long overdue changes landing to what will eventually become GIMP 3.0

8+1 audio editors for Linux that are not Audacity

The ecosystem has a few hidden gems worth talking about

LSP Plugins 1.2.2

Now with a Multiband Dynamic Processor

JUCE7 delivers LV2 and ARA support

The new version finally makes it up to the LV2 community

Introducing CLAP 1.0, open-source audio/MIDI plugins API

This pet project by one of Bitwig's developers is going places

Weekly-ish recap — 4 May 2022

Basic CMYK features are landing to GIMP, Kdenlive is getting 10-bit support

Weekly-ish recap — 28 February 2022

Inkscape team to hire project coordinator, FreeCAD 0.20 coming soon

Weekly-ish recap — 7 February 2022

Inkscape 1.2 goes alpha, Weston gets essential color management support

Introducing Watchtower

Brand new web-based tool to visualize the status of film production

Weekly-ish recap — 26 January 2022

Surge XT and ZynAddSubFX softsynths get much anticipated updates

Streamlining Inkscape for the masses

An interview with the Inkscape team on better development process and UX improvements

Looking back at 2021, looking forward at 2022

A journey across the multiverse of free/libre tools for creative professionals

Weekly-ish recap — 7 December 2021

Blender 3.0 is out, Bespoke Synth, VCV Rack 2 and Cardinal are gaining momentum

Weekly-ish recap — 30 November 2021

VCV Rack 2 modular synth is out after 2 years in passionate development

Halloween art 2021

Spooky and fun! Here are the best artworks made with Krita and Blender

Weekly-ish recap — 31 October 2021

Apple joins Blender Dev Fund, Ardour gets clip launching as part of future live looping features

Weekly-ish recap — 6 October 2021

Synths, synths, synths! Oh, and a massive FrreeCAD news update for architects

Weekly recap — 19 September 2021

A surprising CAD + music production domination in the news

Weekly recap — 12 September 2021

FreeCAD Trails workbench for transportation engineering is getting momentum

Weekly-ish recap — 7 September 2021

BlenderBIM project is celebrating 2 years, Krita 5 development is wrapping up

Weekly-ish recap — 17 August 2021

Both Synfig and Glaxnimate animation tools get new releases, Audacity ships the first corporate-backed release

Introducing BeeRef

All-new free/libre reference image viewer

The audacity of privacy

Let's have a level-headed conversation about Audacity

Weekly-ish recap — 9 June 2021

New Inkscape, Penpot, BlenderBIM and Ardour releases, development fund for Krita, Audacity shenanigans

Ultimate Guitar launches Muse Group and acquires Audacity

The famous free/libre audio editor will stay free/libre

Libre Graphics Meeting, why it matters

It's a month and a half till the beginning of one of the most exciting events in the free software world, Libre Graphics Meeting 2010

re-lab project is announced

We are glad to announce a new project called re-lab that focuses on reverse-engineering.

RIP Igor Novikov

In memoriam of sK1 project founder and friend

Week recap — 1 February 2021

New releases of BlenderBIM, Shotcut, Surge and liquidsfz, new features in GIMP, darktable, Krita, Blender, ArmorPaint, Olive

Revolutionizing garment-making with Valentina

Here is a tailor shop in Sicily actively using Valentina for pattern design

Optimize PNG and JPEG images on Linux with Curtail

If you don't particularly enjoy using a terminal program to run optipng et al., I'm happy to introduce you to this little gem.

Week recap — 25 January 2021

New releases of Zrythm and Guitarix, new features in Krita, darktable, Siril, Blender

The art of Evelyne Schulz

Growing with Linux and GIMP to become a pro

This is 2021: what's coming in free/libre software

A look across the full spectrum of digital content creation software

Sunsetting Libre Graphics World, introducing Libre Arts

It is done

Week recap — 9 December 2020

New releases of Krita and Shotcut, new features in Siril, Blender, Olive

Week recap — 1 December 2020

New major releases of Blender, Font Manager, DrumGizmo, amSynth

Multi-week recap — 25 November 2020

New releases of GIMP, Scribus, FontForge, Synfig, Tahoma2D, LibreDWG, Giada, Ardour

Scribus 1.5.6 and beyond

New unstable version of Scribus is available with several interesting improvements such as PDF-based printing, PDF 1.6 compatibility with OpenType fonts embedding, and more changes.

GIMP 2.99.2 vs 2.10.x: which one do you pick?

Now that the GIMP team is back to releasing both stable and unstable updates, here is the question that a lot of people will be asking. Should they go for 2.99.2? Or should they stick to the stable 2.10 series?

RIP Bill Morrow

The Cinelerra community is mourning the loss of W.P. Morrow aka Good Guy

Week recap — 3 November 2020

Highlights: Blender Conference was online this year, new releases of BlenderBIM, Pitivi, Shotcut, Qtractor, new free/libre VST3 plugins for Linux, new features in Inkscape, Krita, FreeCAD, Dust3D.

Week recap — 23 October 2020

So this is going to be an update that covers both recent and not so recent events.

Week recap — 18 August 2020

LibreDWG gets v0.11 release and goes beta

Week recap — 21 July 2020

LibreDWG gets v0.11 release and goes beta

How to use math input in GIMP

How to do simple calculations in the spinbox widgets where you input numeric values

Week recap — 13 July 2020

First virtual reality code lands to Blender

Going above and beyond with Inkscape 1.0

Interview with Inkscape developers

You'd have to be crazy to rewrite GIMP in anything — Interview with Ell

Interview with Ell, core team developer of GIMP

Week recap — 24 March 2020

First virtual reality code lands to Blender

Week recap — 9 March 2020

Half the free non-linear video editors got updates

Week recap — 2 March 2020

Major releases by Blender, MyPaint, GIMP, and MusE teams, coding sprint by Krita devs, first release candidate of Dust3D v1.0, new release of Shotcut, major changes in Olive and enve.

GIMP 2.10.18 full review

The new version of GIMP is full of usability fixes, new features, overall improvements, and bug fixes.

Week recap — 10 February 2020

New releases of RawTherapee, Cinelerra, and OpenShot; even more UX fixes in GIMP; the enve developer is unstoppable!

Week recap — 3 February 2020

New releases of ART, Synfig, and OpenToonz, massive improvements in GIMP, Siril, Blender, enve, and Olive, new beta of Shotcut, a great deal of bugfixing in Krita for upcoming v4.3.0.

Week recap — 29 December 2019

darktable 3.0.0 release and beta release of MyPaint 2.0, major updates of Kdenlive and FlowBlade

Introducing enve, free/libre 2D animation tool

New 2D animation tool enve is shaping up nicely

Week recap — 10 December 2019

OpenTimelineIO is getting a Kdenlive adapter

Week recap — 3 December 2019

New version of FluidSynth reads DLS samples and has new reverb engine

Week recap — 27 November 2019

Krita gets magnetic lasso

The art of Philipp Urlich

The art of Philipp Urlich: immersive landscapes and GauGAN in digital painting

Week recap — 24 September 2019

Inkscape 1.0 beta is out with native macOS support

Week recap — 10 September 2019

GIMP gets out-of-canvas pixels display

Week recap — 3 September 2019

Krita is getting support for PaintTool SAI files

Week recap — 28 August 2019

CUPS switches to Apache 2.0 license with GPL exception

The making of tubeAmp: don’t moan, write code

Interview with Oleg Kapitonov, developer of the free guitar amp simulator for Linux

Week recap — 19 August 2019

New releases of G'MIC, DJV, and Shotcut video editor

Week recap — 12 August 2019

Amazing sculpting tools are coming to Blender 2.81

Week recap — 4 August 2019

Week highlights: major changes in GIMP, exciting new features in Krita, new releases of Luminance HDR, Exiv2, Scribus, and FontForge, gazillion of news in the Blender department, new ArmorPaint releases.

Using non-free tools for the good of FOSS

While I do owe you quite a few weeklies by now, I'm using this Friday afternoon as an opportunity to talk about something important.

Interview with Pat David at Libre Graphics Meeting 2019

I had the fun and privilege to interview the founder of Pixls.us.

Remembering Peter Linnell

Earlier this year, in March, we lost the co-founder of Scribus to cancer. And it's something I want to talk about.

Week recap — 15 May 2019

New releses of AzPainter and RawTherapee are out.

Weekly-ish recap — 10 April 2019

GIMP 2.10.10 released, Spring animated movie by Blender Studio hs been released

Weekly-ish recap — 25 March 2019

New releases of FontForge, Scribus, darktable, Qtractor, and Radium

Weekly-ish recap — 19 March 2019

Technical preview of Krita 4.2.0 with HDR displays support on Windows 10 is out

Weekly-ish recap — 11 March 2019

Technical preview of Krita 4.2.0 with HDR displays support on Windows 10 is out

Week recap — 25 February 2019

Inkscape is getting a new visual live path effects selector

Week recap — 18 February 2019

GEGL is getting its own node compositing tool

Week recap — 4 February 2019

Intel publishes open source projects for AV1 encoding and image denoising

Week recap — 28 January 2019

First MyPaint 2.0 alpha release is out

Introducing OpenCue, an open source render manager

Google Cloud and Sony Pictures Imageworks team up on something new

Week recap — 21 January 2019

Inkscape team releases new version of the vector graphics editor

Meet Seashore, free image editor for macOS with GIMP roots

One of very few successful GIMP semi-forks is rising from the ashes again.

Week recap — 14 January 2019

MyPaint gets better smudging and initial filmic support.

Conversation with PhotoFlare developer Dylan Coakley

There are many reasons one could wish for a simple general image editor on Linux. This is one of the least known options.

Winter break recap — 8 January 2019

MuseScore 3.0 is out, Blender turns 25 years old.

Meet Akira, free/libre interface design tool

Getting crowdfunded: interview with Akira lead developer Alessandro Castellani

Week recap — 23 December 2018

Manuel Bastioni Lab add-on for Blender gets a community fork

Introducing Olive, new non-linear video editor

Why this new free/libre video editor is a big deal

Week recap — 16 December 2018

Blender's video sequencer gets a new maintainer

The art of Ngan Pham

Today we are talking to Ngan Pham, a young artist residing in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Ngan extensively uses Krita as a freelance concept artist and illustrator.

The quest for sustainable free/libre non-linear video editors

How can we actually support free/libre projects for filmmakers?

Week recap — 9 December 2018

NVidia publishes PhysX SDK physics engine as an open source project

Week recap — 2 December 2018

HISE 2.0.0 lands to let anyone create sample-based virtual instruments

Week recap — 25 November 2018

Stalled development of Natron gets prime-time attention

The demise of Natron, how we got here, and where we go further

Natron, free/libre VFX compositing software, has been in serious trouble for at least the past year.

The art of Yaroslav Chyzhevskyi

Yaroslav likes using it all: both Krita, MyPaint, and GIMP.

Week recap — 18 November 2018

Inkscape starts exploring multithreaded canvas rendering

The Art of Martin Trokenheim

Today, we are talking to Martin Trokenheim, an illustrator from Sweden. Martin worked as a professional illustrator, abandoned and then rediscovered drawing, and started rocking with MyPaint and then with Krita.

Week recap — 11 November 2018

ArmorPaint got unlimited undo support and better FBX importer

Week recap — 4 November 2018

New version of QGIS released with 3D and animation features

Week recap — 28 October 2018

The first official beta of Blender 2.80 is now just a few weeks away

The art of Sylvia Ritter

Sylvia Ritter made an impressive amount of beautiful paintings with Krita!

Week recap — 21 October 2018

Krita fundraiser is now successfully completed

Week recap — 14 October 2018

Microsoft is granting access to 60,000+ patents including type design ones

Week recap — 7 October 2018

New major releases of Valentina and G’MIC are available

Week recap — 30 September 2018

New releases of Audacity, Krita and Pencil2D, new Blender add-ons, PipeWire project is getting serious about pro audio workflows.

The Art of Adrian dela Cerna

Today, we talk to Adrian dela Cerna, an artist from USA who has been using Krita quite a lot for the past few years.

Week recap — 22 September 2018

Krita team launches a new fundraiser

Swapped coordinates in Inkscape and other stories from frozen hell

the Inkscape team met in Kiel for the second hackfest this year and came back with a bagful of improvements for Inkscape 1.0

LibreDWG revived, starts getting regular releases

In an unimaginable turn of events, LibreDWG, the free/libre library for opening proprietary CAD files in the DWG file format, is becoming a stellar example of a FOSS project.

Gradient meshes and hatching to be removed from SVG 2.0

While development of this W3C standard continues, some features are to be axed from SVG 2.0

GIMP 2.10 released

16/32-bit per channel precision and 15 new blending modes arrived

Best education resources to master Inkscape in 2025

What’s best among books, courses, and tutorials on the free/libre vector graphics editor

2018 in perspective

Let's see what this year is bringing us

How to view reference images in GIMP

GIMP has no reference image viewer. Fortunately, there a simple way to work around this.

Upsetting yet inevitable: Valentina fork becomes Seamly2D

Four months into a bizarre fork of Valentina, free pattern-making software for fashion designers, Susan Spencer's leg of the fork finally gets rebranded as Seamly2D.

Is SVG 2 really on life support?

SVG 2 might arrive sometime in the future without quite a few useful features that have been already developed and tested. What's up with that?

Krita to kickstart new text and vector tools

Krita Foundation announced their third Kickstarter project to fund development of new text and vector tools

darktable 2.0 released with printing support

New version of the digital photography workflow app arrives with color-managed printing

GIMP 2.9.2 released, how about features trivia?

The GIMP team made the first public release in the 2.9.x series. It's completely GEGL-based, has 16/32-bit per channel editing and new tools.

GIMP is 20 Years Old, What’s Next?

This week, GIMP celebrates its 20th anniversary

Book Review: Digital Painting with Krita 2.9

Newly published book by Scott Petrovic will get you started with the free/libre painting program in no time

SANE update brings support for over 300 scanners and MFUs on Linux

SANE is not the most often updated pack of drivers and associated software around, but when they release, they do deliver.

Red Hat releases free/libre Overpass font family

Red Hat announced the release of Overpass, their own highway gothic font family designed by Delve Fonts.

GEGL gets mipmaps, 71 new image processing operations

GIMP's new image processing engine got its first update in three years, and it's full of awesome

Introducing Antimony, free graph-based 3D CAD system

It seems that boxes and noodles are slowly taking over the world. Matt Keeter uses acyclic graphs in Antimony, a free/libre 3D CAD system streamlined for personal manufacturing.

Anatomy of SourceForge/GIMP controversy

SourceForge is taking another self-inflicted reputation hit

Synfig Studio 1.0 released

Patience is one tough lady: after 13 years in development, free 2D vector-based animation application Synfig Studio finally gets the golden badge of v1.0, delivering a sleigh of improvements and new features.

Ardour 4 released

New version of the free/libre DAW brings sleeker UI, new editing tools, native CoreAudio/ASIO support

The future of Audacity, interview with the team

It seems, these days every other major free/libre media production tool is undergoing dramatic changes that promise richer feature set, better usability, and, generally, more power to users. Audacity is one of them.

FreeCAD 0.15 released, team explores community funding

New version of FreeCAD features a great variety of improvements in many workbenches, as well as fancy new things like Occulus Rift support.

Free garment design software Valentina 0.3 released

New version of Valentina, free/libre pattern making software for fashion designers features improved output for cutting and design tools enhancements.

Symmetry painting mode lands to unstable GIMP

MuseScore 2.0 brings better music notation, improved usability

Much anticipated major update of MuseScore brings score layout improvements, linked parts, guitar fret diagrams and tabulatures, the importing of Guitar Pro files, and more exciting new features.

Kimiko Ishizaka and MuseScore team release Open Well-Tempered Clavier

It is done: score and recordings of J.S. Bach's the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 as prepared by MuseScore team and played by Kimiko Ishizaka are now in public domain.

OpenSCAD 2015.03 released with text objects support

Marius Kintel released a major new version of OpenSCAD, a 3D solid modeling application popular with the makers movement and 3D printing communities.

The complete story of Paris-8 university going for Krita, Blender, Natron

In an exclusive in-depth interview, François Grassard talks about integration of Krita, Blender, Natron into the program of Paris-8 university.

Inkscape 0.91 released

Over 4 years in the making, thousands of commits, dozens of new features: it's all there, neatly packed in the newly released Inkscape 0.91.

Natron 1.0 brings free VFX compositing to Linux, Windows, Mac users

The great free/libre VFX compositing curse might as well be over: Natron v1.0 has just been released and features more stable core, better UI, and a handful of new nodes.

ProEXR creator comes up with MOX, new open file format for movie production

Brendan Bolles launched an IndieGoGo campaign to sponsor creating MOX — a new open source movie format for video and film production.

Introducing ArgyllPRO ColorMeter for Android

Graeme Gill has just announced immediate availability of ArgyllPRO ColorMeter, a commercial Android app that allows using colorimeters and spectrophotometers directly via the USB on-the-go port.

Weybec and Blender Institute release Monkaa open movie

Weybec studio released a short open movie about a monkey that gains superpowers for no good reason at all.

MOD Duo, Linux-based multieffect pedal, gets crowdfunded

The MOD team has raised $82,781 and is planning to deliver their new Linux-based multieffect pedal to musicians around June 2015.

Artificial intelligence designs websites, uses open technology stack

The AI-based web publishing tool designs and maintains websites, and it's based on a slew of free/libre software projects.

Blender returns to VIEW Conference 2014

Next week Blender will be featured again at VIEW Conference in Turin, Italy.

Axiom Beta, open digital cinema camera, funded on IndieGoGo

The Apertus team has just reached the 100K euro milestone in the crowdfunding campaign that should bring Axiom, their new open digital camera, to the masses.

Change of heart. Inkscape starts encouraging paid development

After years of being dead against paid development, the Inkscape Board came up with a policy that encourages personal (crowd)funded projects.

Quasado opensources Gravit, web-based design tool

Berlin-based company Quasado released source code of Gravit, their HTML5-based design app, under dual GPLv3+/commercial license.

Libre Music Production project launched

Libre Music Production is collaboration between Staffan Melin, Gabriel Nordeborn, and Conor McCormack. Essentially, it's a project by musicians for musicians.

Diagramming with bling, VRT updates free stencils for LibreOffice

Annoyed with much dated networking stencils in free diagramming software? Mark Oellermann fixed that for you.

Explore new ideas with latest Distrho’s softsynths

Filipe Coelho released new ports of synths that are based on Yamaha DX7, Oberheim OB-X, and Roland TB-303.

Guitarix gets octaver plugin, loads external effects

Hermann Meyer released a new version of Guitarix, free/libre guitar FX processor. If you are looking for something that (vaguely) resembles Amplitube or Guitar Rig on Linux, you might want to check this out.

Natron 0.92 released with new roto and keying nodes

When it comes to compositing, there are, in fact, more options than Blender, Synfig, and ButtleOFX.

Pitivi’s fundraiser: out of the NLE hell on Linux?

Developers of Pitivi are trying to raise 35,000 euro to complete the stable release of this non-linear video editor. What are the benefits of supporting them?

Playkot's SuperCity game graphics done with Blender, Krita, GIMP

Is it feasible to create graphics for a really popular social network game with free software? Two years and 4,000,000 users later the answer seems obvious.

Introducing Valentina, free fashion design software

Over the years we've been to numerous discussions about viability of free software for graphic design. But what about fashion design?

Crowdfunding for sustainability: how Synfig project did it in 2013

Synfig team started working for community’s money this year. But is the community actually ready to sponsor development of a free 2D vector animation tool on a regular basis?

10 best commercials made with Blender in 2013

Interested to see how Blender is used professionally to produce ads? Here are 10 best commercials created with Blender this year.

Linux gets support for Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch tablets

The most recent of Wacom drivers for Linux features support for the most affordable series of the company's graphic tablets.

Free meets affordable — Krita gets support for Huion graphic tablets

Recently, Huion sent one of their H610 graphic tablets to the Krita team to make sure it's supported, but is there more to it than meets the eye?

GIMP gets advanced Exif, XMP, IPTC metadata support

Built-in viewer for metadata is coming to GIMP 2.10

ZebraTrace, from Guilloché to hatching in a single equation

Maxim Barabash released a new version of ZebraTrace, a free application for tracing bitmaps into a hatching pattern based on a mathematic equation

Meters.lv2 plugins released to provide advanced audio level meters

Robin Gareus announced the first public version of meters.lv2 — a bundle of LV2 plugins for audio level meering and advanced sound analysis.

Pitivi 0.91 introduces new non-linear video editing back-end

Pitivi non-linear video editor just got leaner thanks to swapping its back-end, and acquired quite a few useful productivity features.

Records and sheet music of The Well-Tempered Clavier to go free

MuseScore team, Robert Douglass, and Kimiko Ishizaka are joining forces again to liberate more work by J.S. Bach, this time — The Well-Tempered Clavier.

GIMP is getting symmetric painting mode

Musopen aims to liberate Chopin's music, goes for Kickstarter

MuseScore team, Robert Douglass, and Kimiko Ishizaka are joining forces again to liberate more work by J.S. Bach, this time — The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Patchfield introduces concepts of JACK audio server to Android

Peter Brinkmann, a developer from Google, introduced a new audio framework for Android called Patchfield.

SolveSpace 2D/3D CAD software released under terms of GPL

Jonathan Westhues released SolveSpace, his parametric 2D/3D CAD software, under terms of GPLv3.

Ordinary Day Montage album released, produced with Ardour3

Gabriel Nordeborn (zthmusic) released a new album that he composed, recorded, mixed and mastered mostly with free software on Linux. It's also licensed under CC-BY-SA.

Making short animated film on zero budget — Chris Burton on En Passant

Blender community finally got its own first musical

2D animation tools on Linux, the age of revival

It seems that we've been having a bit of a renaissance in the domain of free 2D animation tools lately.

Mashing art styles with GIMP: Caleb Thomas

DeviantArt is a bit of a universe, with planets orbiting around entire subculture suns. Sometimes these solar systems collide, and that's how you get mixes of stylized anime, fashion model tributes etc. Meet Caleb Thomas who uses just GIMP to do all of that and a lot more.

Ardour 3.2 makes it easy to create soundtracks

The new version of Ardour, a free DAW for Linux and Mac, is now available and features a few major improvements to the workflow.

Amazing fractal garden by Silvia Cordedda

The nature is a curios case of intertwined order and randomness. Silvia Cordedda pays a tribute to it with her fractal flora renders.

QCAD Community Edition is back on track

In March this year we reported that QCAD team was considering abandoning Community Edition of QCAD for good. Instead they released a preliminary update with an official release to follow in the coming weeks.

Introducing MOD, Linux-based hardware sound FX processor

During Linux Audio Conference 2013 the MOD team presented their digital pedalboard that runs Linux and uses LV2 effects and instruments.

Freestyle, Jot, and the future of non-photorealistic rendering

Interested to see how Blender is used professionally to produce ads? Here are 10 best commercials created with Blender this year.

Blender dives into 3D printing industry

Blender 2.67 was released last week with a 3D printing toolbox. LGW spoke to Dolf Veenvliet, Bart Veldhuizen (Shapeways, Blendernation), and Rich Borrett (Ponoko) about the new tools and the future of 3D printing.

Synfig Studio gets faster rendering

Synfig Studio has just been updated to feature performance improvements, simplified plug-ins execution, various keyframes improvements, and the switch to conventional terminology.

MyPaint gets SAI brushes, Krita goes for Alchemy's pull shapes

Can you feel it in the air? There seems to be an urge to port useful features from less actively into more actively developed software projects

3D worlds and characters by Jonathan Ball

Jonathan Ball from pokedstudio recently posted his new work created with Blender and Cycles which served as an incentive to look into his earlier work.

Decima Angelus series by Bernard Bittler

Bernard Bittler found a way to fuse 3D fractals into more conventional art. And it's a dark art with a twist.

LibreCAD gets native DWG importer, needs community’s help

LibreCAD team started working on their own DWG importer.

GIMP gets canvas rotation

The new feature is mostly useful for digital painting and drawing, as well as for preparing textures in CG

Self-portraits by Rosie Hardy, or Using GIMP for work and loving it

The rumour has it that real photographers don't use GIMP. Here in the parallel universe, on entirely different Earth, they actually do. Meet Rosie Hardy, Manchester-based studio and event photographer.

Scribus gets basic support for Microsoft Publisher documents

Unstable version of Scribus finally got an initial support for Microsoft Publisher documents. How good is it?

What free software projects will be sponsored by Google this summer?

Last night, Google started publishing the list of mentoring organizations accepted to the Summer of Code 2013 program

COLLADA becomes ISO standard, what does industry think?

On March 27, Free Software Foundation Europe was celebrating information accessibility and raising awareness of open standards by running Document Freedom Day. But how well does free software perform there?

Document Freedom Day and missing interoperability opportunities

On March 27, Free Software Foundation Europe was celebrating information accessibility and raising awareness of open standards by running Document Freedom Day. But how well does free software perform there?

LibreCAD vs. QCAD, the war of forks that never happened

Andrew Mustun of Ribbonsoft says he's likely to postpone the release of QCAD Community Edition. The reason? LibreCAD.

Ethereal concept art by Pablo Lizardo

Today we are talking to Ngan Pham, a young artist residing in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. Ngan extensively uses Krita as a freelance concept artist and illustrator.

Shotcut gets hardware accelerated color grading

EIf you’ve been wondering what video editor would get support for Movit’s hardware-accelerated filters that we recently covered, we have the answer for you.

Lettering and logo design by Filip Komorowski

Lettering and logo design are some of the areas where Inkscape truly shines thanks to well designed shape and path drawing tools. Today we are looking at the work by Filip Komorowski, an artist from Poland.

Too little, too late? sK1 project opens up

Earlier this week, Igor Novikov finally posted the first portion of news regarding development of UniConvertor, PrintDesign, and LinCutter since 2011.

Beauty salon designed and visualized with Blender and Cycles

Let's talk about a particular case of using Blender and Cycles for commercial architectural visualization.

GIMP team revitalizes astrophotography tools

In the eyes of astrophotographers GIMP has always been an underdog. Recent changes in the unstable version finally address this issue.

Ghostscript 9.07 released

Dave Crossland on Crafting Type and making a difference

Is there such a thing as a roadshow for free graphic design software? In a way, there is: a “Crafting Type” workshop combines an introduction to type design with basics of using FontForge and Inkscape.

FreeCAD 0.13 released with better drafting, arch, and part design tools

The FreeCAD team continues getting rid of the myth that there can be no usable open source CAD software. The newly released v0.13 includes massive improvements in almost every workbench.

Dillerkind’s illustrations with Inkscape

Sven Ebert aka 'Dillerkind' is one of the i-can't-believe-i-missed-that artists using Inkscape.

Autopsy goes public, font families in uproar

Dave Crossland, the renowned master of eloquence, persuaded Yanone to release Autopsy as an open source project.

Krita 2.6 released, what's coming in the next version?

The KDE project announced release of Calligra Suite 2.6, a set of free office, graphics and productivity applications. The crown jewel of the release is Krita, an image editor with advanced painting features.

Pitchi Poy moves to Blender, releases Baldy Heights animation teaser

I spoke to Gilad Rosenau, animation studio manager at Pitchi Poy, an Israel animation studio that recently switched to Linux and Blender.

Cronopios and Famas animation trailer released

This is the first trailer of Cronopios and Famas, an animation movie based on a short story anthology by Argentine author Julio Cortázar.

Free emulators of guitar amps gain momentum

Good news, everyone: Guitarix is now available as LV2 plug-ins with fancy skins.

Stagestack faces dead-end, source code release considered

Stagestack, a work-in-progress vector graphics editor is facing the dead-end after failing to become a financially self-supporting project. Developers are thinking about releasing the source code now.

MyPaint 1.1.0 released with new blending modes and color tools

The new version comes with more blending modes, symmetric painting mode, direct frame editing on canvas, blending modes, and new color tools.

Best commercials created with Blender in 2012

Some people are wondering, where the finished work with Blender is. Libre Graphics World cooked up a list of 7 best commercials created with Blender in 2012.

LibreDWG drama: the end or the new beginning?

There's a can of worms we opened this year: the unfortunate situation with support for DWG files in free CAD software via LibreDWG. We feel, by now it ought to be closed. We have the final answer from FSF.

Advanced samplers for GEGL to be crowdfunded

Nicolas Robidoux aims to implement advanced samplers in GEGL — the new GIMP's image processing engine

Sokoban Garden, Android game created with free/libre software

A new indie gamedev company Kivano Software released Sokoban Garden — a game created with just free software, such as Blender, Inkscape, GIMP, FontForge, Audacity and others.

Introducing Movit, free library for GPU-side video processing

EIf you’ve been wondering what video editor would get support for Movit’s hardware-accelerated filters that we recently covered, we have the answer for you.

LibreOffice gets Visio 2013 support

The latest release of libvisio allows opening VDX and VSDX files documents

Free Calf audio and MIDI plug-ins get a major update

Two years of work and 20 new plug-ins — was it worth waiting? The much anticipated new release of Calf audio plug-ins is out for all Linux-based music makers and sound engineers.

Quick look at Pinta 1.4, simple free image editor

Pinta image editor was updated last week to bring several major changes and various small improvements to its users

Glorious high-resolution icons by Ollin Boer Bohan

One of the difficulties with artists is that people who do real work with free software rarely mention it. At some point they reveal it though, which is how I got to know Ollin Boer Bohan.

Simplified landscapes with Blender by Pierre-Abraham Rochat

While going through portfolios on Behance Network, I stumbled upon a quite interesting take at 3D landscapes by Pierre-Abraham Rochat, a Lausanne (Switzerland) based artist.

Wacom apocalypse in Qt5: just not today

Most recently, Wacom support in Qt5 got into a bit of a press coverage trouble. Here is why

Freeing FreeHand. The story of grief, revenge, and refusal

In 2011 a group of passionate FreeHand users filed a lawsuite against Adobe and demanded the release of FreeHand's source code

Emanuele Gissi on Blender Fire Dynamics Simulator

Emanuele Gissi released a major update of BlenderFDS, a Blender-based user interface for NIST Fire Dynamics Simulator.

Introducing Knotter, free celtic knots design app

Mattia Basaglia released the first public version of Knotter, a new free editor for creating celtic knot designs

Introducing Shotcut, a new free video editor

Dan Dennedy is returning to development of a Kino-like video editor after several years of hiatus. The new project is called Shotcut.

Vectatory showroom is full of cute monsters

Vectatory is another artist who extensively uses Inkscape. He currently works as an illustrator at a video games company which develops games for iOS.

Angled guides and snapping for Inkscape beginners

Inkscape's v0.46 was the first version that got angled guides. Along with advanced snapping introduced in later versions it makes accomplishing certain tasks much easier. Let's see how.

How design freebies cause cancer and eat babies

Have you ever heard horror stories, how free design assets from teh interwebz should be avoided at all costs? Is that real or made-up?

GIMP Paint Studio updated for GIMP 2.8

Ramon Miranda released a brand new version of GIMP Paint Studio, a project that improves painting experience for GIMP users.

Normalmap and DDS plug-ins updated for GIMP 2.8

Shawn Kirst shook the dust off his Normalmap and DDS plug-ins for GIMP that had been collecting on them since 2010.

Free tools for vinyl cutting on Linux

Ever wondered if you could get one of those fancy vinyl cutters and not abandon Linux?

Being Omnitarian, the first personal Inkscape showcase

Vectatory is another artist who extensively uses Inkscape. He currently works as an illustrator at a video games company which develops games for iOS.

Inkscape gets OpenSCAD converter

Tired of jumping through hoops to go from Inkscape to OpenSCAD? Dan Newman created a new 3rd party extension that simply exports vector objects as .scad files.

Qtractor takes non-revenge on LV2

If you read one of our recent interviews, you probably remeber Rui's vitriol against LV2, a free API for audio/MIDI plug-ins. Well, guess what the newest release of his MIDI sequencer got.

The state of FireWire audio interfaces support on Linux

Interview with developers of FFADO

How to beautify FontForge’s user interface

FontForge is powerful but looks aged by default. Here is how you can fix it

Open Goldberg Variations, mission accomplished

The Open Goldberg Variations project has reached the last milestone: recordings and scores are available as public domain for admirers of classical music.

Ardour 3 gets simplified crossfading and SSL Nucleus support

Yesterday Paul Davis released another beta of Ardour 3, a free digital audio workstation for Linux and Mac. The new version got some kickass new features.

GIMP 2.8 released, next version to get high bit depth precision

After 3.5 years of blood, sweat and tears the GIMP team announced the release of GIMP 2.8. But good things come in pairs.

libcdr resurrects Waldo, gets basic spot colors support

The libcdr project managed to do something even Corel is not capable of: read all CDR files statring from v1

LV2 from developers’ standpoint

Today we are talking to Rui Nuno Capela, lead developer of Qtractor, and Mike Start, founder of linuxDSP.

LV2 1.0 released, what’s next?

Last week David Robillard announced availability of LV2 1.0, the first officially stable release of the free API for creating virtual instruments and audio effects.

LibreDWG controversy: 2 months later

In late January we posted an in-depth story that explained the lack of support for DWG files in free/open source CAD software. Now it's time for an update.

CorelDRAW X6 file format subdued by libcdr

The new version of libcdr got support for X6 files, page size, special shapes, polygons, B-splines and bitmaps

Misa Digital Kitara and being open to the world

Let's talk about this Linux-powered guitar-shaped MIDI controller

DIGImend makes low-budget graphic tablets just work on Linux

The project called improves the sorry state of affairs with support for graphic tablets by Genius, Aiptek etc.

GNOME 3.4 for artists? Hell, yes!

The new version of the desktop environment comes with improvements for artists, photographers, and designers alike

MyPaint and Blender powered open animated movie released

Viaje a la tierra del Quebracho is a new open movie made with MyPaint and Blender

Embroidery design on Linux now possible with Thred

Nathan Summers contacted us to tell about an embroidery editor for Linux he's been working on since last year

Support for CorelDRAW files in free software gets another chance

The LibreOffice project started working on a new C++ library to take care of your legacy Corel DRAW files.

What’s up with DWG adoption in free software?

Digging into the reasons for the lack of DWG support in free software is more like falling into a pitch black abyss.

Introducing SVG Cleaner

Minimize your SVG files with this handy tool

LibreCAD 1.0.0 released, v2 in works

After over a year of work LibreCAD 1.0.0 is out with few user visible, yet a whole bunch of important internal changes.

How to study type design with Fontmatrix

Studying how other people do type design will help you become a great designer yourself.

First public version of libwacom released

This Wacom-centered library allows applications get more information about a graphic tablet and its capabilities

Synfig Studio gets advanced outlines and pressure support in the Draw tool

New version of the animation tool fixes bugs and adds several new features.

Free DDP mastering tools updated

Andreas Ruge released an update to his DDP mastering tools for Linux, Windows and Mac

UniConvertor 1.1.5 review

sK1 team released a new version of UniConvertor, a free vector graphics converter. Here comes the review.

First beta of Ardour 3 released

A few days ago Paul Davis released first beta of Ardour 3, a free DAW for Linux and Mac, with 3 months worth of work.

How to make tilt-shift fakes with GIMP easily

The Toy plugin for GIMP simplifies creating tilt-shift fakes that look like miniatures

Kaeltyk on Mandelbulber and 3D fractals

Conversation with 3D fractals artist Eric 'Kaeltyk' Prevost about generative art and its perspectives, 2D and 3D fractals and, of course, Mandelbulber

Kaeltyk on Mandelbulber and 3D fractals

Conversation with 3D fractals artist Eric 'Kaeltyk' Prevost about generative art and its perspectives, 2D and 3D fractals and, of course, Mandelbulber

How to exchange colors between GIMP, Inkscape, and Gpick

You can freely drag and drop colors between those three applications.

Kdenlive 0.8.2 video editor released with major fixes

Along with MLT a new version of Kdenlive, a free non-linear video editor for KDE, was released.

Advanced ways to create guides in GIMP

There is a handful of 3rd-party scripts to generate all sorts of guides in GIMP.

How to get crisper text out of Inkscape

If you want a crisp text out of Inkscape when you render PNG, the default exporter is not how you do it

LibreOffice is diving into desktop publishing

László Németh is working on making LibreOffice more suitable for complex desktop publishing

sK1 development restarted

We aren't silent, we are busy!

Qtractor 0.5.1 released with VST improvements

Apparently support for native VST on Linux is gaining momentum. That's definitely the case for the new version of Qtractor.

OpenOctaveMidi 2011 unveiled, developers talk about the project

Few days ago developers of OpenOctaveMidi, a new/old digital audio workstation for Linux, presented the brand new v2011, the culmination of several years of work.

How to make washed-out and golden skintones in darktable

Here is how you can do it in just four simple steps

How to create lens distorsion models with Hugin

If your lens is missing in the LensFun database, you can create it with Hugin's lens calibator

Pitivi 0.15 released, what’s next?

Earlier this week new version of PiTiVi, a free non-linear video editor, was released to bring you some rather cool new features and UI improvements.

Peter Hutterer on the GNOME applet for Wacom tablets

GNOME 3.2 looks like a solid improvement, with better color management support and a new Wacom configuration applet

Ardour 2.8.12 released, A3 gets Linux VST support

Paul Davis released an update to stable version of Ardour and applied a patch that adds support for native Linux VSTs to A3

How to get CMYK colors from Inkscape to Scribus for printing

This involves a workaround, but it does the job

Richard Hughes on color management in Linux and GNOME

What's new with GNOME Color manager, what changes are coming to the Linux printing system

3Delight exporter for Blender updated to feature new global illumination method

Matt Ebb has just released a new version of Blender exporter for a Renderman compatible renderer called 3Delight. The big new feature is a new point cloud global illumination method.

The ultimate quest of bringing Visio support to LibreOffice

Eilidh McAdam and Fridrich Strba talk about implemented support for MS Visio documents in LibreOffice

Customized MyPaint gains animation for a new open movie project

One of the reasons we like open movies is because they are real world tests for free software

Recast & Detour project getting ready for Blender 2.60

Last year's GSoC project to integrate recast & detour library as well as Project Cane into Blender is finally about to settle in the main development branch and become available in Blender 2.60.

Blender Foundation gives grants to two projects

About a month ago we reported on at attempt by Blender Foundation to centralize donations by using monthly subscriptions and then spending them on important projects.

Thomas Krijnen on IfcOpenShell, Blender, and architecture

Today we are talking to Thomas Krijnen, architect and programmer from the Netherlands, who works on IfcOpenShell project to assist opens source acceptance in BIM.

QCAD v3.0 beta: back from the dead

Just when you thought it's all over, Ribbonsoft released first public beta version of QCad v3.0.

MLT gets a video stabilizer, Kdenlive is next

The quest of telling Kdenlive developers about an existing open source video stabilizer and getting it in Kdenlive is about 1/2 done.

Synfig Studio gets advanced outline features, revisits Inkscape compatibility

Genete of Synfig Studio team has just posted a short video clip that summarizes recent work of the team to get more advanced outline features into this excellent free 2D animation editor.

Blender 2.59 is out with 3D Connexion Navigator support

Blender Foundation has just released a new stable version of, well, Blender.

Blender Foundation announces plans for 2012

Essentially, the plans cover both technical development, marketing and social networking.

Ian Hubert joins Mango project as director, schedule is announced

During a meeting at SIGGRAPH last weekend Blender Fondation announced that Ian Hubert is joining the upcoming Mango project as director.

Visio importer in LibreOffice gets text support

New version of libvisio is out with basic text support, support for NURBS, gradients, and more

Qtractor MIDI sequencer joins automation club

Rui Nuno Capela released a new version of free MIDI sequencer called Qtractor (Linux only) that finally has basic working support for automation.

Initial support for Visio files lands to LibreOffice

The first public version of libvisio is available and makes it possible to open Visio files in LibreOffice

How to save all visible content in GIMP

Here is how you can export everything visible in GIMP's image window to a file

Blender 2.58 released with fixes and small new features

This popular free 3D modeling and animation package got heaps of fixes and improvements of existing feature set once again.

Wybren van Keulen introduces Epoque, unique hand made chair designed in Blender

As a matter of fact we've been meaning to dive into manufacturing for a while, and Dutch designer Wybren van Keulen gave us a perfect reason to do that at last.

Inkscape explores type design, gets Measure tool

Inkscape got a whole new tool for measuring things

Synfig 0.63.00 gains easy spline editing and advanced outlines

Synfig Team is proud to announce the release of Synfig Studio 0.63.00.

Re-lab reverse-engineers Visio file formats

The first reverse-engineered specification is now available for developers

Pitivi 0.14.0 brings video effects at last

The new version brings UI improvements and support for frei0r effects

Linux DAWs are buzzing

Few days ago three digital audio workstations (DAW) for Linux were released within 24 hours — an interesting coincidence, especially since all three releases represent various stages of completeness.

Using color tools presets in GIMP

Here is how you can create your own presets for color tools

New versions of GNOME Color Manager and colord released

The new beta versions are bringing lots of awesomeness

Blender 2.57a released, Brecht to return to Blender Institute

Blender team released an update to recent stable v2.57 that fixes over 70 bugs, and Brecht announced that he is returning to Blender Institute to work on modernization of the shading and render system.

Ardour 3 enters alpha phase

Ardour, THE free digital audio workstation (DAW), has finally entered alpha phase after several years of development.

How to save and restore selections in GIMP

Learn how to save a carefully constructed selection for elate ruse in the project

How to create split toning with GIMP and darktable

Let's learn what sepia is and how to achieve this effect in GIMP and darktable

How to create harmonic color schemes with Gpick

Gpick is a free color picker with an advanced color scheme generator

How to install and manage GIMP addons

This is the ultimate guide to installing and managing GIMP brushes, plug-ins, and scripts

How to create your own templates for Inkscape

Learn to change the default document template and create more templates

Rosegarden 11.02 and MuseScore 1.0 released

New versions of Rosegarden, a MIDI sequencer and score editor, and MuseScore, simply a score editor were released one after another over last several days.

Beta version of Ocean Sim for Blender is now available

Beta version of Ocean Simulator for Blender is now released after months and months of making users drool all over demos.

Inkscape: embedding or linking images?

When should you embed and when you should link images in Inkscape

First public version of colord is out

Richard Hughes released first public version of colord — a simple system daemon for managing device-profile mapping

What’s up with free multimedia production tools in 2010

It's about time to draw a line between 2010 and 2011 and have a look at what was happening to the multimedia production stack of free apps this year.

CADuntu is renamed to LibreCAD, gets Ubuntu PPA

After few weeks of running a poll Ries van Twisk renamed CADuntu to LibreCAD.

Ocean Sim for Blender progresses at speed of light, accepts donations

This popular free 3D modeling and animation package got heaps of fixes and improvements of existing feature set once again.

PythonCAD gets revival and a new alpha release

The PythonCAD project, a free computer-aided drafting tool, is finally back from oblivion.

CADuntu beta4 released

We should have reported fourth beta of CADuntu about a week ago, especially since some of the fixes are rather important.

CADuntu beta3 released

Admittedly we are a couple of days late with this news, but the third beta of CADuntu, a forced QCad fork by Ries van Twisk, is out with several improvements.

Interview with Sintel's art director David Revoy

Now that Sintel open movie is officially out, we publish an interview with Sintel's art director David Revoy.

CADuntu project has been started

No, it's isn't an Ubuntu flavour for computer-aided drafting. It's a fork of a well-known community edition of QCAD. And thus the month of CAD on Linux continues.

Kdenlive 0.7.8 released with color analysis tools

The Kdenlive team released new version of this cool free non-linear video editor for KDE.

How to paint angel wings with GIMP

How to use the Smudge tool to paint angle-like wings in GIMP. No filters involved

How to draw an eye in anime style with Inkscape

Learn how to draw a classic anime-style eye using Inkscape.

How to create layer effects in Inkscape

You can create an equivalent of layer effects in Inkscape with the built-in XML editor

How to draw a computer first-aid kit with Inkscape

Learn how to complex shadows and use the 3D Box tool to draw in perspective in Inkscape

UFRaw 0.17

The new version is out with official support for LensFun and more features

Ramen 0.5 released

New version (and the first one with source code tarball) of Ramen, free node-based composer, is out.

CMYKTool now has an optional color unmanaged conversion

New version of CMYKTool, an RGB<>CMYK color managed conversion tool is out with a somewhat unconventional new feature.

GNOME Color Manager 2.29.4 released

Richard Hughes released new version of GNOME Color Manager — a bundle of color management tools for GNOME.

Get started with Ramen, a free node compositing tool

Ramen is a promising new free VFX tool. Here is an introduction to the basics of using it

First stable version of Geeqie released

Vladimir Nadvornik et al. released the first stable version of an image viewer called Geeqie.

Bluefish 2.0.0 is out with major new features

Olivier Sessink finally released a major update to Bluefish, his excellent advanced HTML/CSS editor for web developers.

Plumiferos animation is finally released

This week in Argentina there was a presentation of the first animation feature film Plumiferos completely created in Blender.

GNOME Color Manager 2.29.3 released with configuration of default color spaces

A new version of GNOME Color Manager is out as usual on first Monday of a month.

MyPaint 0.8.0 released

Highlights of this version: a lot of new brushes, new harmonic color selector, a Layers dialog, user interface available in multiple languages.

How to draw a snowman with Inkscape

Learn how to draw a 3D-looking snowman with the right shadows and reflections

First public version of CMYKTool released

The great and almighty Alastair M. Robinson released first public version of its new CMYKTool application that is basically rework of his old CMYK separate plug-in for GIMP.

SwatchBooker 0.5 released with support for Scribus and VivaDesigner color swatches

Olivier Berten has released new version of SwatchBooker containing many improvements.

GNOME Color Manager, preliminary review

Today we are doing an early review of GNOME Color Manager — a set of free tools to make color management in GNOME and Linux just work&trade;.

Al.chemy v008 sketching app released

A new version of an absolutely awesome and yet crazy painting/drawing app called Alchemy is out for the masses.

ParaType releases its first open font

ParaType, which is a well-know Russian type foundry, has just released PT Sans — its first font family under an open license, which is, basically, OFL 1.0 translated into Russian.

First public version of GNOME Color Manager released

After a little over a month of work Richard Hughes released the first public version of GNOME Color Manager.

Blender 2.5 Alpha 0 released

First alpha release of Blender 2.5 is out. We don't usually cover alpha releases in news, but since Blender developers decided to releases 2.5 gradually, here we go.

Gpick 0.1.9 released with two new harmonic schemes

A new version of standalone advanced color picker Gpick is out with several considerable improvements.

separate+ 0.5.4 released

Suddenly it turned out that new version of separate+ plug-in for GIMP was out back in August.

darktable 0.3 released with color management and more features

New version of darktable, free/libre digital light table and Raw converter, is out.

UFRaw 0.16 gets multicore support and new tools

New version of UFRaw is out with some major new features like 100% preview, hot pixel removal and more.

Synfig 0.62.00 released

Synfig Studio 0.62.00 comes with a lot of new features and mayor changes.

Release candidate of Synfig 0.62 gets SVG importing

Release candidate #1 of Synfig Studio 0.62.00 is available now.

Gpick gets color schemes generation

New version of color picker Gpick is out with new features and fixes.

PingWin Software announces a new family of free/libre fonts

PingWin Software, a new Linux kid on the block in Russia, announces a new font family to substitude default Microsoft's font families.

LibRaw 0.8.0 released

The new version now supports RAW files larger than 2GB.

What's new in GIMP 2.7.0 development release

GIMP team has just released the first unstable version in this development cycle with lots of exciting new features. Learn more about it.

What's new in Scribus 1.3.5

Scribus team has just released a long anticipated yet unstable 1.3.5 version of this free desktop publishing application. Let's take a closer look at the result of two years of hard work.

Sony Imageworks releases source code of 5 in-house projects

Sony ImageWorks have released five of their in-house tools as open source software

How to draw a Mac look-alike clock in Inkscape

Learn how to draw a stunning Mac-like clock in Inkscape using boolean path operations and gradient fills

How to add an acrylic image effect to photos in Inkscape

How to draw over a dull photo in Inkscape to make it pop

RawTherapee 2.4 released, gets basic batch processing

New version of RawTherapee is out with major new features like Exif/IPTC support, theme switching, and improved GUI layout.

Hugin 0.8 released

The new version gets interactive hardware accelerated panorama preview dialog and batch stitching.

Fontmatrix 0.6.0 review

Pierre Marchand has just released a new version of Fontmatrix. There's a whole bunch of new features and improvements that definitely deserve a review.

Structure Synth 1.0.0 released

The first stable version of Structure Synth is out. The app allow creating 3D structures from user defined rules.

LProf and the real world color management on Linux

This interview with Hal V. Engel, lead developer of LProf, was taken back in December 2007. With introduction of GNOME Color Manager in late 2009 and dispcalGUI in 2008 is has mostly historical value.

Interview with Krita developers, 2008

Here is the first post-LGM2008 interview. This time it were developers of Krita, the KOffice almighty graphics editor, who dared to cross journalism firing line.

Interview with Inkscape developers on 0.46 and beyond

Shortly after the release of Inkscape 0.46 we interviewed several Google Summer of Code 2007 students and several developers and asked about plans for future and new technologies.

Dancing Tango on the Desktop

Let’s talk to two of most active contributors to the project — Jakub Steiner and Andreas Nilsson.

darktable 0.2 released

The photography workflow application got a new user interface for the library.

GEGL 0.1.0 released

New version of GEGL, new GIMP's core, is out in the wild with mostly internal changes.

LaTeXDraw 2.0.3 gets EPS and PDF exporting

The new version ships with exporting to EPS and PDF, Italian localisation, and bugfixes

MyPaint 0.7.0 switches to OpenRaster for native file format

new version of MyPaint is out, the major change is using OpenRaster file format for storing your paintings by default.