#Gimp definition full#
#Gimp definition software#
#Gimp definition code#
#Gimp definition free#

As I said, it’s a very inside joke, so don’t feel bad if it doesn’t work for you. GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix!”, and the GNU in that explanation of the first acronym also stands for “GNU’s Not Unix!”, and the GNU in that explanation of the second acronym also stands for “GNU’s Not Unix!” – and so on, forever.īasically, it’s an acronym that contains itself, so deconstructing it causes a loop that repeats forever.

#Gimp definition software#

The ‘G’ in GIMP’s acronym stands for GNU, which is a strange piece of language called a ‘recursive acronym’, the sort of joke that plays well with parts of the hardcore software developer crowd but goes a bit over my head – or maybe just past it. There is a type of antelope that lives across African savannahs known as a wildebeest, also known as a “gnu” (pronounced “new”).

#Gimp definition free#

It’s mostly just me (and a few others) poking fun at some of the naming conventions used in the free software movement.

#Gimp definition code#

If you’re already comfortable working with scripting languages, you can even write your own code for GIMP using the Python language, or automate tasks using the Script-Fu system, which is based on the Scheme language. (Be sure to check out my list of the best GIMP plugins article!) These are entirely customizable to your needs, covering a range of feature expansions from RAW image processing to Photoshop-style content-aware scaling. One of the coolest (fine, also most useful) features of GIMP is its ability to add new features using downloadable plugins. GIMP cannot properly open or process CMYK images without the use of a specialized plugin.

#Gimp definition full#

If you don’t want to make your own, you can check out my list of the best GIMP brushes hereįor those of you who are very precision-minded, GIMP also provides full support for color-managed workflows – but only as long as you’re using an RGB colorspace. GIMP’s brush-based tools support the design and creation of custom brushes with unique parameters, allowing you to recreate a wide range of physical media in digital format. It can perform everything from basic edits like cropping and brightness adjustment to more complex editing tasks including clone stamping/healing and image liquify tools. GIMP is a raster image editor, which means that it can create and edit pixel-based images. If you want to learn more about the history of GIMP, including some genuinely ancient history, there’s some interesting (and extensive) reading available on the official About page. The development of GIMP took on a life of its own when large portions of the code written specifically for GIMP were adopted for use as general-purpose Linux GUI development toolkits ( GTK).

Since then, GIMP has gone through a huge number of revisions and even total restructuring. The first public release of GIMP was made available way back in 1996, although the beginnings of the GNU free software movement had taken place even earlier at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1983 when Richard Stallman announced the project’s founding on several Usenet lists. The project is under active development and regularly releases new versions. GIMP is a powerful image editor designed to provide professional-level editing tools for the Linux environment at zero cost, although it was eventually released for both Windows and macOS platforms. In this case, GNU refers to a free software movement rather than an antelope. It is a software program that is designed to create and edit raster images – though surprisingly enough, not only images of gnus. The name GIMP is an acronym that stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program.