New releases of RapidRaw, Gradia, Friction, and Handbrake; new features in GIMP| Libre Arts
Week highlights: new major releases of PixiEditor and Flameshot, new features in GIMP, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD, and Ardour. GIMP There were two user-visible changes this past week: The newly added GEGL API browser by Ondřej Míchal (GSoC2025 student) will help developers use GEGL operations in their own plugins. The initial support for importing PAA textures by CmykStudent will help game developers who need to open texture files in this format developed by the Bohemia Interactive game studio. Pixi...| Home on Libre Arts
New releases of Shotcut and Qtractor, the Blender team starts working on an iPad port| Libre Arts
Week highlights: new Blender, RapidRAW, Gradia, Sigil, and Hydrogen releases; new darktable UI prototypes. Gradia 1.7.0 I last looked at this new screenshot annotation app about a month ago. Alexander has introduced quite a few changes since then: New design for the gradient picker. An option to automatically balance the borders of certain images. Support for launching with image input from console. Uploading is now possible, and you can define your own providers. The font drop-down list now ...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of Krita, Bonsai, OBS Studio, and Kdenlive; new features in GIMP, FontForge, and Ardour. GIMP Here are some of the latest changes in the development branch: CmykStudent’s patch that adds support for MyPaint v2 brush engine features (sans spectral blending) is now merged and will be part of GIMP 3.2. CmykStudent also added support for Sketchbook-specific TIFF files, which means setting layer selection, visibility of the background layer, layer blend mode and col...| Home on Libre Arts
New digiKam release, new features coming to GIMP, Inkscape, and Ardour| Libre Arts
New releases of GIMP, darktable, and Cardinal; new features in FreeCAD and Ardour| Libre Arts
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 N...| Home on Libre Arts
New release of RawTherapee, new GIMP features, and various new apps (Gradia, Filmbook)| Libre Arts
Odin 2 is a free (GPLv3+) 24-voice polyphonic semi-modular synth with a modulation matrix and microtuning support (imports Scala files). The initial release happened almost 5 years ago. Everyone got pretty excited, and for a good reason: it was a good synth. Not just that—it also came a few years after the initial release of Surge, which kinda solidified the feeling that things are really getting better for musicians who stick with Linux. TheWaveWarden kept releasing updates until three yea...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new features in GIMP, new versions of PDF Arranger, Odin 2, and Tumult; new VAMP plugins. GIMP Two interesting patches merged to GIMP this week: Importing legacy drop shadows in PSD (MR #2297). Loading layered EXR files (MR #2301). Other interesting changes in review: JPEG 2000 exporting, with options for quality, CMYK exporting, and Digital Cinema Specification compliance profile (MR #2291). Loading Photoshop patterns (MR #2285). Because it’s LGM week, the team attended th...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of Sigil, PipeWire, Qtractor, and Millisecond; new features in GIMP. GIMP Three notable patches landed in GIMP recently: CmykStudent added a new option for the Text tool that I wish was there in Inkscape: outline direction (growing outward, inward, or centered). The Curves and Levels tools can now load respective Photoshop presets, patch also by CmykStudent. Jehan added a new option for the Brushes and the Palettes docks: “Use theme colors for preview". It’s ...| Home on Libre Arts
Does it take a Millisecond to set up your Linux for real-time audio now? Not really, no. You still need to fiddle with system-level configuration. But this little program by Gahel shows you exactly where your system settings could be improved, gives actionable advice, and links to relevant parts of the Linux Audio wiki. For diagnostics, it uses rtcqs, a Python script by Jeremy Jongepier. Once you follow the recommendations, you can click the Update button (top left) to run the diagnostic agai...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of GIMP, Inkscape and FreeCAD; KDE Plasma is getting an HDR calibration wizard. HDR calibration in Plasma KDE’s Plasma 6.4.0 is getting a simple HDR calibration wizard: Some more information is available in this recent post. The work was done by Xaver Hugl who is, apparently, one of the people behind HDR support in Wayland. You can read his earlier posts on HDR and color management in KDE on his blog. GIMP 3.0.4 The new version comes with bug fixes and minor im...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new version of Shotcut, CMYK PDF exporting has landed in Inkscape, GSoC2025 has announced students/projects, LGM2025 program is up. GIMP Ondřej Míchal started submitting his first patches that introduce a GEGL filter browser, which is his GSoC project this year. Very early work, a lot more to follow. Gabriele Barbe is adding a live preview of selected text color. Inkscape Martin Owens merged his megapatch that implements a new PDF exporter using CapyPDF. This is what’s br...| Home on Libre Arts
Google Summer of Code 2025 projects have just been announced. As is usual in the last 20 years or so, Google is paying a reward to students for improving free and open-source software. I went ahead and harvested the list of all the relevant projects so you don’t have to. Let’s take a look at what’s likely coming later this year. I’m intentionally keeping this list concise and linking to project pages so you can explore details when you feel like it. Graphics and design Both GIMP, Inks...| Home on Libre Arts
New releases of Kdenlive, Mixxx, and Giada; new features in GIMP and FreeCAD.| Libre Arts
Darkglass Electronics, a popular maker of bass-centric equipment (pedals, amps, cabinets), announced their first multi-effects box earlier this week. Anagram is a relatively compact pedal with a touch screen for setting up the signal chain, six endless encoders, and three footswitches. Inside, it packs a curation of effects, as well as amp and cabinet simulations—through neural models and IRs. Oh, and it’s running embedded Linux. The UI seems to be well thought-out. FX controls are easy t...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of Helio sequencer and ZLEqualizer, new features in GIMP and FreeCAD. GIMP CmykStudent started working on a total ink coverage display filter. For now, you can set a threshold and choose a color to visualize areas where the TIC is larger than that threshold. There is a quick demo in this post and quite a discussion in the comments. FreeCAD The integrated assembly workbench hasn’t seen much action since the demise of Ondsel. However, furgo16 recently started con...| Home on Libre Arts
New features coming to GIMP, Inkscape, and Ardour; new releases of Scribus and Bonsai| Libre Arts
The Pinta team announced the v3.0 release yesterday. Let’s take a quick look at what’s changed and what still needs to change. Before I continue, here is a disclaimer: I’m not going to mention every single thing that is new or improved. I only cover things that matter to me. Full release notes are available here. What’s great in Pinta 3.0 Add-ins support is back. Image editing programs absolutely need a plugin architecture so that people can go wild and do great (and sometimes ugly) t...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of Pinta and Elektroid, FreeCAD Project Association announces new grants. Pinta 3.0 The new version of the image editor comes with a GTK4/libadwaita port, UI revamp with functionality moved to the headerbar, new effects, add-ins support restored, and various quality-of-life improvements. Full review is already available here. FreeCAD The FreeCAD project Association members has voted for grants in the first quarter of 2025. Expect this work: Two new types of curve...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: GIMP team started planning v3.2 development, new releases of jc303, Qtractor, and KnobKraft-orm. GIMP When the team released v3.0, they said they’d try to make shorter release cycles. This week, Jehan started going through bug reports and feature requests and changing milestones. Some tickets are now scheduled for v3.2, others are scheduled for v3.4, and others have milestones removed entirely. This is an ongoing process, the triage is not done yet, and there are no promise...| Home on Libre Arts
New releases of GIMP, PhotoGIMP, Shotcut, Flowblade, and Calf| Libre Arts
After excruciating seven years in the making, GIMP 3.0 is finally here. Let’s focus on just the major changes and then have a grown-up conversation about project’s future plans, funding, and the name change. Disclaimer: I was a team member until late 2022. What’s new in GIMP 3.0 Here are some of the release highlights: Layer filters Multiple layers selection Layer locks CMYK exporting / late binding Color management updates Text outlines Better file formats support New logo Layer filter...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of GIMP, Blender, PDF4QT, libwacom, and LosslessCut. GIMP 3.0 This release was nearly seven years in the making and delivers some long-overdue features: Layer filters Multiple layers selection Layer locks CMYK exporting / late binding Color management updates Text outlines Better file formats support I already covered those in a dedicated post, check it out. The roadmap will likely be revisited sometime after the v3.0 release. Piranesi Bruno Postle published his ...| Home on Libre Arts
This is going to be a quick recap. Week highlights: new versions of digiKam, MuseScore Studio, and Audacity. digiKam 8.6.0 This is not my jam, but it’s great to see this digital photography management program regularly updated. New in this release: The AI-based face classifier has received an upgrade and now cross-validates results between K Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers. The auto-tagging engine has been completely rewritten and now uses new pipelines a...| Home on Libre Arts
Easy dynamics insertion, brand-new percussion palette, and new engraving features| Libre Arts
Geoffrey D. Bennett released a new version of ALSA Scarlett Control Panel aka “alsa-scarlett-gui”. This software exposes extra controls over Focusrite’s audio interfaces for Linux users, and it does so in a sensible way: you get the minimum useful controls by default, the rest is displayed in additional windows. Despite the name, the program supports both Scarlett, Clarett/Clarett+, and Vocaster devices. Focusrite provides technical information and devices to Geoffrey—a very welcome d...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: Blender-made Flow gets an Oscar, PipeWire gets MIDI 2.0 support, Kdenlive is getting better OTIO support. Flow Feature film animation Flow got Academy Award. It’s the first Blender-made film to do so. It’s also the first Latvia’s Oscar ever. Production took over five years. Animation director Silly-Pélissier Léo did a talk at Blender Conference last year about the project. If you haven’t watched it yet, there are a lot of production details there. The project was bi...| Home on Libre Arts
CMYK image mode is WIP in GIMP, great changes in Inkscape, Friction, and FreeCAD.| Libre Arts
This has been a very CAD-flavored week. Highlights: new releases of Tahoma2D, JupyterCAD, KiCAD; first builds of Inkscape with CMYK-capable exporting are available; FreeCAD Project Association announces 2025 grant program. Inkscape Martin Owens created a merge request that adds a CapyPDF-based PDF exporter. CapyPDF is CMYK-capable, but for now, you’d need to manually edit your SVG files to use device-cmyk(...) instead of RGB values. If you want to download a build to test the output, go to ...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new releases of GIMP, LittleCMS, HDRView, FLAC, and Faircamp; AstoCAD replaces Ondsel ES as a sexier soft-fork of FreeCAD. GIMP 3.0rc3 This is hopefully the last release candidate before the final release of GIMP 3.0. The update comes with bug fixes, enhanced API, and improved support for various file formats. In particular, the PSD plugin now loads 16-bit-per-channel files in the LAB color space, and the DDS plugin now loads images with BC7 compression. LittleCMS 2.17 Marti ...| Home on Libre Arts
New release of Bonsai and GCodeWorkShop, upcoming HDR support in GNOME| Libre Arts
I’m available for freelance work: content strategy and marketing, technical writing. My typical deliverables are: technical and thought leadership blog posts; landing pages and case studies; user guides, FAQs, and bite-sized video tutorials. I’ve worked with system integrators, cloud and managed services providers, fintech and infosec companies, SaaS companies, desktop software vendors. Some of my past projects are here on Contra.| Home on Libre Arts
New releases of Scribus and Krita, a beta release of Pinta. A preliminary look at astroterm.| Libre Arts
New releases of Skyfill, Mayo, and Shotcut; the FreeCAD Project Association offers jobs| Libre Arts
Mew releases of Scribus and Qtractor; great new features coming to Inkscape| Libre Arts
New releases of HDRView and LibreCAD; FreeCAD’s alternative Ribbon UI gets an update| Libre Arts
Welcome to Libre Arts. This is an online blog for creative professionals using free/libre applications for digital painting, graphic and web design, desktop publishing, photography, architecture, and mechanical engineering. Free software is a rapidly evolving niche, we feel that this fact should be better represented on the web which is exactly what we do. In many ways foundation of this project was triggered by Ginger Coons’s talk “Ownership and Standards: Why Designers are Slow to Adopt...| Home on Libre Arts
Where you can donate Recurring donations to Libre Arts are currently only possible by subscribing on Patreon. You can send one-off donations at Buy Me a Coffee. Thank you for considering support for this project! Why I ask for donations Conducting insightful interviews and writing in-depth articles takes a lot of time. Every interview involves researching the subject, interviewing a person, sometimes transcribing audio, then editing the text. Every weekly recap means I grab the latest snapsho...| Home on Libre Arts
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Week highlights: new releases of Our Paint, vokoscreenNG, Ratatouille.lv2, Faircamp; improvements in KDE’s drawing tablets configuration app; new AI feature in Kdenlive. KDE is getting improved graphic tablets support Providing better support for graphic tablets is part of the new KDE’s Goals initiative, and here are the first results. The Drawing Tablet configurator now has two new features. First, on the Display page, you can now map an area of a drawing tablet’s surface to the entire...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: the second release candidate of GIMP 3.0 is out, and so are the new stable releases of OpenShot, Mixxx, Overwitch. GIMP 3.0rc2 The new release candidate is finally out, mainly with bugfixes: v2.10 settings are now properly migrated. The console window on Windows is now gone. The missing font issue has been fixed for macOS. darktable integration has been restored. There are two more important changes: A new GEGL Filter API was added to help developers port their plugins to v3....| Home on Libre Arts
In a pre-holiday rush, developers made a lot of releases, so this is going to be a longer recap. Week highlights: new release of darktable, HDRView, Tahoma2D, Flowblade, Kdenlive, Qtractor, FamiStudio, Libre Graphics Meeting 2025 announced. LGM 2025 The Libre Graphics Meeting 2025 is scheduled to take place in Nuremberg, Germany, from May 28 to May 31. This is the annual event that brings together developers of GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, Blender, and other FOSS projects. If you are interested in ...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: further progress with new PDF exporter in Inkscape, Scribus team is closing up on v1.7.0, new version of libwacom, new features in FreeCAD. Inkscape I already discussed this topic in a recent weekly recap, but now there’s a video from Martin where he lists features supported by the new CMYK-capable PDF exporter in Inkscape. In short, it’s almost everything you expect: shapes, fills (including regular and mesh gradients), strokes, markers, masks and clipping paths, blendin...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new major releases of Hugin and OBS Studio, new beta of Friction 1.0, FreeCAD and Audacity dev news. Hugin 2024.1 Thomas Modes released a new version of Hugin. I haven’t shot panoramas for a long time, so I’m not a great judge of this anymore. Nevertheless, here are the main changes: There’s now a browser project files, with thumbnails and project details of all project files in a directory. Metadata is now properly read in CR3 files. The cpfind tool now uses multirow s...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: new LibrePCB release, GIMP 3.0rc2 is being delayed, FreeCAD team is hacking tirelessly at the next version, OpenSCAD team makes more integrations. GIMP Jehan announced on his Patreon account that the second release candidate of 3.0 is being delayed due to GNOME’s infrastructure changes. In the meantime, he started working on a new API for non-destructive filters, including adding them from scripts. At the same time, Øyvind Kolås started patching the layers blending code t...| Home on Libre Arts
Week highlights: this was a pretty eventful week, with major new releases of Blender, FreeCAD, and Zrythm. Inkscape Rafał Siejakowski proposed an enhancement to Inkscape’s Node tool: being able to edit arcs in paths as arcs, with arc-specific controls: You can grab a build from the merge request’s pipelines. Blender 4.3 As usual, the new version of Blender arrived with a gazillion new features and improvements. There’s no competing against official release notes, so here are just some ...| Home on Libre Arts
It's a major milestone, with a lot more coming next| Libre Arts