GIMP 2.10.34 is finally out, with fixes and some improvements backported from our development codebase.

This news lists the most notable and visible changes. In particular, we do not list here the bug fixes. To get a more complete list of changes, you should refer to the NEWS file or look at the commit history.

File Formats
TIFF
Apart from various bug fixes, the TIFF import dialog now gets a new option labelled "Show reduced images", which is backported from the development release GIMP 2.99.14.

Here is what we said about this option when initially announced:

The TIFF format has a concept of "reduced page". Until now, we were assuming pages tagged as "reduced" to be thumbnails. Yet this is not always the case. For instance we had feedback from makers of medical devices which were using "reduced pages" as sub-sampled images generated by said devices. They needed GIMP to be able to load all the pages as layers (the main images and the sub-sampled ones).



Importing reduced pages of TIFF files - GIMP 2.10.34



This is why we added a new option called "Show reduced images" which lets you decide whether you want to load these or not. The option will be checked by default through a small heuristic: if there is only one reduced page and it’s in the second position, then it’s probably a thumbnail (as per common usage across software), in which case, we disable the checkbox by default. Still, in the end, the choice is yours!

PSD
We also backported a bunch of features from the development branch to improve PSD support.

In particular:

• Ability to load layers with the "clipping" flag set and clipping layers have been backported from GIMP 2.99.10.
  
• Ability to export PSD files with paths has been backported from GIMP 2.99.14.

JPEG XL
While JPEG XL import has been possible in the stable branch since GIMP 2.10.32, export support has now been backported too in this version, though it is limited to 8-bit lossless.

Additionally, metadata support on import (only) has been backported, making this version of GIMP much more useful for anyone working with this format.

Note for packagers: metadata support in JPEG XL requires libjxl 0.7.0 or over.

PDF
Our code for PDF import and export was pretty oblivious of the ability to have transparency in PDF. This is now changing.

From GIMP 2.10.34 and onwards, the PDF import dialog will propose an option labelled "Fill transparent areas with white". It will be checked by default (thus providing the old behavior) because most office software seem to create PDF files assuming reader software will fill the background with white.
Unchecking the box would not render the expected result. This is likely why our code was historically doing the same as other reader
software. Nevertheless for the cases where you actually intended transparent background upon loading, it will now be possible.



PDF import in GIMP 2.10.34: new "Fill transparent areas with background color" option


Symmetrically when exporting a PDF, we now propose an option labelled "Fill transparent areas with background color", letting you decide whether or not you want to add an opaque background, hence getting rid of transparency or leaving your image with transparency, exactly as you see it in GIMP canvas.



PDF export in GIMP 2.10.34: new "Fill transparent areas with white" option


Of course note that, as said above, not all PDF readers handle transparency. Very often, many readers (including web browsers’ readers) will fill the background with white. Yet, if you have a more compliant PDF reader or editor, this new usage can be of interest.

Raw data
We are talking here of "raw data", where you export your pixels as contiguous or planar data directly without following a specific file format, and not RAW file formats, as are usually called formats used by digital cameras (for these, we still prefer to pass through good raw developer software, such as darktable or RawTherapee).

As a partial backport from GIMP 2.99.12, GIMP will now export your image to raw data at the precision used by your image backend. In other words, you can export high bit depth raw images.

Note, though, that improvements to this plug-in in the development version were not fully backported. In particular, you may not be able to load back the high bit depth images that you exported. The  reason is that the changes required for this would considerably modify the PDB procedure tied to this plug-in, which would break third-party scripts relying on this procedure to load raw data as images.

Template selector in Canvas Size dialog
The template selector introduced in the development version GIMP
2.99.6 has now been backported, allowing you to resize your canvas more easily when using common image formats.



Template selector in Canvas Size dialog - GIMP 2.10.34



Item dockables with "Visibility" and "Link' headers
As a very partial backport of the many usability changes which happened in the development version 2.99.10, the Layers, Channels and Paths dockables now feature a small header above the items list, containing the "eye" and "chain" icon, hence making the columns more discoverable.



"visibility" and "link" icon header



Note: the outline effect when hovering the visibility and link columns was already backported in GIMP 2.10.32.

Improved desktop color-picking (Windows, X11)
GIMP has two color-picking features: the Color Picker tool, which works only within the opened images yet with greater color management and the color picker button in the Colors dockable, which can color pick anywhere in the display and relies on the infrastructure allowed by the OS or desktop you are currently running on.

On Windows, the color-picking feature has been entirely rewritten with OS-dedicated code, which works much better with multiple monitors, even when using different PPI scales, for instance, when mixing high and low pixel density displays (this fixes some coordinates mistracking bug our previous implementation had).

On Linux/X11, we are backtracking to fix a regression in desktop color-picking. We used to follow recommendations for the new Wayland path, which is to favor color-picking "portals" when available. Unfortunately, most (if not all?) these portals still don’t give any color-management information about the returned color. As graphics work requires accurate color management, we decided
to get back using full old-style X11 code.

Note that since the stable branch of GIMP is still using GTK+2, even if you run on Wayland, GIMP itself would use XWayland. In other words, GIMP 2.10.34 now runs the X11 code path, whatever windowing system is in use.

Remembering color scale and model preferences
In "Change Foreground|Background Color" dialogs or in the Colors dockable, you have the option to view your colors in a 0..100 or 0..255 scales. You can also see your color in alternative LCh or HSV color models.

These two settings are now stored and remembered across sessions so that you don’t have click them again each time for your usual and preferred workflow.

macOS improvements
This version comes with a few bug fixes dedicated to the macOS builds. The most noteworthy one is that we implemented HTTPS support (since our I/O backend library, GIO, lacks proper macOS support for this protocol) for two features in particular:

• Check for updates: unless you disable the option in "Preferences", you should now be notified of new versions of GIMP.
  
• Help system: it is now possible to read the remote documentation from within the Help Browser in GIMP.

Plug-in API
Two new functions were added, wrapping basic color processing filters, making it easy to call them from third-party plug-ins:

• gimp_drawable_shadows_highlights(): function performing the "Shadows-Highligths" filter in the "Colors" menu.
  
• gimp_drawable_extract_component(): function performing the "Extract Component" filter in the "Colors > Components" menu.

GEGL, babl
As usual, this version of GIMP is accompanied by new versions of
babl and GEGL:

• babl 0.1.100 comes with bug fixes in the recently added LUT creation and usage code. It also better supports non-ASCII characters in file paths on Windows.
  
• babl 0.1.102 disabled the LUT usage by default depending on the environment variable BABL_LUT, leaving us some time to iron out a few more issues we discovered at the last minute.
  
• GEGL 0.4.42 adds conditional support for libraw 0.21.0, while also improving the following operations: rgb-clip, perlin, mosaic, c2g, long-shadow
   and gif-load.

Various build improvements also happened in both babl and GEGL.